More Helsinki
Aug. 23rd, 2017 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lyornAfter the WorldCon ended, and a lazy Sunday evening, I had three more days to spend in Helsinki, go sightseeing and eat cake.
Monday: Suomenlinna
I really needed some air, sun, and absence of crowds, and to catch up on sleep, so in the late Monday morning I walked to the market place at the harbour to take a ride over to Suomenlinna, the old fortification on a bunch of skerries a few kilometres out. It's a World Heritage Site, and a major tourist spot, but it's spacious, and if you leave the main tourist track, there is a lot of stone, grass, sea and wind.
Suomenlinna was built by the Swedes as "Sveaborg", with money from France in the mid-18th century, to be a fortification against the Russians who, under Peter the Great looking west, as well as a naval base and a garrison. The construction drew skilled craftsmen from as far away as Holland and Germany, and cost so much that the whole south of Finland levelled up in wealth and tech. They re-built these skerries with walls and ramparts, cannons and a dry dock, housing for soldiers and craftsmen and officers and tradesmen and their families, and a mill to power pumps and a sawmill, and whatever else, and making an unholy amount of noise, it is said.
In 1808, the fortress fell to the Russians (who had walked over the frozen Baltic Sea), and the commander did surrender for (it seemed from the info provided on-site) no good reason at all, rather than hold the well-stocked, well-manned and well-fortified place until May turned it into an island again and support could be sent.
The Russians kept that place until 1918, shortly after Finnish independence, and then went home. The fortifications and guns were obsolete and the buildings in bad repair by then, and not really worth updating. Before long, tourism happened, and in the 1970s, the military that was left re-located (except for one school). Today it's a village-sized community with a tunnel to the mainland, ferry service twice per hour, a school, a kindergarten, a small supermarket, a number of museums, a lot of cafés, and crowds of tourists. And building and repair going on. (Doesn't it everywhere)?
I kept mostly off the main tourist trail, walked along the waterline for an hour or two, took a few photos (not that many, I still have not sorted the pictures from the trip to Italy in April), ate Korvapuusti (Finnish cinnamon buns, translates to "boxed ears", I read) and drank coffee, visited the main museum, and enjoyed the place a lot.
Around five I caught the ferry back and suffered from bad indecision about what to do with the rest of the evening. I rode the Ferris Wheel at the harbour, walked to the giant icebreakers on Merikasarmin quay, where they spend the summer, then traipsed back to the hostel, buying some food from the supermarket on the way. My feet were killing me -- my comfy sneakers had caught a bad case of junkyard smell when we got rid of flederkatz's trash two weeks before, and the Chucks I was wearing instead were not made to walk on asphalt, stone, and cobblestone for a day.
Tuesday: Seurasaari Open Air Museum
Seurasaari is one of the islands that are part of Helsinki, and that one has been a public park since the late 19th century. The first building of the open air museum was placed there in the early 20th century, and by now there are about 35 buildings or sites hidden between pines and bushes and rocks, reached by curving paths which are always shorter than they seem.
I took the bus, which passed a few other places I would have liked to visit if I had more time to spend, and arrived right when the ticket booth opened. Walking around on the island (connected to the mainland by a bridge) is for free, but to enter the houses and yards you have to get a ticket. So that's what I did, and then I went for breakfast (Coffee and a cinnamon bun, of course), and had a run-in with a black short-haired dachshund that tried to knock me over when I greeted him, and wanted his tummy rubbed, now!
A woman was playing the violin in a house a bit off the track. The forest smelled of sun-warmed pines. The storm a few nights before had toppled some trees, clean-up was ongoing. A guided tour told some interesting things about western versus eastern farm buildings and family life. Some of the houses were hardly larger than an old construction site trailer, some were large farmhouses and there was one modest mansion. And a private church that some baron built so that he didn't have to sit in the back of the public church as penance, after he had abducted a priest and forced him to perform a marriage that the baron's father disapproved of. In his own church, he could sit wherever he wanted. The church contained a German pun: There were "Armleuchter" -- candleholders carved in the shape of arms coming out of the wall. Now, in German, "Armleuchter" is an euphemism for "asshole". Cue some giggling.
I took another bus back to town, and because I really missed my cats, stopped at a cat café with the cute name of "Helkatti". They had 6 large cats: 3 tabbies, one white, one long-haired grey-brown, and one black and white. Unfortunately, all cats were either not getting in involved with the guests, or they already had their posse of admirers, so I admired them only from some distance. Also, you had to take off your shoes when entering, and that was an added boon.
