Everyone needs a small vacation, right? A few weeks ago, on a whim, I bought a plane ticket to Finland with my friends Nathaniel and Tannah. So, naturally, today was the day we decided to go. We all met up at the Moskovskaya Metro, and from there took the 39 bus to Pulkovo Airport Terminal 1. It was pretty rainy, and I decided to bring my umbrella along for the trip.
After entering into the Terminal, and going through the preliminary security, we went through the self check, and we discovered that our passports are magical and can get our tickets printed for us without having to use our original credit cards. From there, we went through the wonders of airport security. We didn't have to deal with checking in our luggage, because we decided to just have carry-on (It's so much easier sometimes). It was then that I noticed I had left my umbrella at the preliminary security check. Good-bye Juniata College umbrella. It was very nice owning you for the last 10 months.
Once we arrived to our terminal, we had way too much time on our hands, since we had assumed that everything would take forever to go through. So, we sat down in starbucks, drank coffee, and talked. They even spelled my name correctly!
Soon after that, we decided to just go ahead and get dinner before our flight left, and we were enticed by the TGI Friday's that was just right near Starbucks. Let me tell you, while it was good food, anything in the airport is just crazy expensive.
Of course, the time dawned on us to head to our gate and proceed to board the plane. I was happily in an aisle seat, and I got to lean on my arm, kick my leg out, and just continued reading Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol. Very interesting, and very funny. During the flight, they even gave us the option to drink blueberry juice, which I thought was just absolutely interesting, so I tried it. It has the appearance of grape juice, but it's a sweeter flavor and not so acidic in its aftertaste.
An hour later, we arrived in Helsinki, Finland, and so began our adventure. We left the airport, and were astonished at how many people actually knew english. We even had a few people help us out on the bus, since we didn't know where exactly our stop was.
COMPLAINT NUMBER 1: The Helsinki Transportation does not talk to you at all, and expects you to know everything at all times, and be aware of how everything works.
We soon arrived to our hostel, checked in, and went downstairs to go get some snacks, since we were just super thirsty, and just wanted something to munch on very quickly. Let me tell you. We cried in joy with all the options that we had in this grocery store in regards to fresh fruit, vegetables, and just even dairy products, since the sanctions don't let us have many things at all.
Inside the hostel, we met up with some other foreign students spending the weekend in Helsinki, who are all studying in different faculties in Saint-Petersburg. It was there that they told us that drinking from the tap water is actually much safer than drinking from bottles of water. Guess who went tap water crazy? All of us. You can't drink the tap water in Petersburg. It's a huge no-no.
October 29th, 2016
How to start writing about this day? There's so much to say... Well, from the beginning I guess. I awoke several times in the night. I guess sleeping on the top bunk of a bunk bed in a room with 10 people just gets super uncomfortable. So I just woke up super early, got ready for the day, and started reading Dead Souls in the super quiet lobby. It was wonderful.
Not too long after that, we walked down to the Ateneum, which is one of Finland's more famous art museums. I just gotta say, it was quite fascinating. Also, some of the art I took pictures of is NSFW (Not safe for work), so, you might want to skip a few of them. I will also comment on the paintings I really liked!
The exhibit did say to take a selfie.....
So, if anything, this is the piece of art that hit me the hardest. The realism of the eyes in the girl just dwelt into my soul, and absorbed me into the artwork. It was just near impossible to even leave, until I told myself that I had to continue, and I pryed myself away. I returned to it quite a few times.
Just something else I stood in front of for quite a while... I guess you can say it kindled my passion for art. I must just really enjoy fire in my art.
I'm about 98% sure that this is Anna Akhmatova.
I also just really love anything with black and red.
This was so very creepy.
We exited the Ateneum and made our way across the street to the Railway Square. I am not typing many of these in Finnish, because I have absolutely no clue, and I refuse to even try spelling them. It's too much work.
From Senate Square we went down to the Kammpi Chapel, which is a location meant for just peace and quiet. You go inside, and you can hear everything minus the sound of people talking. Just the movement of people, and occasionally breathing. It was too quiet and I felt myself starting to go crazy with it. From there we went to eat lunch at a mexican place called Suburrito, which to be honest, is the best tex-mex I've had in Europe. It had no cucumbers.
