Funny enough, as I write this last blog for my Quarter Life Crisis trip, I am sailing high in the sky on the beginnings of my next adventure. But more on that later.
Still pre-sunrise, I boarded my ferry in Tallinn, Estonia to take me across the water to Helsinki. I grabbed a window seat and didn’t even notice when the boat started moving. The ship was huge, and it had a full stage set up for performances and dancing. Unfortunately, the performances did not run on the 6am ferry! Can’t blame ’em. Most of the people in my area were stretched out on multiple seats to sleep for the two-hour journey. I sipped on some blueberry juice and enjoyed the beginnings of sunrise.
When I got off in Helsinki, there was snow on the ground. “Just the way I left it,” I thought.
I hopped on a tram to the central train station and hit up Tiger for some last-minute goodies. As I stood in line with a full basket, I thought to myself, “Jeez, I don’t actually need any of this.” I sent a picture of a peacock USB cable I knew was especially frivolous to Jonathan with the caption, “Would it be silly to buy this?” He responded almost immediately. “I think it would be silly not to.”
I bought everything in the basket.
So, having fulfilled my Tiger cravings, I set off to fulfill my hunger. I couldn’t think of a better place to do that than the Oodi Central Library! Love this place to pieces. Take a look at my excitement and notice how my face starts to look weird and a little crazy towards the end of my trips.
I followed some signs to the toilets and was a little floored to find this Hall of Toilet Doors just sitting at the bottom of the stairs. It was like the bathrooms of my dreams. (Bathrooms are always weirdly gigantic or in strange places in my dreams.)
I was tempted with the breakfast buffet, but I ‘settled’ for a delightful sandwich, a fruit crisp, and a view.
Then out once again, through the snow to a church I missed the first time around. Known fondly as the Rock Church, this architectural wonder was carved into the side of a giant rock.
It had a giant copper ceiling and a man was playing the organ so that it echoed throughout the chamber. It was quite mesmerizing and definitely worth the visit.
I bet it would be lovely to see a concert here.
And then it was back out to walk the town, all the way back to Park Esplanadi. I really had to fight the winds to get there, and rain was spitting down.
The reason I was trekking all this way was to visit Kauppatori Market Square to get a wooden cooking spatula I’d left behind last time. Because the stall owners didn’t speak much English, and I didn’t speak much Finnish, I had been unable to determine whether they would still be here in March, so I was positively delighted to find the couple’s confused and smiling faces as I walked up and quickly purchased this spoon before running off again.
I took a roundabout way to the train station so I could see the Helsinki Cathedral one last time. Such a pretty building.
And then, before I knew it, I was at the train station again, and my last busy morning in Europe had come to a close.
At the airport, I grabbed a Karelian pastry as my one last Finnish meal and hung out for a bit on one of the marvelous nearly-horizontal nap chairs.
Before I knew it, I was on the plane, with a window seat, and my first meal arrived shortly after. Beef, potatoes, and some unidentifiable green vegetable with a glass of white wine. Delightful.
My second meal was a caprese sandwich and a glass of blueberry juice. I’ll miss you, blueberry juice. I’ll miss you ever so much.
Then a quick stop in JFK where I sat and watched the sunset with some Dunkin’ Donuts ($2 latte!) as I waited for my plane to arrive.
Another window seat on this flight. We took off in the dark and landed some time later. I think I watched another movie. And I slept a bit. And I think I read some. It’s all a blur. All I could think about was the person who would be waiting for me at SeaTac.
A whirlwind twenty-four hours to end my six-and-a-half-week-long journey. I was left exhausted and a little giddy, and I hadn’t showered in too many days, but I was oh so glad to be home. Next time isn’t too far away, but until then…
Okay. So following the adventures of Santa Land, I had a day that went not at all according to plan. Like… Literally none of it went the way I thought it would. Except maybe the bus to the airport.
My flight to London was scheduled for 12:45, and the airport is so tiny that busses from the city center run to the airport precisely timed for every flight. So my bus was scheduled to pick me up at 11:45. Cutting it a little close, but if the city of Rovaniemi thought that was enough time to get me to where I was going, I wasn’t about to argue.
That meant I had the whole morning to myself! Before bed on the previous night, I researched some breakfast places. There was a Finnish pastry I’d come across many times and had yet to try, so my mission for the day was to try that dang pastry. (Spoiler: it didn’t happen.)
I had it all planned to hit up one cafe for breakfast at 8:00 (opens at 7:30) and then to visit another at 11 for lunch. So imagine my surprise when I wake up, get quickly dressed, and am about to head out the door when I plug the first restaurant into Google Maps only to be notified that it is closed on Sundays.
The restaurant opens at 7:30 every day, but on Sundays? Closed.
Okay, that sucked. But I could just go to the other restaurant, right? That was also opens at 7:30!
Also closed. In fact, it turns out half the city is closed on Sundays. Ugh. One of those silly cities that values rest and family time! The worst! (Kind of joking.)
So I resigned to eating more free oatmeal in the kitchen while reading, like I had the previous morning. Here’s where misstep two comes in: I was reading on my silly Kindle. (I’m a physical book kind of gal, but I couldn’t bring ten physical books on the trip with me!) I’m one of those readers who starts to get anxious as the end of the book nears, especially if it’s a really good book, and ESPECIALLY if it’s the last book in a really good series. This book was both of those things. But I was not anxious yet, because silly Kindle told me I was only 88% of the way through the book.
Five minutes into my breakfast, I come to the Acknowledgements page of the book.
As in, the book was finished. As in, the other 12% of the book was actually just a sneak peek at a different book by the same author, and I had been tricked into thinking otherwise!
So there I was, finished without even realizing it, and having nothing to read for the next sad hour of oatmeal eating while I waited for the first cafe to open in Rovaniemi.
Eventually. I made my way outside, still in fine spirits, and trying to pretend I was used to the cold by now by wearing my hair in a bun instead of down in a neck-blanket fashion.
To make a long story short, the cafe that opened at ten did not have the pastries I was looking for. And the one down the street that opened at eleven didn’t actually open until noon, which I didn’t realize until I tried to pull the door open at eleven. I then ran across town to the swimming hall because I knew for sure they opened at eleven, and I knew for sure they had the pastries because I had seen them there the other day.
But of course, they didn’t have the pastries out yet, or else the little families of Finns had beat me to it.
Very sad and very cold, with another wasted morning, I quickly shuffled back to my hostel, grabbed my things, and ran out to the bus.
