Helsinki

The day before I left for Finland I ran into the Portero of my building, Antonio, while walking out to run an errand. We had a quick conversation about what we would respectively be doing for the Semana Santa holidays. When I told him that I was going to Finland he sighed and asked how long I was going, because he thought I would need at least fifteen days. I responded that I would be there for five, but elaborated that I knew it was a short trip, but it was a trip at least.

Antonio’s comment highlights the way Americans and Spaniards look at vacations. I’ve noticed that Spaniards (undoubtedly, Europe’s reigning experts on relaxation) are more prone to take month long holidays rather than a weekend here or there. While, Americans (a group of people who work more than any other nation) are apt to jet off for a weekend at a time and charge around doing things. When I booked my trip I thought five days we a good enough amount of time, I could go and see the museums an other sights but still have time not to rush through it. Oh, how wrong I was. I should learn to silence that American voice that tells me to “do” locations (for example one American tourist may say to another, “Tomorrow we can do the Prado Museum” as though the Prado were a thing to be conquered…) and start listening to the Spanish voice that says I should go and “aprovechar” (basically a verb meaning to make the most of an opportunity, but not in the exploitive way you Americans might be thinking…).

I would like to think by now that I am an excellent traveler. In the States I would hop from Washington DC to Portland with no problems, I would also catch a train from DC to Philly like it was my every day commute. And now that I have been living in Europe for a while, I can add various metro and bus systems to my list of conquests. This ability to travel well also has given me the appearance that I am from many different locations. Knowing what you are doings seems to be the key part to being assumed a local, it probably doesn’t hurt that I have fairly generic “white” features and globalization has made it more difficult to pin-point what it physically means to be from certain places….

While waiting for my first flight, from Madrid to Frankfurt I had to help a troop of Germans understand the overhead announcements. Mind you, I don’t speak German (aside from the words I learned in December: Bitte, Danke, Halo, Chus, Eine…) but these people looked at me and assumed me one of them. I did my best to explain in simple English and hand-gesture what was going on and thankfully we all got on the plane. The assumption that I from Germany continued while I was waiting in the Frankfurt Airport. Buying a sandwich, being asked to fill out a survey and boarding the plane all took place in German for me.

Once we were on the plane announcements were made in German, English and a pre-recorded tape with the Finnish announcements was played. Also aboard this plane the Finns were passing around a Finnish language newspaper that someone had found/brought with them. The gentleman next to me read it intently, while I glanced over trying to figure out how all those vowels made words. When he had finished, my neighbor offered me the newspaper and I politely declined.

We landed in Helsinki at about 10:30 in the evening and I was bombarded by the fact that I had no idea what was going on around me. None. Announcements made in Finnish over the intercom only served to cement this idea. I found a taxi stand and asked to go to the address of my hotel. Because this particular service does a ride-sharing business where they put several passengers in one van and make several stops we all walked as a herd to the van. The driver was putting luggage in the van according to how far into the route it would go, starting with the last person to be dropped off. I stood around and waited for him to take my bag. While waiting, a man turned to me an in Finnish explained the driver’s logic. I gave him a blank stare and said “Sorry?” in English. In equally clear English he said to me, “Oh, you don’t speak Finnish?” like I had just told him that the world was flat. He didn’t seem to believe that I wasn’t a Finn.

The next morning I woke up in the hotel and got going. The hotel served breakfast, which I assume was in some ways traditional Finnish food. There was porridge, sausages, sliced lunchmeats, cucumber, tomatoes and bread, coffee and juice. Growing up I remember my Grandpop telling me about how his in-laws would drink coffee like it was nothing, occasionally through a sugar cube. These stories were usually in conjunction with chiding my mom about her coffee snobbery and how she must have inherited that from her Finnish side. Knowing this, I decided to try Finnish coffee. It was gross. There is no other word for it. I thought I was drinking mud with some coffee flavoring. No wonder the Finns load their cups with sugar!

After breakfast I was off to see Helsinki. I caught a tram to the center of the city and began walking around the Senate Square where the Lutheran Cathedral is. Unfortunately, I didn’t really know what I was looking at so I quickly surveyed the square and moved on to the Helsinki City Museum. In this museum you can find all sorts of artifacts about the history of Helsinki, from being the home to nomadic tribes up to being a metropolitan melting pot. Along the way Helsinki was a port city for the Swedish, taken over by the Russians, had a run in with Napoleon and finally was part of independent Finland in the early 20th century. The Helsinki City Museum also has many satellite museums around the city with more specific focus. I decided to pop into one that focused on celebrations in Finish culture. This is where I got the idea that Helsinki, and possibly Finland in general, just wants to blend in with Europe. The celebration exhibit focused on how there isn’t anything super-duper special about how Finns celebrate things, for example they wear nice clothes for fancy events, they follow traditional Lutheran practice for weddings and they eat nice meals at Christmas time. Though I was hoping for some fun/strange way Finns celebrate things, I still found the museum interesting.