The rest of the day was just some walking around in the design district and along the main shopping streets, but as I did not want to spend money, there was nothing I needed, and I did not want to carry anything home anyway, I did not buy anything but postcards.
I had meant to have some nice dinner somewhere, but ended up going to the supermarket again for a peach, some chocolate, and a yoghurt, and, back at the hostel, read far into the night.
Wednesday: This and that
The plan for Wednesday had been to visit the Kiasma museum, the City museum and the Architecture museum, the main cathedral and the Uspenski cathedral, buy something pretty, check the timetable for trains to the airport, and get some real food, but I felt a bit weak and tired and exhausted, so I skipped the museums except the City museum (which is not large, and entry is free). The Uspenski cathedral is wonderful, if crowded (there were a dozen buses in front). The main (Lutheran) cathedral is impressive from the outside, the inside is boring. I enjoyed the City museum with its old pictures and "time warp" walk: a flat in the 1950s, crime in the 1930s, skateboarding in the 1990s, and more.
But then, instead of spending more time indoors, I went to the harbour again and walked along the waterline on the south end of the city. It's mostly one big marina. There are skerries, of course, and on some skerries are restaurants. They will pick you up by boat if you set a signal on the landing stage.
My attempt to get food ended at a small slice of pizza. Then I walked back, and, again, hit the supermarket for the same dinner I had had the evenings before. I tried to go to bed early, because I would have to travel the next day, and that's no fun when one is tired, but for once, I could not sleep.
Travel and food (Warning: Contains weird food issues.)
Probably because I was hungry. I always go hungry when traveling alone. It's worst in a city full of eateries where every single one looks great, because this completely blows my decision budget. I love good food, and trying new food, but one cannot eat six times a day (or at least, if one is not a Hobbit it's no fun). So I have to decide on one place and exclude all others, when there might be a better place right at the next street corner! So I walk past every single eatery, becoming hungrier and hungrier and less able to make a decision, until the places close, or I notice that it's useless and find a supermarket.
To add to the silliness, my body has started to play tricks on me. I noticed that in Coburg in July. Usually, my blood sugar level lets me know when I should eat. But not on holiday. Holidays to not deplete blood sugar. So my stomach might already be in knots, but the systems still signal, "all energy levels fine, no need for food yet". By the time I do feel that I should eat, my stomach is so grumpy that it threatens rebellion at the very thought of something more complicated than a cinnamon bun, a pretzel, or some fruit and a yoghurt.
So, I research all the restaurants that I would like to visit, and make notes of local specialities I want to try, and I budget for visits to nice restaurants... and then I do not go there and I do not eat.
I can fix that by not traveling alone. Italy this spring was wonderful in that regard (as in most others!). But I am probably annoying my traveling companions to no end. Or I might be able to fix this by making a decision where to eat beforehand, and just following the plan. I guess I should, because what I'm currently doing is not working.
Thursday: Homeward bound
Anyway, sleep finally happened, and it was Thursday, traveling day.
I plan very generously when it comes to travel time. If my flight will leave at 12:15, I'll plan to be at the airport at 10:15, at the train station at 9:15, leaving the hostel at 8:30, and get up at 7 to have time for packing and some cleaning.
Cleaning? Yeah, well. That was weird. In this hostel, you do not see a single person who works there. Ever. All communication is by mail. Three days before you leave, they send you a note that your lease is up, and that you have to clean the room unless you arranged for cleaning by them beforehand or wish to do so now. I got that mail on Monday, and thought, WTF, didn't they write that cleaning after departure was included? But I did not find info on that anywhere on my reservation. So I tried to call them. Got the answering machine. Tried to call booking.com. Did not even get an answering machine. Wrote a mail, "Hey, what do you mean by 'cleaning', and have I booked this? If not, how to do it? Need to know by Wednesday evening!" Tuesday I got the info that a ticket had been opened. I never got a reply to this day.
And that's exactly the kind of thing that gives me anxiety attacks.
