To Helsinki For the Day

Yesterday I went to Helsinki with three other exchange students. We had a fun day and an interesting trip there.
I began my morning by waking up to the sound of our dog, Laku, bark once. Thank goodness he barked, because my alarm didn't go off because I forgot to make sure it was set for the weekends (annoying, right?). I was a bit rushed and going to the kitchen and seeing it was -8 degrees celsius outside was a bit frightening.

 We all met up at the train station and bought our tickets; 7,70 euros each way was the cheapest. Fifteen minutes before the train was scheduled to come we went outside to where it was supposed to be. None of us have ridden a train before and didn't realize if our train was here or not even though there was a train in the 2nd lane under the Helsinki sign. We weren't expecting it to come so early.

 After a bit of confusion and help from an English-speaking woman, we boarded the train and got our tickets stamped. The trains travel very quickly and opperate all the time which makes things nice.

 There were a few stops before we finally got to the main Helsinki station. We ended up getting off and then jumping back on the train because we thought we had gotten off at the wrong stop. The train wouldn't have been able to go any further though, because indeed we had arrived.
In the train station, finding a map proved to be another challenge. No one seemed to understand what a map was, and when at last someone pointed us to where they were supposed to be it still took us a while to find them. Apparently the maps are in this machine and you have to pull them down out of it. Very confusing.

 Coming to Helsinki, there really were no plans so we just kind of wandered around. Our first stop was to the Helsinki Cathedral, which unfortunately we couldn't go into because there was something going on there. We did climb up the steps though before continuing our journey around the city.

 There are many, many rows and buildings and streets that twist around. The Helsinki Cathedral situated pretty high up so that you can see it from the harbor, but even it becomes obscured as you move through the streets.

 We passed by a small army building and across the street was the president's house, although he doesn't live there. There was another harbor paralleling the the main one as seen here. The two our connected through a channel of water.

 There is the Uspenskin Katedraali; a Russian Orthodox church built in 1868. It's actually quite interesting, because the church is situated up high and almost directly across from the Helsinki Cathedral despite being about 500 meters away. They almost have a stare off against each other.

 The cathedral was massive. This is kind of what I imagine when I think about St.Petersburg. Large, but beautiful churches all over the place.

 There was a ceremony actually going on at the time, but we were allowed to enter if we took off our hats and were silent. There were two children geting baptized or something like that, with their relatives around.
The walls were covered with rich paintings and the celing was very beautiful too. There was some Russian text too, but I have no idea what it said.

 This is just outside Uspenskin, so you can see just what I mean about how the Helsinki Cathedral and it stare back across at each other.

 We then wandered down to the main harbor and looked around at some of the stands. I bought a few souveniers including a Helsinki bag. There are also some food stands there, but not as many since it is no longer summertime. I would have liked to try some of the seafood or reindeer meatballs, but everyone was kind of cold and not everyone wanted the fish. Perhaps next time I can try the food.

 One of the student's host dad told us that the mall "Forum" has a variety of relatively reasonably priced food places in it, so we headed there. There are several small parks in Helsinki, so we passed by a few of them and some statues too on the way there.

 Once we figured out how to get downstairs in Forum, we decided to try out a pizza and kebab place. The workers were very nice and a bit funny too. They promised to find us a table in the packed food court, and delivered. The food was delicious too.

 There are pizza and kebab places everywhere here in Finland, but this is my first time eating at one. I ordered a kebab dish. In America, when we think of a kebab, we think meat on a stick. But here in Finland it is thin slices of meat.
The food was very tasty and warmed us up a bit too, because it was so chilly outside.

 Outside on the street, there were many different performers. Here is someone playing the bottles which have been filled with different amounts of liquid so that they sound different. It was pretty entertaining to listen to the songs.

 We then wandered around even more and actually ended up getting lost in the maze of streets. I have no idea where we ended up, so we just kind of walked and walked. I was kind of sure how to get back to the center so we just headed in the direction we knew it should be in. I took a picture of a theatre as we passed by it.

 I ended up seeing a sign for an art museum and kulture museum so we went to that building. No one else wanted to see the exhibits (or much else for that matter), so I went alone. First I went to the art museum. These are some costumes used in the movie "Iron Sky" which the museum partnered with to help create. The movie is not yet out, but should be soon.

 There were hundreds of pictures drawn with the script next to them. The real order of how things are said and will occur in the movie. It was actually really cool to see all of the hand drawn scripts there.
The movie is something about nazi's wanting to get to the moon.

 The paintings on exhibition were all of modern art by a Finnish artist named Nanna Susi.
There was also a different artist there doing a clinic on still-life. I could either paint or use pastel to copy one of two scenes. Being short on time, I did a quick pastel drawing of a space helmet and some fruit.