Then it became time for lunch. After hours of wandering around the city looking for these two museums and taking pictures of the Cathedral I was hungry. I had read previously about how Finns favor international cuisine and that traditional Finnish food is traditionally expensive, so I was prepared to eat whatever I found that looked good, regardless of nationality. My first stop was a Tex-Mex restaurant near the National Theater. In getting there, I passed up on several pizza buffets and fast food chains. If I wanted to eat at McDonalds I could’ve stayed in Madrid. Madrid, and Spain in general, aren’t big on international foods. They love Spanish food and prefer to eat that over most other things. I decided I would take my trip to Finland as a chance to eat all the things that I had a hard time finding in Madrid.

Yet again I was assumed Finnish. The waitress looked befuddled when I asked for things in English and clearly had no idea how to eat in a Finnish restaurant. In Helsinki you just sit down and wait. They don’t tell you where to sit, you just pick. This seemed kind of odd to me, but I went with it. They also give you water for free, which hasn’t happened to me since September when I was last in the States. Finns are also big on lunch buffets/ salad bars, sweet! Also, to pay you just get up and walk to the register and they magically know where you were sitting and what you ate. While difficult to remember, after a few days I was accustomed to this new approach to eating.

At the end of lunch I was permitted to go up and get some coffee, which I decided might be a good idea, since I don’t want to write off a whole country’s coffee based on one cup. Oh, what a bad idea. This was also mud in a cup, but this time it had some cinnamon in it. Ick. Once I had finished eating, and drank enough of the mud coffee to not offend the wait staff, it was time to continue exploring the city. I walked to the South Harbor where there is supposed to be an outdoor market. It turns out that in April when it is super chilly not many people want to set up stands or shop at the outdoor market. According to the postcard pictures, this is supposed to be a happening place, but alas no. I then went into the old market hall to have a look around. Basically you could buy salmon smoked in any way you wanted. Then you could sit in a café and eat more salmon. In some places you could also buy beans to make the Finnish mud coffee, but I passed.

I next went to see the Russian Orthodox Cathedral that stands high on a hill and can’t be missed when looking at the Helsinki cityscape. It was rather intricate and ornate, the complete opposite of the Lutheran one from earlier in the day. The Orthodox Cathedral had filled every space with glittery figures, frescos and mosaics. The Lutheran one opted for a more simplified decoration that called your attention only towards alter and the cross. In the Orthodox one I couldn’t find a place to focus my eyes for more than ten or fifteen seconds.

After dinner of some Thai food, I made my way back to the hotel and settled in for the night. Unfortunately, Helsinki closes around 6 o’clock, so doing anything aside from eating or drinking wasn’t going to happen. This fact made me miss Madrid a little, where the Prado is open until 8. I also had no desire to go out drinking alone in a city where I don’t speak the language so I went to bed to get ready for the next day. Before going to bed I did say a little prayer for good weather, but that would not be answered.

On Saturday I woke up and repeated my breakfast in the hostel before going to the National History Museum. Helsinki has a wonderful tram system so you can travel around while looking out the windows. This would’ve been even better if there wasn’t a thick layer of drizzle covering the city; nonetheless I enjoyed the 20-minute ride to the museum. When I arrived at the museum it was practically deserted save for a small family of four and a giant tour of senior citizens.

Typically I like museums. Call me nerdy, but I think they are fun. So I started this museum at the pre-history stage and made my way around to a small collection about more modern Finland. The general lesson I learned in the museum was that Finland has always been really good at adapting to changes. The ancient people adapted to freezing weather, then the settled societies adapted to being part of Sweden then to being taken over by Russian and finally they settled into independence rather nicely.

After spending a few hours soaking up knowledge about one of my many homelands I went to the gift shop. I wanted to pick up a guidebook so that I can show people what I learned. I picked out the one in English and took it up to the register. The woman began speaking to me in Finnish and when she looked at my book she said in an accusatory tone, “In English?” like I was betraying Finland by buying this book in English. I politely responded with, “yes.” I think she too assumed I was Finnish and was disappointed when I turned out to be a foreigner.