Anyway, I felt that I should at least make an attempt, so I did a Youth Hostel type cleaning. Pulled the sheets off the bed, swept the floor, wiped the wipe-able surfaces, and took out the trash. Packing my things went quickly, although I felt that my bag had got a whole lot heavier and I had trouble carrying it for longer distances (like, hostel to street car stop, or train station to terminal.) Of course I was at the airport so early that check in wasn't even open. Everything went fine. The plane left a little late, but was in Berlin Tegel on time, the bus to Berlin Hauptbahnhof arrived quickly and I got a seat, and two hours before my train left, I was at the Hauptbahnhof, had put my bag into left luggage, and looked for food and a place to hang out.
Which, as you can imagine, proved incredibly difficult. First, all my food troubles. Second. there was mostly sweets and fried fatty food -- as usual. And third, no air condition in the Hauptbahnhof. That left pretty much only the semi-self-service pasta place (Vapiano), which had outside seating. And now imagine me attempting to navigate a semi-self-service pasta place with no visible workflow, where you have to stand for 10 Minutes in clouds of steam while everyone's pasta is freshly cooked. I am very proud that I neither made a scene nor fainted on the spot, nor ran away!
However, the outdoor seating was pleasant, and the pasta, once I had it, was quite good, if rather expensive. And my bag felt a lot lighter.
And then came the most tricky part of everything: Getting home by train.
Again, could have been worse, Yes the order of wagons was messed up as usual, but the reservations were still valid. The train was late, but not too much, and the air conditioning was working. Finding ourselves suddenly in a city far west of any reasonable route was a bit surprising. Not getting any useful info about connecting trains from the conductor, or the internet or at the platform when we finally arrived was annoying and meant that I missed the connecting express. So I took a slow train to the closest place to home (it took 25 minutes, usual is 6 to 15), and then a taxi home, because it was close to 10 p.m. and I just had enough.
All in all
Although I'm complaining a lot, I really enjoyed the vacation. There were no problems and no trouble, the weather was close to perfect, WorldCon was fun, the stop in Berlin was well worth it. More food and better shoes would have been nice, but really, it's not as bad as I have probably make it sound.
My cats were happy to see me and had behaved well while I was away.
Even getting back to work a few days later was not as bad as it could have been. No trouble was waiting for me, I could go through my e-mail and then pick up where I had left off.
I'm now planning the next vacation, probably going hiking in October. Something simple.
And in December, the new train route to Berlin will be ready (one very much hopes!) and delays and weirdness will be a thing of the past. (And everyone will get a pony!)
Monday: Suomenlinna
I really needed some air, sun, and absence of crowds, and to catch up on sleep, so in the late Monday morning I walked to the market place at the harbour to take a ride over to Suomenlinna, the old fortification on a bunch of skerries a few kilometres out. It's a World Heritage Site, and a major tourist spot, but it's spacious, and if you leave the main tourist track, there is a lot of stone, grass, sea and wind.
Suomenlinna was built by the Swedes as "Sveaborg", with money from France in the mid-18th century, to be a fortification against the Russians who, under Peter the Great looking west, as well as a naval base and a garrison. The construction drew skilled craftsmen from as far away as Holland and Germany, and cost so much that the whole south of Finland levelled up in wealth and tech. They re-built these skerries with walls and ramparts, cannons and a dry dock, housing for soldiers and craftsmen and officers and tradesmen and their families, and a mill to power pumps and a sawmill, and whatever else, and making an unholy amount of noise, it is said.
In 1808, the fortress fell to the Russians (who had walked over the frozen Baltic Sea), and the commander did surrender for (it seemed from the info provided on-site) no good reason at all, rather than hold the well-stocked, well-manned and well-fortified place until May turned it into an island again and support could be sent.
The Russians kept that place until 1918, shortly after Finnish independence, and then went home. The fortifications and guns were obsolete and the buildings in bad repair by then, and not really worth updating. Before long, tourism happened, and in the 1970s, the military that was left re-located (except for one school). Today it's a village-sized community with a tunnel to the mainland, ferry service twice per hour, a school, a kindergarten, a small supermarket, a number of museums, a lot of cafés, and crowds of tourists. And building and repair going on. (Doesn't it everywhere)?
I kept mostly off the main tourist trail, walked along the waterline for an hour or two, took a few photos (not that many, I still have not sorted the pictures from the trip to Italy in April), ate Korvapuusti (Finnish cinnamon buns, translates to "boxed ears", I read) and drank coffee, visited the main museum, and enjoyed the place a lot.
