11 july - last day in helsinki

So today was one of those days we had to have, it wasn't exactly the biggest success though it had its interesting points. 

I was staying at the Hotel Haaga, which is somewhere out in nowhere, but easy to get to, cheap, and had a good breakfast. The building itself dates to about 1960 I think (judging from the archive pictures in the hallways). I was neither impressed or unimpressed really. As it was I couldn't sleep, I was very enervated at night and then woke up around 4, ridiculously, so the whole day I have been a bit scrambled, not really knowing where I was going or what I was doing and constantly getting on trams and trains and going the wrong way. Or going to the wrong tram stop. Ugh. It was also really hot today. 

So the first thing I did was take my case to the airport and drop it off. I had been a bit worried for a long time that it might exceed 28 kilos or whatever it was meant to hit and in fact it was somewhere between 27 and 28 so, good for me well done. I still had a heavy backpack to carry round for the day but you know, I am kind of tough. Here's a self-portrait showing how tough:

I decided to pay Puu-Käpylä another visit because even though we went there for the conference field trip I didn't feel like we checked in on the good bits, and I wanted to do that. It's still amazing. 

While for a lot of today I was thinking, yeah nah I am not going to come to Finland in summer again, thanks, it sucks, still I admit that Puu-Käpylä looks very good at this time of year. 

Another selfie

At the roundabout and Meurmanpuisto they were having a trash and treasure (they probably don't call it that) - pretty wild. There was nothing there I wanted. But I wanted them to have a good time and they seemed to be.

I didn't even look at these records. I couldn't have fitted them in my backpack anyway. 

Yeah so... a while later you could find me at a few other second handy places really just filling in time/getting out of the sun. I had a kind of plan to go back to Jätkäsaari and the vietnamese vegan restaurant and then I thought (a) not that hungry and (b) am I just going back because I'm sentimental about... last week?! So I didn't. Nor did I buy this Airbourne patch for three euro. 

I did go to this famous market where there has never been a bargain, and bought a vintage marimekko mug. It's a rare one with a squirrel on it. 

I was still kind of like... how do I fill in the time? How? My flight wasn't until 12:30 in the morning (still two hours away as I type this!). I didn't want to just fluggle around at the airport, though I had paid a little bit of money for the privilege of sitting in the business lounge (which I am doing right now) mainly because it promised the possibility of having a shower. Which I am so glad I was able to do. Because it was a fuckin' hot day and 24 hours in transit...

Anyway on the topic of stinky humans I thought maybe I should pay a visit to the cemetery, or one of them. They have one quite close to town near the water, and I thought it would have to be special. It was. It was also quite shady, and the shade made the afternoon generally bearable. 

I  hung around the cemetery for a while but I didn't take many pictures, sorry if you feel you would have enjoyed seeing that. You can go anytime yourself. 

Some time in the last few days I have mused with someone about the populations of certain islands around Helsinki. Now I know for sure that someone lives on this one:

Saw this squirrel:

Some people were having a dejeuner sur l' kivi across the water:

A man goose (I am guessing) protecting his gooselets. 

Stopped in at the Regatta where they very specifically tell/ask you not to feed the damn birds

Last stop - the Sibelus monument where apparently the people were not happy with the abstract nature of the work until his detached head was added, and it all made sense. 

Then I went to the airport. 

So in the final analysis, how was my trip to Finland/Estonia? 

Here are a few things I have noted.

1. In Melbourne, I often find it harder to breathe than I did in either F or E. The air seems a lot cleaner and user friendly. I also had almost no problem with stomach pain which happens quite often in Melbourne/Australia. Lucky I didn't suffer that because I somehow lost my antacid tablets really early in the trip. When I say almost no problem - the problem I did have, I fixed with a bit of preserved ginger. 

2. I do feel really at home in Finland, which I know is ridiculous. I hope I am not somehow responding to the monoculture (it's not a monoculture, by the way, but the language thing makes a big difference). I would never want to live here though - I like living in Australia and I like all the things I have in Australia. I do appreciate having the opportunity to pop over to Finland every year or two, it's really great, I'm incredibly lucky. 

3. I would rather travel with Laura than on my own, but that wasn't possible this time around. It was great to spend some time with Steve and Franziska in Helsinki and Tallinn. 

4. I need to get my phone battery and my computer battery both fixed, replaced, whatever. ASAP! 

5. When I travel, I eat from boredom/ the opportunity to sit down.

6. Coffee in Finland and Estonia are difficult. It is difficult to get them before 9am, too, which is bizarre. We saw cafes in Tallinn and Helsinki that didn't open till 2pm. 

7. In the last two weeks, I have averaged over 20 000 steps a day. I am not even joking. 

8. When I get home, I may 'crash'. 

helsinki 10 july - maustetytöt

Now things really start winding down in a big way. I feel like I have been away for two years (it's been two weeks today). See selfie below. 

