sweden
The following morning I booked a boat ride to Tallinn and a hostel for that night. When I arrived at the hostel the guy behind the counter offered to show me a vegan restaurant- I had a vegetable chickpea Malaysian curry with brown bread. I then went back into town and saw the Island, Old Town Garäm something, lots of old buildings before arriving in Stockholm I did not realise that Stockholm is made up of 14 different islands that’s kind of crazy that a city is made up of a bunch of islands, it seems the Swedes and myself are not on the same page as I would have named the islands different things and they would have been different cities, but I suppose the islands are all relatively small. After that I wandered into what I thought was a park (well, according to the map) but it was not a green park, it was an area of outdoor concerts. There was a cover band that played/sang a Justin Timberlake song and at that point I was like, nope I need to leave like now, because I really don’t think it is going to get better. get out the banners and the balloons Stockholm is the first city I ever experienced a woman peeing in the street. Later on that night I went out with hostel worker desk guy to a bar and had an alright time talking to him and some guy who told me about how he used to live in Newark NJ for a while.
The following morning I went to an east island where there was a real park, a bunch of museums and some walking trails, very nice relaxing day considering I was tired hung over and had a headache. I did go inside the Swedish history museum where I learned all about Vikings, wow, lots of interactive sites as well as stuff that was trilingual. That afternoon I got on a ferry to Estonia and I noticed the coasts of Sweden look just like the coasts of Minnesota lakes and on the train, traveling through southern Sweden to Stockholm looks just like northern Minnesota with the trees and fields it’s so strange the Vikings found the exact same kind of area so far from there homelands.
estonia
May 19th, so this evening I got on a ferry to Estonia. One of the Dutch girls in Copenhagen suggested visiting it she said it was a very quiet and nice for a few days, to visit. So the 15 hour ferry ride arrived on the 20th of May in Tallinn yet another stamp in my passport. So I arrived in town and found I was walking far to southeast of my hostel, and old town. So I looked on another tourists map to find out where I needed to be going. Once I reached the hostel the guy working the desk was like “oh you were supposed to check in yesterday” oops, Christie forgot about the one night on a boat meant no hostel needed. So I dropped my bags and wandered in and out of all the handicraft stores after settling on a few gifts I found a restaurant called something like the league of natural food and had a wonderful 4 rice dish with some bread, lots of bread, I think I age about 12 slices of small bread. Afterwards I did some more wandering and found the museum of applied art and design. I have to say I was quite impressed with the collection considering they had 2 major times of design the early 1970s and the 1930s and a small resurgence in the last coupe of years. Once arriving on the third floor the man who entered the gallery with me asked if I wanted to go for a beer afterward I said sure and found out that he was from Dublin! A very pleasant man so we spent the afternoon talking about architecture and the like but in the end he had to catch a flight home, so we went our separate ways. So I wandered around the quiet city until I found a jazz bar called Basso Lounge which I didn’t realise until the 20th that I did not leave enough money to cover the bill so I will probably do some online research and send money that I owe.
The following morning I got up around 9.30 and was out of the hostel at about 10.30 which I forgot to mention previously that I found soy milk in the super Estonian market-uuuuuuuuuuuuuu! So I found a café for an espresso macchiato and a roll and then I wandered into St. Michaels Covenant of the Cistercian Order church and climbed the tower then I went towards the Dome Church (14th century) and my favorite Russian seeming cathedral, Alexander Nevski Cathedral, built in the 18th century, I didn’t go in but still beautiful then it was off to the ferry for Helsinki. Oh but first I passed the really tall tower of “Kiele in de Kok” tower built in the 15th century-too funny a name! I arrived at the ferry and was sitting outside enjoying the cold sea air when a man came up to me and said “You have no room?”
Me, “No”.
“You want beer?”
“No Thank You.”
“I have some in my room.”
“No thanks.”
“No sex, no sex!”
“No, that’s alright I don’t want a beer.”
“My boy there.”
“Oh yeah.”
“You from London (or something like this)?”
“No.”
“I in mafia London!”
“I don’t understand.”
“You speak English?!”
“Yes.”
“That’s nice!”
“Somedays (nervous laugh from me).”
“You tired; you come sleep in my room?”
“No thanks, I’m alright.”
“You could come to my room, no sex!”
“No thanks though.”
“Okay!”