 I briefly got to look in the kulture (yes, I know it's culture in English) museum then had to go. I came back later and looked a bit more before it closed, but really didn't have time to see very much of it. There were Asian, African, American, etc., all sorts of different things that have been collected over the years from trade and travel.

A metal figurine which from another angle appears to be a head. In front of Kamppi mall.

 The wooden building in this picture is a very modern church. Kamppi Chapel is situated in the mall square and made entirely from wood. I would have never quessed that it was a church by looking at it.

 The inside of the chapel is all wood with no paintings or decorations. It is curved and there are aisles to sit in. Staring at the wood almost looks as if you have fallen into some wooden (black) hole, it has a strange affect. As of now, there are no ceremonies being held there, but next year they may have prayer sessions held there.
Two of the other exchange students I was with left with another exchange student from Helsinki to go to a different district's Halloween party. I didn't think it was right to go because it was not for our district and they were taking a bus to someones house and coming back at 10:30pm. I didn't want to get lost any more in Helsinki and told my counselor I would be back on the 8:30pm train or before. The other exchange student I was with had to leave unexpectedly to get back to Lahti for dinner, so I was left alone.

 The sun was still up and I remembered looking at the sign at the Helsinki Cathedral that said when the church would next be open for tourists. It ended up that it had just opened so I walked back to the cathedral so that I could go inside.

 The Helsinki Cathedral was built in 1852 and is a Lutheran Church. It was origionally called the "Church of St. Nicholas". After Finland gained independance in 1917, it became the "Great Church" before finally being called "The Helsinki Cathedral" in 1959.
Being a Lutheran church, there is a big organ on top.

 The church is built almost in the shape of a plus sign, with four different seating areas in it. Here is one of the different pillars and it has an aread where the priest could go up and stand to give a searmon during a ceremony.

 There were also several different statues on the columns, most likely those of different saints.

 Here is the front of the church with the alter.
I wanted to buy a book on the cathedral (2 euros) and a pamphlet (1 euros), but I was 20 cents short of getting the pamphlet because you were supposed to put the money into a wooden box and all I had was a 20 euro bill and no other change. I ended up buying the book and had twenty minutes before the chapel closed again, so I ran down a shop and bought some postcards so that I would have change and then ran back up to the church to buy it. Honesty is the best policy, 20 cents or not.

 Doing the right thing got me this awesome picture too. A lady took this for me as I was going down to the souvenier shop to get some change. You can also see the Helsinki bag I bought.
It was a really nice day and a bit chilly earlier, but it did warm up slightly in the end. And by warming up I meant that I still needed my thick jacket, but me feet weren't so cold.

 Since all of the stores close so early I decided to call it quits after 6pm since only restaurants were open. I walked to the store and bought some food for dinner, and then walked to the train station. Outfront there was a performer singing songs which was nice to hear as I walked bye.

 Waiting inside one of the halls to get my tickets. The station is very nice, and quite big too.

 For dinner I had a bread roll filled with rice and meat (very typical Finnish food), and some shrimp in sauce. It was a good meal and pretty cheap since I bought it from the market.

 When 7:41pm came around it was goodbye to Helsinki and time to go back to Lahti. The trains are always right on time, so when it was 41 minutes after, we were off and heading north. It didn't take too long to get back, only an hour even with the stops near Helsinki.
I arrived back in Lahti and was greeted by the snow coming down pretty heavily. What a good day!

Arrival of the First Snow

This morning I awoke to the sound of children laughing and playing outside and when I turned over and opened my eyes, I could see the white light from outside shining through my window. Snow! I knew it before I opened my window and peered outside at the white surroundings.

 My host mom said that two hours before there had been no snow, and so the layer of white powder had fallen since then and was still coming down. The thermometer read -2.9 degrees celsius, so it was below freezing outside.

 Being a Friday, I have my Rotary meetings in town, so I put some long underwear under my jeans, and put on my big snow coat, scarf, gloves and hat, and headed outside to the bus stop. It wasn't too cold, despite being kind of windy.

 There wasn't anyone else waiting at the bus stop, but I still saw a few people out walking their dogs and even riding their bikes.  While on the bus, we passed by a car that had driven off the road and into the trees.  In Finland it's illegal to not have winter tires, but not everyone has changed from their summer tires yet, so accidents like these are common when the season of snow first begins.

Today's Rotary meeting was very nice and we had the Lithuanian Ambassador there (last week was the ambassador for Latvia, and the week before that for Belarus).  Afterwards I walked a bit with my club counslor and just walking around you could see that most of the snow had turned to slush.  This time of year the snow comes, but usually goes away.  Looking at all the slush makes me think of how tomorrow the sidewalks will be ice skating rinks after tonight.