I later found lunch at an Indian place and went back to the hotel for a nap. After my nap I braved the drizzly, overcast, sad weather for an attempt at a walking tour. I went to see some of the sights around the Olympic Stadium. In 1952 Helsinki hosted the Olympics, which is when the city earned its reputation for being a welcoming place to foreigners. I think it was also the point when Helsinki, and Finland in general, started to cultivate the idea of being a truly metropolitan city full of diversity. In its past, Finland had been the intersection of the West and East with the clash of traditionally European styles against influences from Russia. In the past, I think, it was just assumed that is how Finland would be and no one made a huge fuss about it. But when the Olympics came and people saw how wonderful a city Helsinki was a light bulb moment occurred and this harmonious mixing could be a selling point.

I also tried to take a walk around one of the many lakes in Helsinki, but it was raining and the dirt path was basically a minefield of puddles, so again, I gave up and went for dinner.

On Sunday morning I woke up relatively early to go to Soumenlinna. Soumenlinna is an island that was developed into a military fortress in the 18th century and was eventually ceded to the Russians when they came to take over. The island has some buildings from the original design and some of Russian construction. The guidebooks say to set aside about 3 hours to see this island, which was about how long I spent wandering around.

It was kind of strange to wander around because about 800 citizens of Helsinki inhabit the island, so I was basically strolling their neighborhood. At one point I had gotten decently lost and had to march through someone’s drive way to get back to the main road. Awkward…

This was the kind of Finland I wanted to see, as it was probably the closest thing to how Finland was when my great-grandparents left. As I mentioned earlier, 1952 was kind of a turning point for Helsinki so the things that were considered sights now all pretty much date from then on. I went to Finland with the idea of connecting to my family roots, but sadly the Finland most connected to my family had been replaced by a new, dynamic modern Helsinki. The new Helsinki wants you to see all the new, revolutionary architecture and appreciate their love of international cuisine, but I wanted to see the old stuff. I’m sure if I had actually gone to the village my great-grandfather was from I would have seen a completely different side of Finland. This isn’t to say that new Helsinki was bad, I loved the city and didn’t want to leave, but it didn’t satisfy my desire to learn more about my particular history.

While on Soumenlinna I went to a restaurant/brewery hoping to find some traditional Finnish food. What I found was local beer and Swedish meatballs. Good enough, I guess. The beer was actually a bit of a let down, kind of tasteless and had a bitter finish. Perhaps being born in the Microbrewery capital of the world makes me a little biased, but that is my opinion…

After Soumenlinna I tried yet another walking tour of the city and quickly gave up when I couldn’t feel my nose anymore. At this point, it was about 5:30 in the afternoon on a Sunday and nothing was open, so I went back to the hotel and had some dinner and plotted my attack for the last day.

Monday morning I woke up to partly cloudy skies, which was an upgrade from the previous days of drizzle and fog. I took advantage of this and successfully completed a walking tour. This tour took me past several churches, along a stretch of shore and past many examples of Finnish design. I wanted to go to the Finnish Design Museum and the Finnish Architecture Museum, but they were both closed on Monday!

Once I had recovered from the disappointment of the museums being closed I began the hardest part of my trip, gift shopping. Since everyone in my family was so excited about my trip to Finland I had to bring them all back something. I surveyed my mom and cousin Jenna for ideas because they are the best sources of info on this topic. I had passed a gift shop on my way to the National History Museum and decided to go back. Again, the shopkeeper assumed I was Finnish and acted surprised when it turned out I wasn’t. She did teach me how to say “thank you”, Kiitos, which I later tried to use when purchasing lunch.

Side note: the next time I go somewhere fantastic all my family and friends need to declare a collection in advance so I can easily pick something out for you. This especially applies to my Dad. Thank you.

Once I had started the gift shopping I couldn’t stop. I paused briefly for lunch and then continued on to check people off the list. This is what I get for putting it all off to the last day. I did try to tie it into a walking tour that took me past a market noted for selling handicrafts, but again loss of sensation in my hands prevented me from carrying on too long. I took my haul back to the hotel and double-checked that I had found something for every person on my list. Then I carefully packed all my goods into my backpack and went downstairs for dinner and a beer.

While eating dinner I overheard a rather fabulous conversation by some Spanish guys. Actually, they were from Madrid and I knew that immediately. I guess I’m at a point where I can pick out Madrileños from regular Spanish people… Ok, back to the point… they were talking about how some races are just inferior to other and cited the example of black people in the US. One of them corrected his friend, black people in the US are not physically inferior only mentally. At the end of my meal I asked where they were from and had my hypothesis confirmed. I was then asked where I was from and when I said the US the look I got back was priceless.

Finally it was time to go. Tuesday morning I left Helsinki and was rather sad about it. I would love to go back again, but the next time it will have to be in the summer when the weather will be better. Also, when I go back I will follow Antonio’s advice and stay for much longer than five days.