Upon arriving at the airport, I saw that the reader board estimated my flight to leave at 2:00 instead of 12:45. Eh. I guess this was fine. I probably wasn’t going to arrive in London earlier enough to visit any museums, anyway. This just sealed the deal.
At 12:30, though, a perky Finnish woman announced on the loudspeaker that our easyJet plane could not land due to runway conditions, and it would instead land in Kittila airport which was a two hour drive north from where we sat. We would all be bussed to Kittala and flown out from there. More information on the busses to come later.
Yaaaaay………..
A bit later, I overheard someone talking about how this happened on Wednesday when they were trying to fly in from London, and they ended up having to spend the night in Kittila.
Sure enough, about an hour later, the perky woman returned to announce that we would be spending the night in Kittila because the flight crew would be over hours if they flew us back that night.
Yaaaaay……
I spent the next bit of time canceling my plans for a day trip in Oxford and being thankful that I had only booked half my planned activities and trains in the London area.
In compensation, the woman said we would all be getting food vouchers for the airport cafe “for fifty euros.”
“Fifty euros!” some passengers exclaimed. “Yeah, they better! We’ll be feasting like kings in the airport!”
Other passengers heard “fifteen,” which made a lot more sense. I, too, had heard “fifty,” but I joined the Fifteen Camp. Passengers then began discussing that this sum would barely cover the cost of the €10 sandwiches the cafe offered.
Well, two hours later, after having stood in the line to receive these vouchers for over an hour, I learned from another couple of passengers that the voucher was actually “FOUR FIFTY EUROS.” As in, €4.50. Four euros, fifty cents.
Coffee at this airport costed €4.90.
Yayyyyyy….
Anyway, I gave up at this point, and when they told us our flight would not be leaving in the morning, but at 12:15, almost a full 24 hours from when our original was supposed to take off, I was not surprised.
I was surprised, however, when I finally entered my €200 hotel room, looked out the window, and saw that I was literally staying on a ski mountain.
The largest ski resort in Finland, in fact.
What a strange world. Oh, and here’s some pictures from the bus ride, on which a loud and friendly English boy (seen peeking over my shoulder) decided to open a pack of gingerbread cookies he’d bought for his co-workers so he could share with the entire bus.
But yeah. The hotel was nice. I made myself some hot chocolate and eventually made my way to the buffet dinner we were provided.
Quite yummy. Very Scandinavian. And paired with several glasses of blueberry juice, which is apparently another (delicious) Finnish thing. I kicked myself in the morning for forgetting about dessert, but I was in a rush to visit the ski village before the gondola stopped running!
Shortly after disembarking gondola, I found a sled, and I decided to use this sled to go sledding at the base of the mountain.
I don’t think I’ve been sledding since I was ten. Maybe younger. I was never much of a sledder. But dude, this was fun, and I had the whole mountain to myself because everybody else was being sensible and eating or sleeping or sauna-ing.
Then I walked around the village a little bit. Cute place.
But it was cold.
Like, very very cold.
Like, somehow even colder than it had been in Rovaniemi. And after only half an hour outside, my toes and fingers were starting to burn, so I ran to the gondola and let it carry me back up the mountain to my princess castle.
This is how I felt when I finally got to lay down that evening:
Flattering, I know.
I ended up staying up kind of late, watching Netflix, fighting with some stranger over the control of my TV’s Chromecast every few minutes, and hoping to catch a glimpse of the Northern lights. No luck, though. Only clouds.
I started the morning with a beautiful, sparkling sunrise, a visit to the hotel’s sauna, and a hardy Finnish breakfast.
Then it was off to the airport much too early (the buses picked us up at 9:30 for our 12:15 flight), but at least the quick bus ride was gorgeous in the morning light.
Passengers continued sharing info during our wait in the airport, such as the fact that our plane had actually flown back to London the previous night, empty, and was not in the airport currently. It would have to fly in, empty, to pick us up. This sent several passengers into a tizzy, because obviously it was confusing and upsetting to know that we could have all been on that empty flight the previous night, and obviously it was easy to worry that the ridiculous plane would not be able to land again. Oh, and I forgot to mention that while we were waiting in the Rovaniemi airport the previous day, three other flights landed and took off. It was just easyJet that was incapable for some reason. Sigh…… Never easyJet! Never!
The plane did, eventually, land. (Below is a picture showing you how high the sun gets in the sky in January when you are this far north of the Arctic Circle. At noon, even!)
And it took off, too.
And it landed again in London, which I was unsettled to find had no snow on the ground. White had become my new norm as far as ground colors went.
I managed to zoom through border control and race across town to do the one thing I really wanted to do in London: visit the Victoria & Albert Museum.
I was not disappointed. Just check out this Chihuly chandelier in the lobby. Chihuly is a Seattle-based glass-blowing artist!
And they had a whole hallway of Rodin!!! My favorite sculptor!!
I stayed in that hallway for a long time, but I did, eventually, move on.
In one hall, I learned that some crazy rich people from the twentieth century had become obsessed with gold and silver, and they’d collected one of the largest personal collections in the world. They had then donated their collection, and it ended up here.
So many riches. Kind of eerie, honestly.
There was also a library, with some books that were two feet tall, but it was closed on Mondays! Drat!
Some last minute wanderings before I was kindly ushered toward the exit…
And then it was double-decker time.
I had dinner, tea, and a dessert in a cafe nearly 150 years old.
And then I watched Aladdin!
You can’t tell, but my hand is on the lamp, haha. Overall, a cute little show. I loved the sets and the costumes, and I still have no idea how they made the magic carpet fly. The boy playing Aladdin was adorable, and he couldn’t decide if he wanted to use an American or a British accent. The genie was great and hilarious. Lots of shirtless dancer boys with six packs. The woman who played Jasmine was kind of awful, unfortunately. Her acting was terrible, and her singing voice actually ruined A Whole New World for me. I’m really not sure what was going on…. She was so nasally and was saying the words in such a strained way… It was like a horrible impression of 2001 Brittney Spears, except that Brittney would have sounded better and had better dance moves.
Yikes. Sorry for the critique, but they seriously should replace her.
I then did a little more walking around and a little bit of Underground travel.
And then to Cambridge to visit a surprise guest! Well, actually, I’m his guest, but he’s a guest on the blog, and some of you might remember him from Zurich….
Well, the 26th was quite the adventure-packed day. My first night in a hostel in over a year and a half certainly brought back old memories, and it reminded me of how I’ve become a bit of a light sleeper since I’ve had a room to myself for a while now. It didn’t feel like a super restful sleep, but I did fall asleep with all the lights on, before any of my roommates even came to bed, and by the time I woke up, I was surprised to see that most of them had snuck out without my noticing. So maybe I was sleeping a bit harder than I realized!