While I waited for the bus, I took some pictures of the square.  Despite the snow, people were still out and about going on with their lives. 

I took my usual longer route from the bus stop and passed through some nice snow covered streets.  I really love how snow looks on everything, and how the sky was so beautiful with the clouds and blue spots.  The good thing is that everything is much lighter with the snow, which is in some ways compensation for the darkness that has been creeping in lately.

There's our house at the end of the street covered in snow.

It's now 7:30pm and very dark outside, but the snow has continued to stick on the ground. We may get more tomorrow and into the night, but it's hard to know, so we'll just have to see how it goes.

Winter is coming! Or maybe it's here. Snow in October; such a nice surprise.

Syyslomaa Continues...

Winter is coming so before the snow arrived I decided to make the most of walking around outside and using the forest pathways. On Wednesday there were gray skies, but it wasn't too chilly, so I ended up walking all over the city in search of some winter shoes. Clothing is quite expensive here and most everything is at least 50 euros, so I decided to spend the day looking for something affordable and of the best quality. Thus I walked a lot in my quest to find the best deal.

 I passed bye the 100km to Helsinki sign on my way to some of the stores. Lahti is situated pretty close to the capital and it only takes about an hour and a half or less to get there by car, and sometimes less than an hour by train. On Saturday I will take the train to Helsinki with some other exchange students and we will spend the day there. 

 After looking in several big stores, I walked towards the city center to look for shoes. In the background is Lahti's city hall, situated on top of one of the hills so that it can be seen very easy from almost anywhere in the center.

 I'm not sure what the occasion was, but there were Finnish flags on all of the buildings, including the city hall. This could be in honor of a famous Finnish author, artist, or some other sort of leader. City elections have also begun this week, so maybe it's for some sort of political reason too.

 More flags decorated the buildings around the town square where I waited to take the bus home after several hours of walking around. I didn't find any shoes to buy that day, despite going to literally ever shoe store in the city, but I think now I have decided what I am going to do in terms of what to buy.

 On Thursday morning I awoke to beautiful blue skies and frost on the ground outside. I made up my mind to walk back to one of the stores I had been to on the previous day and then I purchased some snow boots. The weatherman predicts that tomorrow it will snow here, so I will be prepared now.

 When you walk a lot, it doesn't feel too cold even if it is freezing or just below freezing as it was then. I was thinking how nice it feels to be outside so early in the morning taking a stroll, and then I remembered it was already noon. Since we are so far north, the sun rises later and sets earlier during wintertime, and so by the time I woke up it looked like it was just rising. I'm not sure how I will feel when the darkness moves in completely.

 I always seem to forget how close I am to the ski jumps which are near the city center. Sure they aren't in my backyard, but only about a ten minute bus ride away, and close enough to see when I am walking in certain areas. The thing I really love about living here is that even if you aren't close to the center, there are so many walking and bike paths so it's very easy to get around by foot. Most families only have one car or no cars, so the bus system is also very good, coming every 20 minutes where I live. You can be out aways from civilization in nature, yet just a short ride away at the same time.

 Walking has really become a hobby of mine, and now everytime I walk through these pathways I think of how this may be my last time ever getting to walk there. Come wintertime when the snow arrives, the pathways are closed off to walkers and converted into cross country skiing tracks.

 That afternoon, I met my one of my exchange student friends, Ailey, in the city center and we wandered around for a few hours before going to watch a Pelicans game.

 We had standing tickets to see the Pelicans take on the Oulu Kärpä in Lahti's ISKU Areena.

 From the get go it seemed to be a pretty rough game in comparison to usual. The team from Oulu seemed to be playing hard, and both teams were attacking on goal pretty heavily. At one point, a player from Oulu was rammed into by one of the Pelicans and hit the wall pretty hard. He ended up on the ice unable to move and after awhile had to be carried off on a stretcher. No one was really sure what happened, but he most likely got a concussion. It sucks when people get hurt, so hopefully the injury isn't anything too serious.

 In the second of three 20 minute periods, Oulu scored. Each game has three periods as I just mentioned, for 20 minutes each. In between the periods there are 20 minute breaks. So if all goes as planned, then a game is 100 minutes long. If there is a tie, there is one 5 minute round of overtime, and then a shootout with at least three players to go on each team.

 It's really fun to watch the hockey games, and you learn some Finnish from hearing the fans and speakers too. Usually the Pelicans have a game on Thursdays and Saturdays, but it really just depends.

It was a rough night, and we ended up losing 0 - 3. Both my friend and I missed are busses which come less frequently in the evenings, so we had to wait outside for a half and hour. It was warmer than when I had been out walking earlier in the day, but it felt so cold. I was quite chilled even walking. Time to break out the big snow jacket and long underwear.

Maybe there will be some snow soon!