Around five I caught the ferry back and suffered from bad indecision about what to do with the rest of the evening. I rode the Ferris Wheel at the harbour, walked to the giant icebreakers on Merikasarmin quay, where they spend the summer, then traipsed back to the hostel, buying some food from the supermarket on the way. My feet were killing me -- my comfy sneakers had caught a bad case of junkyard smell when we got rid of flederkatz's trash two weeks before, and the Chucks I was wearing instead were not made to walk on asphalt, stone, and cobblestone for a day.
Tuesday: Seurasaari Open Air Museum
Seurasaari is one of the islands that are part of Helsinki, and that one has been a public park since the late 19th century. The first building of the open air museum was placed there in the early 20th century, and by now there are about 35 buildings or sites hidden between pines and bushes and rocks, reached by curving paths which are always shorter than they seem.
I took the bus, which passed a few other places I would have liked to visit if I had more time to spend, and arrived right when the ticket booth opened. Walking around on the island (connected to the mainland by a bridge) is for free, but to enter the houses and yards you have to get a ticket. So that's what I did, and then I went for breakfast (Coffee and a cinnamon bun, of course), and had a run-in with a black short-haired dachshund that tried to knock me over when I greeted him, and wanted his tummy rubbed, now!
A woman was playing the violin in a house a bit off the track. The forest smelled of sun-warmed pines. The storm a few nights before had toppled some trees, clean-up was ongoing. A guided tour told some interesting things about western versus eastern farm buildings and family life. Some of the houses were hardly larger than an old construction site trailer, some were large farmhouses and there was one modest mansion. And a private church that some baron built so that he didn't have to sit in the back of the public church as penance, after he had abducted a priest and forced him to perform a marriage that the baron's father disapproved of. In his own church, he could sit wherever he wanted. The church contained a German pun: There were "Armleuchter" -- candleholders carved in the shape of arms coming out of the wall. Now, in German, "Armleuchter" is an euphemism for "asshole". Cue some giggling.
I took another bus back to town, and because I really missed my cats, stopped at a cat café with the cute name of "Helkatti". They had 6 large cats: 3 tabbies, one white, one long-haired grey-brown, and one black and white. Unfortunately, all cats were either not getting in involved with the guests, or they already had their posse of admirers, so I admired them only from some distance. Also, you had to take off your shoes when entering, and that was an added boon.
The rest of the day was just some walking around in the design district and along the main shopping streets, but as I did not want to spend money, there was nothing I needed, and I did not want to carry anything home anyway, I did not buy anything but postcards.
I had meant to have some nice dinner somewhere, but ended up going to the supermarket again for a peach, some chocolate, and a yoghurt, and, back at the hostel, read far into the night.
Wednesday: This and that
The plan for Wednesday had been to visit the Kiasma museum, the City museum and the Architecture museum, the main cathedral and the Uspenski cathedral, buy something pretty, check the timetable for trains to the airport, and get some real food, but I felt a bit weak and tired and exhausted, so I skipped the museums except the City museum (which is not large, and entry is free). The Uspenski cathedral is wonderful, if crowded (there were a dozen buses in front). The main (Lutheran) cathedral is impressive from the outside, the inside is boring. I enjoyed the City museum with its old pictures and "time warp" walk: a flat in the 1950s, crime in the 1930s, skateboarding in the 1990s, and more.
But then, instead of spending more time indoors, I went to the harbour again and walked along the waterline on the south end of the city. It's mostly one big marina. There are skerries, of course, and on some skerries are restaurants. They will pick you up by boat if you set a signal on the landing stage.
My attempt to get food ended at a small slice of pizza. Then I walked back, and, again, hit the supermarket for the same dinner I had had the evenings before. I tried to go to bed early, because I would have to travel the next day, and that's no fun when one is tired, but for once, I could not sleep.
Travel and food (Warning: Contains weird food issues.)
Probably because I was hungry. I always go hungry when traveling alone. It's worst in a city full of eateries where every single one looks great, because this completely blows my decision budget. I love good food, and trying new food, but one cannot eat six times a day (or at least, if one is not a Hobbit it's no fun). So I have to decide on one place and exclude all others, when there might be a better place right at the next street corner! So I walk past every single eatery, becoming hungrier and hungrier and less able to make a decision, until the places close, or I notice that it's useless and find a supermarket.