When I woke up, I dinked around on my phone for a little while before checking the busses around 8:45. Well, turns out not a lot happens in Rovaniemi, and there aren’t a lot of people there, so the busses do not run very often, especially on a Saturday. In fact, the bus to the zoo ran only once on Saturdays, and I had just missed it. The bus to Santa Claus Village ran only a few times a day and I had just missed the first. The next didn’t leave until noon!
I was a bit peeved, as I’m sure you can imagine. I felt (rightly) stranded at the hostel with nothing to do for the next three hours. It turned out fine in the end, but it was still not the best way to start the day.
I spent my morning in the kitchen, reading, eating free oatmeal and tea, and chatting with a Slovakian boy named Mario. He told me that he was originally planning to rent a car to drive up even father north, but the rental company wouldn’t accept his foreign credit card or bank account, so his next best option was to head to Rovaniemi by train. On his schedule for the day was to rent a snow bike and ride around the nearby mountains. Uhhhh… No thanks…
Haha. He said it was fun when I asked that evening, but he also said it felt like he was going to freeze to death. He mimed himself on the bike, bumping along the road and shivering uncontrollably. Sounds about right.
We made tentative plans to hunt for the auroras that night, and I headed out for Santa!
I arrived by bus to a lovely picnic area outside the main park. Ha! A bit chilly for my tastes.
I stepped inside the welcome center and was surprised with the opportunity to cross the Arctic Circle!!! Officially as far north as I’ve ever been. (This record of mine is being broken every second as I write, but more on that later.)
Another fun side effect of starting in the welcome center was that I was able to pack my day with unexpected adventures! When I originally planned my visit to Rovaniemi back in December, I was hoping to partake in dog sledding, reindeer sleigh rides, snowmobiling, or snowshoeing. You know, crazy winter things! But upon arrival, I found that all of these activities were ridiculously expensive. I’m talking over $100 for most activities, the exception being an $80 snowshoeing tour. Ugh. I decided these little adventures weren’t worth the cost, and I would be glad to even see a reindeer from a distance.
But when I got to Santa’s Village, I found that they provided reindeer sleigh rides and dog sledding for less than half the prices I’d seen before! It didn’t take long for me to decide that I should do both! I had the choice of 1km, 2km, or 5km dogsledding, and I went with the €40 middle ground of 2km. For the reindeer sleigh, I had 0.5km and 1km options, so I went with the longer for €29. Not a bad deal! I was originally expecting to spend that much on the dogsledding alone, and was disheartened to see that other packages were as expensive as €150!
So, tickets in hand and a smile on my face, I set off to meet Santa!
But I was intercepted by all of the souvenir shops. If you’ve ever had the unfortunate opportunity to shop with me, or even worse, to go souvenir shopping with me, you know how time-consuming this practice can get. But I love it! And all of these souvenirs were Christmas themed, so that made it even worse.
I wanted those sweaters and socks so badly! But I resisted. Because I am strong! And because I have no more space in my backpack! And so, finally, I donned my gloves and headband and braced myself for the cold once more.
It was a pretty cute little village, but I soon found myself inside again when I came across Santa’s official post office. Of course I had to write some letters! The mailboxes here all have two sides: one for normal mail and one for Christmastime delivery.
Also, I guess it’s a thing in Finland to leave your binky for the baby reindeer??? Seems like a hoax to get your kid off the binky, if you ask me!
There were some people here who seemed to be witting out all of their Christmas cards or something, giant stacks of letters in front of them and big mailbags on the table for when they were done. I stuck to two little postcards.
Also, I am so sorry I am such a mess here. I was only able to half-wash my hair the night before, and I didn’t have my brush with me, so Santa did not see me on a good hair day!
But anyway. If the post office served hot chocolate and cake, I probably could have cozied up in a corner for the rest of the afternoon writing letters to people. As it was though, I had a date with some puppies!
I could hear the puppies whining and crying with excitement long before I reached the husky park. I arrived just as the two sleds tore away into the forest, and a chatty, smiley young woman with pink, round cheeks greeted me excitedly as I approached.
“It’s free entrance!” she declared. “Come on in and warm up! And of course you can pet the dogs as much as you like!”
She introduced me and another girl to some of the dogs who were off-duty. The white one’s name was Musky, and she was desperate for attention. A puppy, the lady explained. Musky and I became fast friends!
I made sure to say hi to the other puppies, too, but Musky was just so excited to see me whenever I turned toward her. She would spring up and jump into the air on her hind legs as I approached, and once, she even jumped on top of her dog house to try to reach over the fence. Too cute.
Eventually, the sleds came back, and it was my turn to ride! The sled drivers were two heavily-bundled men with glasses. One was short and stocky and kind of reminded me of a friendly dwarf from The Lord of the Rings. The other was his tall, skinny, reserved counterpart, and this was my driver.
I was pretty excited to get going, and my hair was doing this strange thing where my breath would fog onto it and then the hairs would individually freeze, creating an effect that made my hair look white.
Nobody was quite as excited as the dogs, though! They jumped and squealed once the driver got in place. They could feel that we were going somewhere, and they wanted to go NOW. When the driver finally gave the call, they bounded off in delight.
I squealed and giggled around every turn and over every bump. We were going so fast, and the dogs were clearly in their element. I however, was not! I was getting so cold, and the white hairs around my face grew more and more plentiful. My toes and fingers were losing feeling, and at one point, my phone even shut off from the cold!
I tucked it under my thin blanket for safe keeping and resorted to breathing heavily into my hands to warm both my fingers and my face. I couldn’t figure out why my gloves smelled so funny, but I realized later it was the smell of dog from all that petting.
We zoomed through fields and forests, along paths marked only by previous sled tracks. The dog directly in front of me and to the right was cracking me up. She kept veering unconsciously to the right before being pulled back into line by the others, and her tongue hung out to the side the whole run.
It was honestly one of the most silly and fun activities I’ve ever experienced. I couldn’t believe it was happening, even while I was on the sled! At one point, the dogs turned a corner too sharply, and the driver hollered out a command. The dogs slowed a bit, and I had to duck under a tree, but the driver wasn’t so lucky! I heard a loud whack, and a huge piece of branch fell into my lap. I hope the driver’s head was okay! I thought about asking, but I wasn’t sure if talking would confuse the dogs with their commands.
