My Simple Life, In a Not-So-Simple World: Hyviä Hetkiä Helsingissä

The trip to Finland started with a minor case of motion sickness. I was fine on the plane, but taking the bus from Vantaa to Helsinki was too much for my stomach. A few stops too soon, I just had to drag Mom off the bus before I blew chow in some unsuspecting Finn's lap. We walked across the road to sit down and orient ourselves and found our first market, Hakaniemi Market complete with a quartet playing jazz music in the middle.

Once we found ourselves on the map and walked along the Baltic Sea, we came across the Upenski Cathedral, an eastern orthodox church that was built under Russian rule in 1862.

Next we found our Hostel and dropped off our luggage. And yes, I said hostel!! It was a cozy little place in the design district downtown. Although we were hardly there, getting up early and coming back late, we still met a nice couple from Barcelona and a strange, eccentric old couple from god-knows-where. I hope I'm still traveling when I'm in my eighties!

This was a Lutheran cathedral in the middle of Senate Square. It was the most unbelievable sight, standing at the base of the steps and looking upwards at the huge church, backed by a blue sky. A bit of history on the church: when Finland was annexed by Russia, much of Helsinki was burned, so a German was commissioned to build the impressive senate square and it was dedicated to the tsar of Russia.

We stopped at a traditional Finnish cafe near senate square, and I ordered Karelian pies... Lets just say, the salad was delicious! Since it was around 3 in the afternoon and we were the only people in the restaurant, the waitress, dressed in traditional garb, took the time to chat with us. She was really excited when I told her I was studying Finnish, and I could actually understand her Finnish when I asked her to speak a little slower :)

Esplanad Park was a beautiful, tree lined park with flowers and statues galore. At one end was market square, where we made many stops for souvenirs, cherries, pulla, and coffee.

Then there was the fanny pack incident... Mom has a slight obsession with carrying a fanny pack while traveling. Although I am wholeheartedly opposed to this, I've accepted that it's useless to resist. Nonetheless, when the plastic snap on her fashionable little bag snapped while we were walking, I couldn't ignore the irony. It was obviously a sign! A couple hours later, we walked by a secondhand store that had some bags and purses, so of course, Mom goes in to buy a replacement fanny pack. She came back out with the. most. hideous. fanny. pack. in. the. world. period. Later that evening, when we sat down for dinner at an Italian restaurant, fate smiled on me once again when the plastic snap broke again. I tried not to laugh, since mom was upset by the loss of two fanny packs in one day. Of course, mom bought another when she found one at the market, but there was one glorious day on the trip that was fanny pack free :)

My favorite day of the whole trip started with pulla and coffee from the market, and a ferry ride to Suomelinna.

Suomenlinna is an old island fortress that was built under Swedish rule in the 18th century, but then taken was over by Russia. Now it has many museums (all of which we visited, of course!) but is also a trendy island to live on, with a population of about 800.

After almost a whole day on Suomenlinna, we took a bus to the open-air museum on Seurasaari. This island was just as amazing, with it's old buildings and people dressed up in traditional clothes.

Walking off of the bridge from Seurasaari, we saw this footbridge. It was a little sketch, but of course we walked across.

It led to an iron age market place. On some weekends, they sell food typical of the time period (800 ad) . Since this wasn't one of those weekends, we just walked around the grounds and explored a little.

This temple was almost hidden underneath the rock, and you can just barely see it's bronze dome sticking out at the top of the hill.

We were walking along and came to this beautiful sight of shirts hanging out to dry above the intersection.

We went to soooooo many museums. And every single one of them was amazing. This exhibit of temporary homes was in the Helsinki Taidemuseo (art museum). There was even a standard tent set up with the label, "North American camping tent." Hilarious.