On Saturday morning, Iza and I went to spend the last weekend on our exchange. After visiting Mikkeli and Lahti, it was now the turn for the capital of Finland; Helsinki. We had the train a few minutes past six in the morning, so we got up pretty early. In the snow, we walked the already known path to the train station in a pleasant -20 degrees below zero. The journey passed quickly, as we wrote and published 2 blogs each during the ride.
The size of the city surprised us a bit, as we really couldn’t imagine what to expect. From the station, we headed towards the port where we waited for the ferry. A 10-minute sailing took us to the Suomenlinna Islands. People also live on this island, otherwise, the island is remodeled for tourism. It represents an interesting and important historical role, as it has endured military shifts and conflicts since the First World War. There we visited military buildings, some wartime walls and tunnels and of course the military museum. There are chronologically exhibited collections of uniforms, weapons, vehicles, documents, and many paintings showing how difficult conditions they fought here in winter Finland. It was 4 o’clock in the blink of an eye and we headed back to the mainland. There we all froze and hungry found a good pizzeria, almost in the city center. We thought it would be very expensive, especially considering the location, ambiance, and professional attitude of the employees, but the prices are reasonable for the Finland average. It was already night, so we headed through the festively decorated city to our hotel downtown. The friendly receptionist received us and we were already in the room. I went to the store myself, then under a hot shower, and headed towards Netflix.
The buffet breakfast is the reason for a great start to the day and we continued it in that spirit. We carefully chose what we wanted to see, reviewed opening hours, and logistically arranged stops around the city. We first took a look at the Oodi National Library, which with its architectural image just calls for a visit. It is very modern, spacious, and user-friendly. There we find all sorts of things from playing rooms with the latest VR technology and PS consoles, music and movie studios, a coffee shop, and similar benefits. We visited some more monuments and beautiful parks in the city met many trams that we are not used to in Slovenia and walked through the Advent fair for the third time. We toured the two largest and most important cathedrals in the city. The first was closed due to works, but the Evangelical- Lutheran, which is also a symbol of Helsinki, was opened and also heated. The beautiful white exterior and the even more beautiful organ inside inspired us so much that we sat in the church for a while and looked at it in detail.
The path took us through full shopping malls, where this week is a black weekend or more likely to say black week. We checked most of the stores that we also find here and found that we have no space in our suitcases or that our wallets are empty. Prices are much higher than here, but phones and similar electronics cost almost the same.
It was time to head north, back to a city where it was once colder than in the capital. We waited for the train to arrive, entered and found our seats, and prepared the computer and music for the long journey back. We waited quietly until the arrival of the ticket supervisor and even that passed without complications. We had an interesting experience, as we visited another piece of foreign land again and spent the last week abroad before our departure back home.