With every passing minute, the cold was biting into my soul. At one point, I considered casually telling the driver that he could cut the run short if he’d like, money forgotten! I didn’t think I could last much longer with the icy wind blowing in my face. But it was also so fun, so I tucked in and focused on the joyful puppies and our beautiful, magical surroundings instead of on my weak self.
When we finally came around the corner and the kennels and warming hut came in sight, the driver called another command and put on the breaks. The dogs slowed, and one of them instantly rolled onto their side to rest as soon as we came to a stop.
“So, I guess you were meant to gave the two kilometer ride?” my driver asked me.
“Yes!” I responded.
“And instead, you got the five kilometer ride.”
I had thought the ride seemed a bit long! Just then, the other driver called out, “Five kilometers???” I suppose he could tell based on how long we’d been gone.
“Sometimes I cannot stop them!” my driver hollered back with a chuckle. I asked how long they could run before they got tired, and he said, “All day. Sometimes, I feed them, you know. But besides that, they run all day.”
I gave them a quick pat, but when the smiling woman ran out and told me to warm up inside and to help myself to as much warm juice and as many cookies as I wanted, I all but sprinted into the little hut. I was greeted with a roaring stove and benches covered in reindeer furs. The kettle of juice sat directly on top of the stove, and it rattled and jiggled with the boiling liquid inside.
I spent about half an hour in the little hut, holding my juice to my socked feet to try to warm my toes faster and sitting on my phone to try to bring heat and life back into it.
At one point, my driver came in to warm up. I asked about the injured puppy in the small dog kennel, whose front paw was wrapped up, and he let her out to stretch. She almost immediately jumped into his lap, wriggling with joy. He could hardly pet her (or even move, for that matter) because of all his layers, but she didn’t care. He ended up bringing her outside and hooking her up to the sled. The woman explained that she hadn’t run in two weeks, so they were going to let her do a run or two, just to test out the foot and to help her not feel so restless. Good luck to the little pup!
When I felt I could properly feel all of my appendages again, I put on my winter face and set out! One last goodbye to the puppies, first, though. Musky would barely let me go. She kept pawing at me whenever I tried to leave. It was heartbreaking!
But alas, I had a date with a reindeer!
The reindeer sleigh ride was, uh… Interesting, haha. Not quite as fast as the puppy sledding, that’s for sure. Honestly, I’m not sure how these guys manage to pull Santa’s sleigh, unless they are a lot more energetic in the air compared to when they’re on the ground! Everything about their walk and their countenance reminded me of a donkey. So… Not super fast, and not super happy. I was also using reindeer pelts as blankets during the ride, so that seemed a bit awkward. I enjoyed myself, nonetheless!
The reindeer behind me only had one antler, and the lady driving the sleigh had only one facial expression: “I’m cold.”
It took about as long to do the short one kilometer route with the reindeer as it had for the puppies to run five. We looped around the park, and as we came back towards the starting point, the sun peeked through the trees, glowing a brilliant orange just before it tucked behind the horizon. The sleigh driver even gasped and tapped my shoulder to point it out.
As we came to a stop, I noticed I could no longer feel my toes. They were still mobile, though! I commented on my amazement at the driver’s ability to be outside all day, and she laughed and said, “Oh, I have so many underwears on right now!” And she made a big sweeping motion to her body as though to show me where exactly the underwears were.
My next stop was Santa!
I was pretty excited. And a little nervous. It wasn’t until I was almost next in line that I realized I didn’t know what I wanted for Christmas! How was I to know what I would want eleven months from now?? I finally settled on this: a nice place to read. Like a stylish, comfy arm chair similar to that leather one in the National Library of Finland, or a lovely little window seat, or a big pillow corner. You know, something normal like that!
It reminded me of my favorite Christmas present that I’ve ever received from Santa. In fifth grade, the white, plastic, two-shelf bookcase in my room was filled to the brim and double-stacked. Reasonable as I was, I knew that this meant I needed a book case with four shelves, and that is exactly what I asked for. Imagine my surprise Christmas morning when I came downstairs to see a towering, beautiful, wooden (okay, it’s probably ply-board or something, but it looked wooden and definitely not plastic) bookcase in the corner of the living room, with not four, but FIVE SHELVES. I ran upstairs to wake my parents with a crazed jumping dance and the exclamation, “HE BROUGHT ME AN EXTRA SHELF. HE BROUGHT ME AN EXTRA SHELF!”
God, I was such a little nerd. And of course at the time, I didn’t know that most common bookshelves come with either two or five shelves. Four is rather uncommon, much like the things that excite me most in life.
But anyway. I had it all rehearsed, but as I entered the room with Santa, he sent a beaming smile my way, and I forgot all my lines. He greeted me with a hardy handshake, and we chatted about the winters in Seattle. I wanted to touch his beard, but I resisted. I was honestly super nervous. It felt like the first time I met my favorite author, Scott Westerfeld, in seventh grade and could hardly handle the fangirl, dizzy-making emotions inside of me. (Again, nerd.)
And it was over all too quickly. We shook hands again and I took a mental picture of his kind, smiling eyes, and then an elf ushered me out the other door. He never asked what I wanted for Christmas, which was at once relieving and confusing. Maybe it’s just an American tradition? In the end, I had to secretly snap a photo of the computer screen to avoid paying $40-60 for prints or digital copies. I barely succeeded, but I count this smiley photo as a win.
After Santa, I had just enough time for a sit-down dinner at a salmon teepee recommended by the hostel owner. “It is the best thing, I have ever tasted. If you like fish.” (Her punctuation, not mine.) I made it just in time for the attractive Finnish boy to put a piece of salmon on the fire for me. In fact, salmon was the only thing they served, and the oven doubled as the heater for the ‘restaurant.’
It was really quite delightful, and I paired it with a cup of hot glögg and some more of those heartshaped gingerbread cookies that had been in the husky hut. They are quite popular in the area, it seems.
I’ll pick up where I left off to Finnish (never gets old) my Helsinki adventures since WordPress really didn’t want me to do so in the last post.
To refresh your memory, I was just talking about my walk back from King’s Gate to the ferry terminal.
I was able to visit the Suomenlinna Cathedral which hadn’t been open yet on my first pass.
I also stopped by a little grocery mart while I waited for the ferry, and I could help but stare a little when a group of uniformed men (and one woman) came into the shop. I was unsuccessful at sneaking a picture, but they were all in little felt hats and pea coats with gleaming buttons. I did a little last minute exploring on the other side of a bridge to determine that they’d come from the naval academy stationed on a tiny island adjacent to Suomenlinna.
