This weekend away was so much different than the others I
have experienced, yet it is so far one of my favorites. Callista and I went to
Finland, and it was so relaxing and interesting. This was my first weekend
where I didn’t have a tour guide for the weekend, so we did our own thing and
it worked out splendidly.
We booked our flight for Friday afternoon this time, so we
didn’t have to leave any classes early or anything, and we had plenty of time
to get to the airport. We ended up cutting it really close, and arrived at the
airport in Dublin about half an hour before our flight, and we were rushing to
check-in. Turns out, we really didn’t need to worry, as when we got to the desk
they informed us that, due to an issue with the plane arriving from Helsinki,
our flight was already delayed by three hours. We didn’t really mind because it
gave us time to eat dinner (which was free from the airline because of the long
delay) and just take our time. I have decided that it is much better when the
flight is delayed at the beginning of the trip than the end.
We finally boarded the plane and were about forty-five
minutes into the flight when the captain came on the loudspeaker and explained,
in a thick accent, that for some reason (I didn’t hear it because of the
accent) we were briefly going to land in Oslo, Norway to switch planes. We were
already three hours later, with the late departure we were scheduled to land in
Helsinki ad 2, but with this further diversion we ended up landing at 3:30 AM
(Finland time, which is two hours ahead of Ireland time, which is six hours
ahead of CST). We were kind of happy
about this stopover, though, as neither of us had ever been to Norway. Turns
out, we only walked about forty feet on the tarmac and switched planes. We
didn’t even go inside the airport in order to buy a little trinket as proof of
our being there. Thankfully we didn’t have any problems finding our hostel from
the airport, and we got there about 4:30 and were able to crash soon after.
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| Porvoo |
The next morning, we had a plan to go to Porvoo, a tiny
little town about an hour outside of Helsinki. My dad had a high school
classmate who married a Finn and lives in the Helsinki area, and her oldest
daughter and daughter’s boyfriend had offered to drive us there and show us
around! It was so great having a contact in the area the entire weekend, and
they gave us great suggestions about what to do and what was going on in the
area. Porvoo is one of the oldest settlements in all of Finland, and many of
the original buildings are still there. The streets are cobbled and narrow, and
they are lined with tiny wooden houses. It was still cold here, but starting to
warm up, so there was snow that was beginning to melt. We stopped at a chocolate
factory/shop before going there, and I bought some delicious Finnish-made
chocolate. In Porvoo, we ate at a little café that was in an old cellar, and it
was warm, cozy, and quite adorable. We got some hot chocolates and headed back
to Helsinki. Our ‘guides’ had to be back in the early evening, and we had a
little time before then, so when we got back to the city, they drove us around
and pointed out some things that were too far away to walk to.
That night at the hostel, we mostly just relaxed. There were
a few others staying the hostel who were from cool places: the UK, Egypt,
Russia, China, and a few from Germany. Me being me, on the way back from the
bathroom, I struck up a conversation with a few of them sitting nearby. I don’t
know how we got to this topic, but I
mentioned that I sing for fun (I think it came up because one of them asked me
if I smoked, and I said no because of the singing thing). This was a bad idea.