It was at this point where our interests diverged, and we went to seperate museums. Nathaniel and Tannah went to the design museum, and I went to the National History of Finland Museum. It was just more fun for me than seeing different building designs and what not. It was a bit north of Suburritos, but it was well worth the walk, and there was so much to see! But it was a quick walk through. Helsinki is not a big place.
I exited the museum and made my way to Market square, because that is where we all agreed to meet after visiting our respective museums. It was a nice, quiet walk, and I got to enjoy seeing the main street of Helsinki, and got to go through several different partks and see different statues. Once arriving at Market Square, I got about 6 postcards, and we went inside of a coffee break. There we got pastries and coffee. We ran into one of the British people from our hostel, who told us of a new museum which had just opened a new exhibit not too long ago called the smell room. We went to the City Museum. It had a VR room that they called their time machine, and a bit of the history of Helsinki. It wasn't too much, but we did relax there for a while while formulating our plans.
Of course, we had a split in plans again, since I wanted to check out different churches. I did so, heading to the Uspenskin Cathedral, and to the Deutsche Kirche, only to find out that they were closed. What a waste of time to be completely fair. I was quite mad, so I had to contact Nathaniel and Tannah, only to get lost finding them within the city. We later found each other near the design museum. Of course, we soon went to the bookstore after that, where we just relaxed, and I texted and napped. I don't know what everyone else did. We soon all met up, and went to a Thai restaurant where I had curry for the first time, and it was delicious! We then decided we wanted to go somewhere and get dessert, and we went to Cafe Espalad, where I had this delicious blueberry pastry and a cappuchino. Our loud, english accents attracted the attention of an Ex-Pat from Minnesota, who was surprised to hear our accents and chatted us up very quickly. He soon left, and we returned to the hostel abhout 45 minutes after that.
COMPLAINT NUMBER 2: Now, this next story was told to us by someone at a hostel, in which they said it was a purely hypothetical case. This could have happened. It probably didn't. According to them, they said that they had gotten onto a tram, and they did not know where to buy their tickets from, because there were no visible signs around the tram, so of course, they sit down, and expect for someone to pop up to sell them tickets. Of course, this group of workers come on board and start scanning people's phones and cards. The group then assumed that they were selling tickets. When the workers asked the group for their tickets, and they had none. They didn't even direct them where to go. The workers just asked for their ID's and wrote them an 80 Euro ticket. Can you believe that? 80 Euro ticket for a 3,20 Euro tram ride. Apparently, this hypothetical case ends in them leaving without paying, and we have no idea what has happened to them. Luckily my friends and I learned from their mistakes. Mhmm.
October 30th, 2016
The last day in Helsinki. Daylights savings time gave us an extra hour of sleep, and I felt it for sure. On waking up, I couldn't find my key card, despite having placed it within my tablet cover. Luckily, the front desk said that these things happened, and just gave me a new one. We then checked out, and left our bags in the luggage room, and headed out to Market Square in order to head to Suomenlanni.
So the actual food stalls were closed all of sunday, and so was every other cafe and restaurant nearby, so we were forced to eat at a fast food place on the market. I got a reindeer burger. Sorry Rudolph, you were tasty.
After eating breakfast, we go our round trip ferry tickets, and went to the Island of Suomenlanni. I don't have much to say about it, other than the fact that it's a UNESCO world heritage sight, and people actually live there. It's a former fortress, and it has several important things I believe? I don't know. I wasn't feeling it that morning to be honest. I did get to climb up and down some rocks, so I had my fear of slipping and falling into the water kick in spectacularly.
Of course, we then returned to the bagel place, where I had a bagel and cream cheese with a banana mango smoothie, and then attempted to go souvenir shopping. We didn't find anything we wanted. Nathaniel and I then went back to the Hostel, grabbed our luggage, and went to the airport. Of course, we made it back to Saint-Petersburg completely fine, but Nathaniel had a slight problem at the passport control, all because his nose didn't match his picture.
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