Then another pass over the icy waters, followed by some shopping.
I have no idea what these tiny bowls could possibly be used for, but I want them all!!! (Don’t worry, I didn’t get any. They were all priced at €12-15!)
Then I hit up yet another library, this one being the National Library of Finland.
So prettyyyyyyy.
I was fairly content to camp out in this delicious leather armchair (I want one) for the next hour to read a bit. It didn’t bother me that it was positioned on the end of a stack of books, open to the elements, because there were few other people roaming the staircases in front of me and the stacks around me. In fact, I had to stand up every fifteen minutes or so to reactivate the motion-sensing lights. Ha!
I then snuck across the street and into the Helsinki Cathedral. I say ‘sneak’ because it is technically closed to visitors right now. I know this because I explored the crypts the other day through a side entrance with a sign explaining the renovations being performed on the organ. I also know this because I tried to enter just before visiting the library and was shooed away by an attractive young military man who was part of a team loading something inside.
The military man was not present when I exited the library, however, and the front door was left ajar. I slipped inside, admired the view, and made my exit just before a man appeared from nowhere to berate the other few guests who had wandered inside. If that’s not perfect timing, I don’t know what is.
I also tried my luck at infiltrating an interesting-looking government building, but I decided against it because everyone else entering seemed too official.
I opted instead for ramen and some more reading. (I’m not actually reading that ‘Betrayal’ book. My Kindle just gives me ads when not in use. Tehehe.)
I walked downtown to check out the ice skating rink and this creepy cardboard cutout in the window of a theater.
The ice skating wasn’t in the cards because I had no railing or hand to hold me up, and the theater wasn’t in the cards because a Finnish stand-up comedian was performing that night and I didn’t have time to learn Finnish before the show started.
Satisfied and sleepy, I made my way back to my cute little apartment for the last time.
I wanted to sauna, but I screwed up in my scheduling for the seemingly best one in town, and the one close to me was pretty expensive. Also, I could barely keep my eyes open by 7:30. I did a little research and resigned to suana-ing in Rovaniemi.
Sleep took over quickly, and just in time for me to wake early in the morning for my long train ride up north.
So here’s where I made a couple mistakes. When I went to sleep, I suggested to myself that it might be a good idea to check my train ticket, just to be sure the train was leaving at 6am. But no, I thought, it was definitely leaving then and there is no way I would have purchased an earlier ticket. I was safe.
Well, I managed to wake up before my five o’clock alarm, at 4:45am, to be precise. I was unnervingly well rested, and I made a mental note that I should really try this whole ‘going to bed early’ thing when I get home. It certainly has its perks.
I quickly cut up an apple, packed my food, packed my bags, and said goodbye to my cute little shower-less apartment. The sky was the same color as the ground, somehow: a soft, fluffy pale grey, bright as can be even though the sun wasn’t set to rise for several more hours.
I made my way through the empty streets, reveling in the silence. Traveling in the early hours of the day can be exhausting, but waking before the rest of the city has always tickled me a bit.
I got to the train station and did not immediately see my train on the platform postings, so I brought out my ticket to see if it said anything about my platform. What the ticket lacked in platform info, it made up for in departure time: 6:24am. A glance at the giant station clock told me it was precisely 5:30.
Oh, Lizzy. Why do you do this to yourself. I could have eaten in my apartment! I could have explored a bit more! Yada yada yada. I reminded myself that I woke up on my own anyway, and I could just as easily eat and read in the station. So that’s what I did.
When the train finally rolled onto the platform at 6:15, I booked it for the coveted window seats the ticketing agent had told me about on my first day in the city. I’d been assigned aisle seats, but there were a couple seats on the train that are not allowed for booking, I suppose in case something gets overbooked or employees need special rides?? Anyway, I had my sights set on an unclaimed two-seater row, and victory was mine. Woohoo!
I checked my email that evening to see that, after nearly three weeks of waiting, the train company had finally gotten back to me to say they had switched my seats to windows, but by the time I saw the email, I was already cozied up in my next hostel. Ha! Weird timing.
I spent my 6.5 hour train ride (and that’s just the first leg!) reading feverishly through the third installation of a trilogy I started back in high school. It’s always interesting trying to piece together the distant memories of characters and events, but I fell back in love quickly enough and couldn’t put the book (or rather, the Kindle) down.
I was also astonished to see that even the train bathrooms come with the little hose-bidets. So strange, dude. But I kinda like them. Tehehe.
Here’s me noticing how light my hair has gotten and proving to all the haters that it is definitely not black!!!
And here’s me wanting to be in the picture but also not wanting to block the winter wonderland outside my window:
I was amazed every time we passed another tiny town suffocated in snow and dozens of people got on and off the train. How do these crazy Finns live like this?!
That was the third or fourth boy I noticed entering or leaving the train holding a hockey stick. Where were they going with their sticks? This I cannot answer. I also made a trip to the dining car to snag a salmon-pretzel-bun sandwich for lunch.
I was getting antsy as our train inched closer to Oulu, where I was meant to transfer to another train. The transfer was only ten minutes, and we arrive about half an hour late. Thankfully, though, this was a common enough route, and they held the second train for us. Two Finns, a kind middle-aged gentleman and an attractive boy (eh… sadly, he was probably in high school if I’m gonna be honest) translated for me and had my follow them to the next train. Strangers for the win!
Then it was another two and half hours of watching the sun start to set before we touched down in Rovaniemi, home of Santa.
Dude, if I thought Helsinki was cold (and I did), Rovaniemi was… I don’t even know. Colder.
My nose hairs froze almost instantly as I stepped off the train. (I tried to capture this phenomenon in the above picture, but I don’t think I was succsssful.) The air sparkled with frost. And all of my pictures came out blue because everything was the same shade of greyish-white: the sky, the ground, the buildings.
By the time I made it to my hostel, the front of my thighs were burning with cold. I got to the front door and realized I had no way of getting inside. I had forgotten to check the check-in details. I had a moment panic – I didn’t want to walk back to the train station to get WiFi because it was just so stinking cold, but I also had no way of getting inside. I wandered the block a little bit to see if there were any cafes nearby – no luck, and finally resorted to knocking desperately on the windows.
Thankfully, another tenant let me inside, and I immediately warmed up. Turns out the host had sent me check-in details about five minutes after I began my walk from the train station. Not the best timing, there. But the adorable ’boutique’ decorations and the friendly suggestions from the host made up for everything.
For some reason there were two toilets in the bathroom, so I made a point of using them alternately. Hahaha.
