Finland, home of saunas, Sibelius and Moomin! Wingkit and I spent the weekend in Helsinki. Why Helsinki? Well, why not?! The weather was on our side, cloudy in the early mornings with sunny intervals throughout the day. The air was very fresh.
Accomodation
We stayed at Eurohostel on Katajanokka which is right by the ferry terminal. It was a pretty good location, easily walkable to the centre of town. It was reminiscent of staying in halls really. All decored up like Beit and in the kitchen you’d meet various random individuals, there’s that awkwardness you get with Freshers week and everyone pretty much asks the same questions, where are you from?, how long have you been here?, what are you doing next?, etc… Despite all the reviews I read about showers with no doors, it really wasn’t that bad. They had these frosted saloon type doors over the cubicles. There is a 1cm gap where the doors meet, but you could easily cover it with the towel. They had these showers with auto-sensors, when you were toweling off, you’d have to be careful not to stick you hand over the sensor to switch it back on, (or else you’ll get the hose again [Silence of the Lambs reference for those who don't know]).
Touristy Things
We visited Suomenlinna the sea fortress, it was a 15 min boat ride from the market square. Plenty of cannons, walls, tunnels and all those sea fortressy things. There are some museums on it, some with an entrance fee, some without. Also on the books was the Moomin shop in the centre of town, it wasn’t as big as I thought it’d be and didn’t have that many unusual Moomin items, but it was still very sweet. The Design museum is worth a visit, full of quirky chairs and things. Also visited was the botanic gardens and we tried to get to the Natural History Museum, but it was closing as we got there! So we had to make do with a photo of the moose in front of it. It didn’t look as big or grand as NHM, London.
The Helsinki cathedral was quite possibly our most photographed cathedral, closer to the hostel was the Uspenski cathedral. We shot them both during the day and night. Given that the city’s fairly safe, neither Wingkit or I felt threatened. The most interaction we had night photography wise was a Finnish guy looking at our gear and asking the model number of my camera. There was however this grumpy looking fellow who was doing some night photography himself in the vicinity decked out with a DSLR and tripod.
Food & Drink
Food-wise, we did some shopping at the K-Market, got some of what we thought were potato bread, but was actually filled with some sort of rice. It wasn’t really bread either. A quick google has revealed that it’s a karelina pasty. We found that it’s an excellent substrate for growing Penicillium if incubated at around 25oC for 48 hours. On the first night after returning with a tasty tuna pizza, we found that the kitchen was without an oven! So we resorted to microwaving it, from frozen, medium-high for 5 mins, then again at 3 mins. Tasted fine, just a bit stodgey. A whole pizza wasn’t enough for the both of us, so we topped it up with over-cooked veg and sausages with names we couldn’t pronounce.
We also brought Finnish versions of Oreos and Jaffa cakes. They will be having their very own post later on. Foolishly, while eating our own made sarnies at Suomenlinna, we realised that we forgot them, along with the apple chips (very appley) and white chocolate coated banana chips (more like white choc with a hint of banana). So it was just ham stuffed in cheesy bread. Dry cheesy bread. I can’t believe how we managed to forget!
We dined out at the restaurant downstairs of the hostel since we couldn’t be bothered to venture back into town. I went with the reindeer pizza while Wingkit opted for chicken. Yes, very boring of him. The reindeer was good, very dense meat, gamey as you’d expect. Kinda beef-like. I guess Wingkit liked his pizza too since he wolfed it down, but did comment that it was a bit spicy. While we were in the restaurant, there were these guys who came in from the hostel and asked if they could have some sugar or something, but the man said no. It wasn’t like a polite no, it was a proper telling off kind of no from the grumpy looking Finn with a goatee.
The other place we ate at was Zetor, apparently, when Tiger Woods was in town, he had the blueberry pie in there. We only found this out from the menu. It was like a Finnish Harvester in terms of decor with various farm yard paraphenalia adorning the walls. There were some tables and chairs which were in what looked like a giant chicken coop surrounded by chicken wire. The lamp shades were either made from galvanised Zn buckets or wooden buckets. Very topical. The toilets were a bit on the odd side. Wingkit tells me that the mens loos are full of topless ladies and other soft-core porn on the walls. I popped into the ladies loos and it was lit up with some sort of UV light, walls were filled with magazine cuttings of men from the 60’s/70’s and adverts of weightloss and swimwear. By one of the bathroom mirrors, there were photos of a tractor from various angles. It was a tractor themed restaurant afterall. We went for the classic finnish dish, rye flour fried vendace fish with mashed potatoes garnished with dill and beetroot served in an elongated metal plate. It was quite tasty and filling. There were plenty of fish which required deboning. It was unanimously agreed that the mash was mighty good. Beetroot not bad either. We had desert as well, naturally, to humour the golfer in me, I had the blueberry pie (served in a metal cup) while Wingkit had the apple pie. Both came with mini finnish flags on. It took forever for them to arrive, that’s why we missed the NHM.
I’d say that eating out in Finland is on par with the UK but drinking out is mighty pricey. A bottle of Magners in a bar is 5-6 Euros. However, food and drink in the supermarkets is about the same as in the UK.
Quirks
While doing the accounts, Wingkit noticed that we were being charged for pantti/pants (swedish/finnish) at a couple of cents here and there. For the life of us, we couldn’t figure out what they were apart from the obvious, but neither of us brought any undies! I suppose you could say that we got our pantti’s in a twist! Wingkit noticed “pantti 0.15 Euros” on the crown of his can of cider and initially, we thought it’d be some sort of alcohol tax, but my bottle of gingers beer (alcoholic beer (4.5%) made with ginger rather than the soft-drink ginger beer) didn’t have it. There were panttis in other receipts too when we didn’t buy alcohol. Wingkit’s bottle of water also had panttis on. It wasn’t until we got to the airport where we read someone’s blog that all this pantti/pant business is a recycling thing. As in when you return the said item to the recycling depot, you get whatever cents it is back. So, if you’re wondering what the deal is with pantti’s and pants, now you know.