They all insisted that I sing something for them, very adamantly, and wouldn’t
let it go. I eventually agreed just to get them to stop asking, and sang some
Adele for them. They made everyone else in the common space be quiet and
listen…it was so embarrassing. After I finished the bit of the song, they spent
the rest of the night saying that I should sing professionally, while I
struggled to explain to them that it would NEVER happen in the US barring any
major lucky moments/crazy connections. They just responded with, “You should do
it here.” Maybe I’ll become a Finnish pop star…
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| Helsinki Cathedral |
The next day we had free to do whatever, and we decided we
would go to the city center to see the main things and buy souvenirs (one of my
favorite things to do…I feel like such a tourist, but I like to see the things
that each country is known for). We figured out the city tram system, and made
it to the Cathedral, the most well-known site in Helsinki. It is a Lutheran
cathedral, and is a huge white building on top of a tall set of steps. We
wandered from the square in front of the Cathedral and found the souvenir
shops, then walked a little further and found the ‘shopping street’: the
expensive, clothing store street in the middle of the city. After that, we went
back to the hostel for a little while. We had been invited out to a city called
Järvenpää, about thirty minutes outside of the city, where my dad’s classmate
lived. She felt bad that she wasn’t able to meet us the day before, so she met
us at the train station there (we rode on a real commuter train, the first one
I had been on since I went to France when I was eight). Heidi and her husband
took us out to dinner there, and we talked about what we were studying, the
differences between Europe and the USA, and Finland and Ireland. We talked for
a while about the similarities between Finland and Minnesota, in particular. I
noticed the very first day why so many Finns chose to live in MN: northern MN
is almost exactly the same, temperature and geography wise, as southern
Finland! It smells the same, looks the same, and has similar populations and
architecture. I felt so at home here, the whole weekend. I think it is one of
the places in Europe that I would feel perfectly comfortable living. I even
look the part: I was mistaken for being Finnish multiple times throughout the
trip.
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| Eastern Orthodox cathedral |
Our last day we decided to go back into the city center and
wander around a bit more. This turned
out to be a great idea, one of the best days. We walked down to the docks along
the Baltic Sea, still partially frozen, and up to the Eastern Orthodox
Cathedral. We then walked in the opposite direction and found a pretty park at
the top of a hill, from which you could see both cathedrals, along with part of
the sea and a lot of the city. We found a café named ‘Amanda’s Bar and Bistro’,
walked near a huge ferry (which crosses the sea and goes to Estonia. Had we
been there for one more day, we would have gone to Estonia for a day, as it is
really cheap, but we just couldn’t fit it in).
After walking around, we timed it perfectly to get to the airport and
onto our flight ‘home’ to Ireland.
Other things that happened this weekend:
-I had to register for classes for next semester, which was
tough from so far away. We do it online, anyways, but for some reason I had so
many more problems. I had my best friend, Audrey, register for me, as I was on
a plane at the time I could register. The problem was I was signing up for a
few classes that only had one section, so filled up rather quickly. I think I
worked it out, finally, with a little bit of a different schedule as I had
originally planned.
-Met a guy from Egypt (like I mentioned earlier). He was a
few years older and so nice and helpful. We chatted for a while about his
experiences with culture shock: his first time out of Egypt had been a few
weeks before, and he first went to Amsterdam. Talk about completely different
ends of the spectrum. He went from an extremely conservative and warm country
to one of the most liberal countries where it was snowing. He actually really
made me want to go to Egypt. He is from Alexandria, and he showed us a bunch of
pictures of home…if I ever decide to go, he told me to let him know and he
would show me around J
-Just before boarding
the plane back to Dublin, we had to take a bus/shuttle from the airport gate to
the actual plane. On this shuttle, we ended up standing near an older couple.
The man leaned in and stated that he was on the same city bus from Helsinki to
the airport, and he had been betting with his wife that we were headed to
Dublin as well. Despite both Callista and I wearing our UL sweatshirts, this
isn’t how he said he thought this (we were wearing our jackets on the bus, so
he didn’t even see them until we were already at the gate). He said he guessed
this because we looked Irish! I
thought this was pretty funny, and I told him we were studying in Ireland, but
we were from the US. He then mentioned that he noticed our Limerick
sweatshirts, and proceeded to tell us a physicist-based limerick that was pretty
funny.
-For some reason, I always attract the crazy drunk people
wherever I am. On the way back to our house on Thursday night, an Irish lad
with his friends comes up to me with his arms spread, and goes, “Come here!” I
refused, logically, and so he just shuffled over to me and hugged me from the
side…it was pretty funny. Anyways, on the train to Järvenpää a drunk guy
plopped himself down right next to us, heard us speaking English, asked us
where we were from, and was blown away when we said from America. He talked to
us the rest of the ride, and kept on saying, “I’m very drunk.” I was impressed
with his English: for being so drunk, it was pretty good.