Feeling as though I’d wasted the better part of the day (and all of the sunlight) on the train, I quickly regrouped, grabbed my swimsuit, added another layer to my existing outfit, and made off for the public swimming pool across town. I had a mission to sauna, and if there was a bit of swimming involved, I didn’t mind.
Honestly, though, the swimming ended up being the best part! The pool was part of a community workout facility, like a YMCA. I was probably the only person in the whole building who wasn’t a local, and I was definitely the only non-Finn. A reviewer online had said she’d gotten weird looks and felt like she maybe wasn’t welcome or was feeling out of place in a bikini, but my one-piece and confused smiles seemed to get me through the day, and people were quick to offer help when I needed it.
The pool room consisted of a standard lap pool, a kids’ pool (with a giant water slide), a smaller heated kids’ pool, and a heated multi-use pool. I spent most of my time in the strange multi-use pool. It wasn’t crazy warm, but felt like it was maybe 70-80 degrees. Nice and comfortable. And all around the perimeter of the pool were buttons. Each button set off a nearby set of jets that served different purposed. The first I tried just slammed water directly at me, and I realized I was supposed to hold on to the bar on the wall and run against the current. Another set off a large fountain/ curtain of water that was highly pressurized. This served as a lovely neck and back massager! Another was a foot massager, and I spent about ten minutes playing with this one and allowing it to rocket me above the surface of the water as I tried to balance on its jetstream.
The strangest button of all set off a little 8×8 foot square of space that was elevated up and covered with netting. The whole thing bubbled like a shallow pan of water, and you were supposed to just lay in it. Kind of strange, but I finally got the hang of it by watching others, and when I found a nice place to rest my head, I ended up laying there for a full twenty minutes. Kind of a like a lukewarm bubble bath filled with strangers. Hahaha.
I also went down the water slide once, just to make my sister proud.
And then it was time.
For the naked sauna.
No swimsuits allowed. This rule was posted in Finnish and English and was depicted by a smiling little naked cartoon girl with her hair covering her boobs. I reminded myself that I knew nobody here (all girls, anyway, as the sauna was located in the locker room), and I threw caution and my swimsuit to the wind!
Review: strange. Liberating. Sweaty. Also strange. But all in all, a lovely experience!!! Big fan. I think it really helped that I couldn’t understand what anybody was saying. Eavesdropping while naked or holding a conversation while naked is an adventure I will save until I have absolutely no shame or sanity left in my head!
—
Side note: I’m writing from the Rovaniemi airport, and my flight is scheduled to leave in seven minutes. Unfortunately, about ten minutes ago, a woman on the loudspeaker announced that runway conditions would not allow our plane to land, so we will be bussed two hours away to a different airport in Northern Finland, and we will maybe be able to fly out from there. For compensation, we will each be given a €15 voucher to spend in the airport cafe.
There is also no wifi in the airport, and they have yet to give us any other details or to tell us when, exactly, we will be getting on this mystery bus.
So far, this day has not gone according to plan.
I’m reminding myself of Jonathan’s travel motto, though, which is that even when things don’t go according to plan, it’s really never that bad. An event like this can be viewed as trip-ruining or day-ruining, but Jonathan would choose to look at it as a minor inconvenience and another story for the books, so I will do my best to do the same!
—
Okay. So I did the naked sauna. It was great. I also took my first shower in three days, and that was also great! I then tried and failed to dry my hair using the little hotel-style, wall-mounted hairdryer. I eventually cut my losses, bundled up as best I could, and set off in search of dinner.
On my way to dinner, I explored the downtown area a bit. I found Santa and his mailbox (excuse my weird tired face):
And an outdoor ice bar:
When I made it to dinner and reached out to open the door, all of my hair followed my arm in one rigid, frozen chunk. It was seriously frozen solid! I could even snap it in half! (Don’t worry – it snapped the ice, not the hair.) Very very strange feeling. I tried to take some pictures, but it really doesn’t look like anything, so I’ll spare you the tangles.
Dinner was meant to be a highly-reviewed ramen burger, buns made out of crunchy ramen and a burger made of reindeer meat, but they were fresh out. I settled for the pork noodles and was served something yummy with meat that didn’t really feel or taste like pork.
Oh well. As I said, it was yummy. I indulged in some more of my book and packed my leftovers up to bring back to the hostel.
I essentially collapsed immediately and was sound asleep by nine or so. Stay tuned for exciting adventures to come, and to find out how I finally escaped the Rovaniemi airport.
First impressions of Helsinki: everything is adorable. Everything is white. Everything is cold.
Okay, disclaimer on the whiteness of it all — I’m technically referring to the fact that everything is covered in snow. I mean, I expected the cold. And I was hoping to see a bit of snowfall, but I didn’t expect to land on a runway covered in three inches of fluffy powder. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever landed in snow before. It was honestly a little scary!
That being said, I’ve only taken note of one non-white local so far. Other than that, I’ve come across a few Asian tourists. We’ll see how the count progresses.
The flight from New York was long (about eight hours) but pleasant.
The plane was only about half full, so I had a full two-seater row to myself.
I somehow managed to sleep for several hours across the seats, indulge in an unsightly but surprisingly delicious dinner meal (free wine!!), and finish an entire book. The book was called The Marvelous Misadventures of Ingred Winter, a fiction novel revolving around some unlucky events in a Norwegian woman’s life. Got me in the Europe mood.
I got a little frightened when I found these ‘fun facts’ about Finland in the back of the in-flight magazine. I’m not the only one who sees those average temperatures, right??? And that’s just in Helsinki! When I check the weather in Rovaniemi the other day (my next stop), the temperature was reading -7 Fahrenheit, with the note, “feels like -18.” What the heck does that even feel like?!
When we landed in the snow, I began to question the sanity of the entire trip. I couldn’t possibly be expected to explore in the snow, in below zero temperatures. Why do I keep planning trips to northern Europe in the middle of winter?! And it will be so dark all the time!
So yeah. That was my inner monologue. But then I got to wander around the deserted Helsinki airport (I love empty airports), and I forgot my stress while I admired the Finnish design and decor. It was honestly a bit ridiculous. They were piping in fake birdsong in the bathrooms.
The train into Helsinki was like a train through a winter wonderland. It reminded me of our trip to the Fjords around Bergen last year.
And by the time I stepped out of the train station, I felt the full weight of the travel bug sink its teeth in deep. I don’t understand myself sometimes. I’ve been worrying so much about this trip, but I’d forgotten that I basically live for this stuff. The buildings. The food. The language. And the healthy layering of snow on it all just added to the magic.