To add to the silliness, my body has started to play tricks on me. I noticed that in Coburg in July. Usually, my blood sugar level lets me know when I should eat. But not on holiday. Holidays to not deplete blood sugar. So my stomach might already be in knots, but the systems still signal, "all energy levels fine, no need for food yet". By the time I do feel that I should eat, my stomach is so grumpy that it threatens rebellion at the very thought of something more complicated than a cinnamon bun, a pretzel, or some fruit and a yoghurt.
So, I research all the restaurants that I would like to visit, and make notes of local specialities I want to try, and I budget for visits to nice restaurants... and then I do not go there and I do not eat.
I can fix that by not traveling alone. Italy this spring was wonderful in that regard (as in most others!). But I am probably annoying my traveling companions to no end. Or I might be able to fix this by making a decision where to eat beforehand, and just following the plan. I guess I should, because what I'm currently doing is not working.
Thursday: Homeward bound
Anyway, sleep finally happened, and it was Thursday, traveling day.
I plan very generously when it comes to travel time. If my flight will leave at 12:15, I'll plan to be at the airport at 10:15, at the train station at 9:15, leaving the hostel at 8:30, and get up at 7 to have time for packing and some cleaning.
Cleaning? Yeah, well. That was weird. In this hostel, you do not see a single person who works there. Ever. All communication is by mail. Three days before you leave, they send you a note that your lease is up, and that you have to clean the room unless you arranged for cleaning by them beforehand or wish to do so now. I got that mail on Monday, and thought, WTF, didn't they write that cleaning after departure was included? But I did not find info on that anywhere on my reservation. So I tried to call them. Got the answering machine. Tried to call booking.com. Did not even get an answering machine. Wrote a mail, "Hey, what do you mean by 'cleaning', and have I booked this? If not, how to do it? Need to know by Wednesday evening!" Tuesday I got the info that a ticket had been opened. I never got a reply to this day.
And that's exactly the kind of thing that gives me anxiety attacks.
Anyway, I felt that I should at least make an attempt, so I did a Youth Hostel type cleaning. Pulled the sheets off the bed, swept the floor, wiped the wipe-able surfaces, and took out the trash. Packing my things went quickly, although I felt that my bag had got a whole lot heavier and I had trouble carrying it for longer distances (like, hostel to street car stop, or train station to terminal.) Of course I was at the airport so early that check in wasn't even open. Everything went fine. The plane left a little late, but was in Berlin Tegel on time, the bus to Berlin Hauptbahnhof arrived quickly and I got a seat, and two hours before my train left, I was at the Hauptbahnhof, had put my bag into left luggage, and looked for food and a place to hang out.
Which, as you can imagine, proved incredibly difficult. First, all my food troubles. Second. there was mostly sweets and fried fatty food -- as usual. And third, no air condition in the Hauptbahnhof. That left pretty much only the semi-self-service pasta place (Vapiano), which had outside seating. And now imagine me attempting to navigate a semi-self-service pasta place with no visible workflow, where you have to stand for 10 Minutes in clouds of steam while everyone's pasta is freshly cooked. I am very proud that I neither made a scene nor fainted on the spot, nor ran away!
However, the outdoor seating was pleasant, and the pasta, once I had it, was quite good, if rather expensive. And my bag felt a lot lighter.
And then came the most tricky part of everything: Getting home by train.
Again, could have been worse, Yes the order of wagons was messed up as usual, but the reservations were still valid. The train was late, but not too much, and the air conditioning was working. Finding ourselves suddenly in a city far west of any reasonable route was a bit surprising. Not getting any useful info about connecting trains from the conductor, or the internet or at the platform when we finally arrived was annoying and meant that I missed the connecting express. So I took a slow train to the closest place to home (it took 25 minutes, usual is 6 to 15), and then a taxi home, because it was close to 10 p.m. and I just had enough.
All in all
Although I'm complaining a lot, I really enjoyed the vacation. There were no problems and no trouble, the weather was close to perfect, WorldCon was fun, the stop in Berlin was well worth it. More food and better shoes would have been nice, but really, it's not as bad as I have probably make it sound.
My cats were happy to see me and had behaved well while I was away.
Even getting back to work a few days later was not as bad as it could have been. No trouble was waiting for me, I could go through my e-mail and then pick up where I had left off.
I'm now planning the next vacation, probably going hiking in October. Something simple.
And in December, the new train route to Berlin will be ready (one very much hopes!) and delays and weirdness will be a thing of the past. (And everyone will get a pony!)