Now I had almost forgotten I had the option of doing this but it bubbled up into my conscious mind on, probably, Thursday that Maustetytöt were playing somewhere in Helsinki on this day. I really wasn't sure where it was happening or what kind of event it was, and as is the wont of the Finns, it seems to be a really IYKYK kind of event, but it transpired ultimately that it was a summer festival (they like those kind of things - the youngs, I mean) at the big iceskating hall area. I managed to crack the cabal and the non-Finnish speakers' cocoon and got a ticket. 

I am tempted to say 'everything else on the bill was shit' but that's actually just a reflex - I wouldn't have a clue. The acts before and after Maustetytöt were definitely both shit, but I thought about it later - I mean if the organisers had one thing I liked on the bill, they probably had some others. But it was a hot, stupid day and I was nervous about being there in the first place and I wasn't in the mood to be overly experimental. So I just went for the one thing. This (above) is getting through security.

Very simple set up, two stages, everyone was at one stage. And I could see Maustetytöt setting up at this stage. They were actually lugging their gear. There were a few old people hanging around at the stage already. They regarded me suspiciously, fair enough.

Soundchecking. We've all done it.

It's not fair to take people's pictures when they haven't said you could, but luckily for me, en osaa puhua suomea so maybe I can basically do whatever I want and no-one can tell me not to. My en osaa puhua suomeaness also saved me when a, presumably, very drunk woman tried to inveigle me and the man standing next to me in some kind of tryst. I saw her putting her hands in his etc and I think she was probably talking to me too but when it came down to it I didn't understand anything she said so I was fairly impervious. I got the sense that he and maybe some other people admired my complete lack of engagement with her, but that might be projecting. They might have guessed I had no idea what was going on, although if I en osaa puhua suomea then what was I doing at a concert by a band that only puhua suomea? Well you may ask. 

The show was really simple, very basic, straightforward, no bells nor whistles. It was mainly hits and it was really, really good in that completely understated, no showpersonship way that I would have expected.  

So I did take a lot of photos but really they're all basically the same! 

They played for precisely an hour and then as soon as they finished someone else came on at the other stage. Whoever they were, they were insanely bad (even if they were meant to be, um, knowing or ironic or something - ?). Weird, weird context. 

I got out fast.

Tell you one weird thing though. I was really concerned I would look like an old creep there, and be like the oldest person there by 200%. But there were plenty of people there older than me - ! Not even joking. 

I don't know how old that friendly woman who I mentioned above might have seemed, I didn't look at her. 

tallinn 10 july

Woke early, took a walk in what I thought was a new direction and I was entirely wrong and just ended up rehashing a lot of the previous evening's terrain. 

There was this new housing development. Not uninteresting, if you have low expectations of what could be interesting. 

More accommodation of old infrastructure. 

Anyway, very quickly I found myself back where we'd been the previous evening, because I had a worse sense of direction than I thought. 

In the spirit of the name I give my blog these days... check out this northern light

That thing's still there. 

And the Linnahall again

A bit of hare action in the distance.

You know who used to live here (below)? Johan Pitka 1872-1944. 

And you know who lives here... this cat. 

Come on, this is an album cover. Or a book cover. It's the cover of something. 

So coming back through the cemetery park, I got some information.

And these are the abovementioned gravestone markers in the bell tower. 

Just before we say goodbye to Tallinn, a couple of shots of the airbnb. It was pretty great. 

I left for Helsinki on the 10:30 ferry (which mysteriously actually left at 10:10...!) and S&F flew back to Hamburg via Cophenhagen later in the day. 

It was great travelling with them. 

last tallinnn night 9 july

Franziska I think particularly but maybe also Steve had persuaded me to visit the Linnahall a few days previously despite my ignorant dismissal... and I was shown to be a dufus, because it was amazing. This time I had suggested visiting the cemetery park near where we were staying (Steve and I had walked past it and observed that it looked like a cemetery though we couldn't quite say why as it had no tombstones, but about 30 seconds' research showed that is precisely what it had been). But Franziska had suggested going a little further afield as well and I knew this would be a good idea even if I didn't know why. 

First of all, just wanted to show you what a few years' exposure to the ice and rain of Tallinn can do to the wooden bits of a building. It's not pretty is it! 

Yet the building itself is amazeballs

Couldn't get a proper picture of it because there was a big fat white van in the way, but you are probably satisfied with Tallinn house pictures by now. 

First, we went past what I later discovered was the cemetery belltower (I'll leave the story of the cemetery park for tomorrow OK). Elegant construction. I am ashamed (?) to say at first I thought it was an aesthetic disguise on something very utilitarian like a sewer duct. 

This is the only cemetery marker I could see in the cemetery (I later discovered I was looking in the wrong place):

This is where we were really headed though. I have no idea what's happening with this building other than what I can see - that it has trees growing in it.

But this is the really amazing thing. It's huge. The sum total of what I know about it is all here. 

And there's the Linnahall off in the not-very-distant distance. 

What do you think this is or was? I just like the way the pixelated waves look. 

We walked back along the waterfront a little. 

New apartments over old infrastructure. And below, back in the cemetery park. 

Steve was pretty interested in this building's balconies and I get it.