Plus, I found a Tiger right across the street from the train station (my favorite store in the entire world!) It took me a hot minute to find my tiny apartment, but I indulged in the sights along the way.
I did a quick crash course in Finnish while I was in the apartment, but I think it’s going to take some practice. It’s just so different from Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic. I can kind of get by with Danish in all of the other countries, but there are very few similarities between Danish and Finnish. So I have to start from scratch. In the Tiger store, I managed to get by with silence and mumbled grunt-responses. I was able to follow her conversation, and I responded appropriately so that she never switched to English, but it also kind of made me a feel like a crazy person to not even be able to say thank you or goodbye. Just a weird twitchy head nod before I turned and ran out the door. So yeah. I’m practicing.
It took yet another minute to convince myself not to fall asleep right then and there. Only so many daylight hours, after all. I told myself I would try to be back for bed by 8 or 9 so I could wake up with the sun the next day. Then it was off in search of food.
I found a little coffee shop and ordered some overnight chia pudding and a croissant.
Check out my lovely view of the frozen waters!
I actually wrote the first chunk of this blog while I sat there eating. And now I continue writing as I eat dinner. But more on that later.
After breakfast, I explored the area a bit.
Those locks were so pretty covered in snow. As was everything else. Especially enchanting was the Uspenski Cathedral, one of the largest Orthodox churches in Western Europe.
I ended up playing around with my amateur photography skills on the stairs because there were so many cool things happening. Check out my chipped nail polish and this perfectly chipped snowflake up in the top right corner:
And the frozen rock wall lining the stairs:
And the rusty gates that separate the cathedral grounds from the rest of the city block:
Gorgeous. All of it.
Next, I took a little jaunt through Esplanade Park.
And I eventually wound up on a shopping street. I peeked into a few trinket shops, but most of my time was spent in a bookstore. What I couldn’t get over was how thick so many of these books were. I didn’t recognize most of the giant ones, but their gargantuousness was so unnatural that it couldn’t have been a fluke. My theory is that Finnish words are either so long or so much more specific than those of other languages that the novels just balloon during translation. Several titles were over three inches thick!!!
But I digress. And I move on to my trip to the Ateneum, Helsinki’s largest art museum.
In a hall filled with self portraits, I was instructed by a wall placard to take a mirror selfie.
And some more of my favorites…
I also discovered this strange attachment to the sink when I visited the powder room.
Turns out it’s the Finnish version of a bidet. I tried to test it out in the sink and ended up drenching half the bathroom stall. Whoops. I actually have one back in my apartment, and that is the only instrument I have in the way of a shower, so my hygiene could be in a questionable state come Friday. (Update: yup haven’t showered!)
By the time I left the museum, I had to brave the snow to reach the library.
But I was rewarded with Scandinavian architecture and Scandinavian cuisine!
Ho. Ly. Crap. I’m tired.
…
And we’re back! I wrote that last line just as I settled into an egg-shaped chair facing out the window on the second floor of the new Helsinki Central Library. I spent the next hour or so falling into a deep sleep, rousing myself so that I could close my mouth and avoid embarrassment, trying and failing to convince myself to get up and go home, and repeating in a seemingly endless cycle of exhaustion. And this was all happening at only 6pm. Ha! First day on the road will do that to you. And I’d had a long, action-packed day, in my defense.
Even the library alone had enough excitement to fill my tired little head with endless wonder. It just opened in December and seems to have fallen quickly into the hands and hearts of the locals. I think this library achieves exactly what all strive to be: a place for community members, young and old, to explore, learn, engage, and feel warm and welcome.
What this library lacks in books, it makes up for in meeting spaces, equipment and technology free for use, and a calming sense of wholesomeness that both invigorated me and lulled me softly to sleep.
It seemed not a space went unused. Few chairs were left empty. Nobody tried to be silent, but the soothing lights and warm architecture brought a curtain of serenity over all and the resulting sound was that of hushed and peaceful life.
Gosh. Gross. Excuse me while I just go ahead and marry this library. At least then I’ll get a European passport, right? Win, win, win!
I’ll end my library love letter with this image of me suppressing the feeling of vertigo long enough to snap a picture while I stood at the tip of a sloping floor encased by glass that hung over the edge of a vast, snow-covered courtyard.
Oh, and this hilarious book cover. I think it’s a childrens book?!
I walked back through the snow, careful to keep my eyes open though they wanted so badly to close, and I was asleep before nine. I woke up at 4, then 8, and got out of bed by 9, patting myself on the back for going to bed early enough that I didn’t have to waste all of my daylight hours snoozing.
First on my agenda was the market square. I found some ADORABLE spoons I wanted so badly, but I also didn’t want to pack them around for the next two months. I tried and failed to determine whether the shopkeepers would still be around in March, when I stop back at the end of my trip. When we both finally realized they were never going to understand what “March” meant, the couple just smiled and avoided eye contact as though they found something to be particularly interesting just behind my right shoulder. I took that as my cue to leave and just hope for March. (Also note that March is ‘maaliskuu’ in Finnish for next time.)
Then off to Suomenlinna, the Swedish island fortress of old, just a quick ferry trip away. This boat didn’t slice through the ice-covered water quite as gracefully as that ship in the Norwegian fjords, but it still did the job and brought back fun memories.
As I disembarked the ship, I laughed as I remembered all the people who complained of how dark it would be on my trip. I had to blink away the sun and the cold simultaneously, and I spent long enough playing around on the shore and in the tourist information center that by the time I began my explorations, I was all alone. The rest of the hundred-plus ferry passengers had already dispersed, and I was left to the bright quiet that only snow can provide.
I also noticed how long and giant my hair was when I decided to take it out in the bathroom, but it was keeping me warm, so I wasn’t about to change it!
Then I found some swings, which, must like libraries, are one of my greatest weaknesses. Poor Jonathan missed a bus once because of this most childish vice of mine.
I think they were meant for two small children to ride simultaneously while facing each other? I made due with what I had and paid no mind to the passing yellow-jumpsuited construction workers.
Oh, and then I found another library, tucked into a residential area. I peeked inside and snagged a super-lightweight paperback copy of The Joy Luck Club off a ‘free’ shelf in the mud room. Why are these Finnish libraries so clean and pretty??
A little way down the main path, I found the city museum and resisted all urges to buy these wonderful(ly expensive) and totally (un)necessary tools.
I also told myself I didn’t need to buy any glögg since my museum ticket came with free coffee.
Then I watched a little historical film and explored a bit, taking notes of things I’d like to visit on the island should I ever return in the summer, namely, a fine dining restaurant built into an old bunker.