Straight out of a bad Russian film, I don’t know maybe he though I could be a mail order bride. Afterwards I went inside the boat and sat and had a cup of tea. I was right next to a lounge where there were singers! Now don’t confuse live free music with good music, quite the opposite out of key and not being able to hold notes I just started laughing because it was so bad. I found out lots of people go to Estonia and Denmark for cheaper alcohol, if they were planning a trip they bring back vodka by the carton! Upon arrival in Helsinki I start walking towards town. A nice gentleman asked “where are you trying to go?” so I showed him and he told me the tram to take. So I found this office booked my hotel for the 23rd and then off to the hostel. I took the long way around and couldn’t get out of the tram at my stop as it was so packed! There was some sort of conference going on so lots of men in suits got on the tram at different times. Once out, I tried to figure out where I was and a woman came up behind me and was like “do you need some help?” so she turned me in the right direction. I thanked her started walking one way then another gentleman came up and asked me if I knew where I was going. my god I have never in my life experienced such eagerness in assisting someone who is lost. I found my hostel, which were the old Olympic stadium apartments from the 1987 Olympics. So I took a shower and then I checked my email and booked the rest of my hostels and my flight to Dublin! Then I went out for dinner to an Indian restaurant called Ravintola Gandi excellent fairly priced food, super good Indian food but the server wanted me out of there, he came up to my table after I was done with my food for about 10 minutes and told me, “we are closing in about 20 minutes, so do you want anything else!?!” fair enough the sign on the door said they were open until 11pm and it was only 10pm so whatever, false advertiser!
finland
the following morning I slept in and left the hostel around noon. I decided to also post on Couchsurfing that I was in town if anyone wanted to go for a drink or something just text me. So in the end I got a text from Imo who said he was the Couchsurfing Ambassador for Helsinki. So I met him for drinks at about 5 and then we went with another group called Jolly Dragon (another online group that organizes drinks or bowling or things like this). So on this night we went to a bowling alley. I haven’t bowled since I was about 14 or so. The more cider I drank the worse I got as a bowler; I even threw the ball backwards, whoops! Before the night life began I spent the day doing such fun things like going to the Cable Factory, you guessed it, and it’s an old cable factory where they now have photography and other art exhibitions as well as have theater events. I went to the photo exhibition as it was open, and they were installing a new exhibition in the hall. It was free, because it was Tuesday or something like that, so that was nice. Lots of Finnish artist, but others as well. One thing that is quite funny is in Finland they put the artists birth year instead of the year that the work was created on the wall next to the art. Some artists that I wrote down include: Raoul Grüstein, Citizens Portfolio there was a photo of a woman that was so beautiful, she had this amazing skin tone, and the shape of her face, if beauty of a woman had a poster child, I’m sure this woman would be it. There were some other artists that I listed with no words about their art so kind of useless to list the artist without any descriptors. “SLIPPERS!?!” You’ll get it if we’ve had this conversation. I also found a book called The Helsinki School of Photography, which has amazing contemporary Finnish photographers in it, since I had no room in the suitcase I just listed it in my journal so that I could look for it here in the US. So some interesting things to drink in Finland include: vodka with Fisherman’s Mints (kind of tastes like cough syrup), vodka with salty licquorice. And this is the spot where I bring up how much I love licorice but not really in my alcohol. Interestingly enough licorice has a component called glycyrrhizin and this stimulates the adrenal cortex which can cause headache, raised blood pressure and in some cases cardiac arrest! So I guess the Finns could always say “it wasn’t the drink that killed him it was the licorice!”
The next day Timo took me to Suomenlinna and island fortress built by the Swedes when they occupied Finland to fight the Russians. It is a beautiful island with the fortress walls still remaining and many other features-plus we needed to take a ferry there. Another ferry ride, which was number 3 in about 4 days! So we arrived back to the city and walked through a square and then I went to meet Tiia (someone I met at the bowling night) and we went to the MOA. The Masters of Arts Exhibition. It is an exhibition with people who did their Masters of Arts or final projects/thesis’ in all types of design and mixed media and photography, with more focus on technical design then art (i.e. painting). I wrote many things in the exhibition book I got so if you want to see my notes or some of the exhibition stuff you will need to ask me for the book! After that I went for drinks with the Jolly Dragon group again with my first ever 2 hour bar hop, The small group included myself, Timo, Minttu (a finish girl named whose name is mint in Finnish, super cool), and a Danish guy who’s name I can’t remember for the life of me.
xoxo,
christie
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