And off again! I’m noticing the nose freckles are appearing in full-force, and my hair seems to be getting lighter and redder. The Finnish winter sun may be fleeting, but it does the job well.
I also tried my hand at timed selfies. I realized I could make a little bed on the snow using my bag. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. Haha.
In short, I’m obsessed with Suommenolina!!! I can’t even count how many times I jumped into the snow banks lining the road, just to see how deep it was. Eight times? Ten? Too many. Too fun.
I finally made it to King’s Gate, a quay built for a visiting king that also marks the other end of the island from which I started.
My walk back was quicker, but just as peaceful and smiley.
Ugh. Okay, WordPress is being not-my-friend right now and has been behaving as such since about seven hours ago. I simply can’t upload more pictures to this post and therefore will have to leave you on a cliffhanger. I’ll wrap up my Helsinki adventures when I unravel those of Rovaniemi. Sorry, Mom!
Parhain terveisin (oh, also, my Finnish is getting better!!),
-Lizzy-wa
I write to you from JFK. The sun was rising when I took off in Seattle this morning, and as I wait for my connecting flight to Helsinki, the sun sets slowly on the edge of my view.
When I mentioned last night that I’d have extra time to waste in the airport this morning if I arrived early, Jonathan joked that I could do some ‘pre-blogging.’ I responded that he acted as though he didn’t know I’d already taken part in this silly activity many times, and he came back with, “Oh no, I say it because I know for sure that you have.”
If you’ve spent much time with me or are privy to my story telling, you know I’ve got a bit of the procrastinator bug in me. I just don’t like the idea of wasting time by being early, and of course, this means that I run a bit late on average. So my standard airport procedure is to arrive approximately an hour before take off, maybe 1.5 hours if I’m flying from Seattle to Europe, and to assume everything will be peachy. Sometimes it’s not, and I’ve gotten my fair share of sweaty spells, cardio workouts, and bruises from running to the gate and tripping over escalators. But I’ve never missed a flight.
Until I did.
I was meant to fly out for a little adventure in Finland and Estonia during the first week of December, 2018. I was going to party it up at the Christmas markets, dance in the snow, hang out with my buddy John Jeng, and meet Santa.
I spent a good deal of time sharing my travel plans with anyone who would listen, and I spent the whole week leading into the trip gearing up in preparation. I was so diligent. Did my laundry, ate all the food in my fridge, packed carefully, planned fully. But in an unwise and deal-breaking last moment, I set only one alarm to help me wake up for a 7:38am flight on a Saturday morning. I didn’t even hear it ring. Jonathan had to shake me awake, and in response, I quickly turned it off and set another alarm for seven minutes in the future. A sort of manual snooze. I knocked out immediately. The whole ordeal probably lasted fifteen seconds.
The catch here is that the second alarm never went off because my phone auto-set it for the next morning instead of just a few minutes in the future. I woke up to check my phone, assuming it had been about five or six minutes of napping, to see that the alarm read 6:45am.
My stomach sank with the knowledge that I was going to miss my flight, but I felt the need to at least make a try for the airport. I managed to arrive at 7:17, and they were sending passengers through on TSA-pre status because of sniffer dogs, but the line was just too long. I rose up from the escalator at 7:50, and I turned to see that the plane was already gone from the gate. Four gate agents in skirt suits and heels walked towards me, and the one in front slowed ever so slightly when she caught sight of me. She turned back to look at the others before turning back to me.
“Are you Miss. Lee?” she asked in a sad, knowing tone.
“Yes,” I responded in the same.
She turned again to her colleagues, and, continuing in the same sad, wise manner, said, “This is Miss. Lee.”
The other three ladies exchanged a look that reflected the tone of the first, mouths all slightly open in a soft ‘O’ shape. I followed one to the D terminal and she tried to see what she could do for me, but my basic, basic, basic fare did not allow for any modifications, so I would need to buy a new ticket if I wanted to get to Finland. No modifications were allowed on the ticket I had purchased.
And then I found out that missing this first flight did not only cancel the first leg of the trip. It canceled the entire flight.
If I wanted to get to Finland and back in one piece, I would need to purchase a brand new round-trip ticket. On the day I wanted to leave.
My best option was about $1000 for two days of flying in each direction. Seattle to JFK to Lisbon to Stockholm to Helsinki. Four days in Europe. Then the same thing in the other direction.
Not ideal, I know. So I reasoned that I would just go into work that week and push the whole trip back. I could refabricate the entire adventure for less than the cost of that ticket, and I’d have less flying and more Europing in the mix. It was the best plan I could devise.
But it didn’t quite align with work.
So after a lot of thinking and a lot of courage, I decided to quit.
Instead of recreating the one week trip, I’d be embarking on a six and a half week adventure around the globe. (Okay, so it’s mostly Europe, but there’s a stint in Taiwan thrown in the middle for Chinese New Year. More to come on that later.)
So I got to the airport early this morning because I ended up booking the exact same flights as last time, with some extra days thrown in the middle. 7:38am. I set three alarms this time. Jonathan set two. I commissioned my early-rising Auntie Mel to text me at 4:15 and to call if I did not respond immediately. I got two hours of sleep. I cried a bit. But I made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare, and so far, I think the only thing I’m missing is a phone charger. Ha. I’ll snag one in Helsinki. These airports aren’t about to get $30 out of me for a cord.
Oh, and the flight over was beautiful.
Canada, maybe?
Anyway, the past few weeks have been pretty hectic. I moved out of the boarding house I’ve been running for the past two and a half years (kind of a joke, kind of not – I’ve had about 15 different roommates in and out in that time, myself being the only constant), I wrapped up a bunch of work at my first job (I mean, who needs income stability, right?!), and I tried to Finnish planning this trip (ha. ha. ha.). I only made it most of the way on the last guy. I still don’t know where I’m sleeping for about 15 of my 43 nights, but that will come later.
Soooooo…. Yeah. Helsinki is my first stop, and there are about 11 after that. Maybe more. I’m kind of winging some of this. But I am resilient! And I am experienced! And I am admittedly a little unhinged at the moment! So everything will be fine!
Actually, no. Everything will be great. I’ve been wracked with anxiety and a healthy dose of terror for the last two weeks about all this unknown lying ahead of me, but that’s finally, slowly, giving way to excitement. I mean, I’m gonna meet Santa in three days!!!
Until next time.
Parhain terveisin/ best regards. (Oh gosh, I forgot to learn Finnish….)
-Lizzy-wa
