FINLAND: Helsinki Day 1

Forgoing all common sense and settling on a more relaxing morning schedule, Zae and I woke up when the sun rises. While some may think that's quite early, it's actually about 10am -- and even when the sun's up, it's cloudy enough that you think it might be the early morning. We investigated the free breakfast, and lo and behold, there was raw salmon on the breakfast menu. I wasn't quite adventurous enough to try it -- after the debacle with sushi over fall break I think I've had enough raw fish -- but Zae loves sashimi and gave it a try. She said it was good; I'll have to take her word for it.

After a delicious breakfast of yogurt, salami, cheese and croissants, we set off on our merry way. We were still pretty tired from the day before, so we decided to stick close to the hotel. What actually happened was that we walked in a series of squares; the entire city is very organized, so it's hard to get lost if you know how to orient yourself. One of the things we set out to do was find some food. Yes, we had just eaten only an hour or so before. But hey, I get hungry easily.

Things we learned:
• Finns love Tex-Mex. And not "Mexican," where the title is as dubious as the food set before you. No, they actually adore the cuisine that Texas is famous for. And if they're not a Mexican restaurant, or even a Tex-Mex restaurant, they generally serve some sort of Tex-Mex option.
• The people who said that menus would be in English? They lied. Most of the menus had English titles -- "Burrito" and "Grilled Steak" come to mind -- with Finnish descriptions. If we were lucky, it even had a Russian translation for all of our tourism needs. I only know one word in Russian: русский, which means "Russian." So we were a little strapped for information.
• Hesburger, a Finnish burger chain that's a lot like McDonald's (only with better fries), serves their hamburgers smothered in Mayonnaise. And I'm not saying "smothered" as in the pathetic "one dollop that comes on a sandwich at Panera." No, this was literally dripping down the sides of my burger. Delicious, but a little strange.

But BEFORE delicious Hesburger (where we also found out that a small in Finland = kids' size in America), we decided to do some shopping and give our tired minds a rest. We went into Stockmann, a gigantic department store only a few blocks from our hotel. Anything that you could imagine was in there -- from ornate clocks to kids' skis to an entire set of Moomin dishware to all the scarves I could possibly imagine wearing. Needless to say, we were in heaven -- and the top floor had a money exchange place, which was awesome. We both needed some more cash after last night's expensive hotel dinner. The place was designed to keep you there for hours. They not only had a deli inside the store, but also a Ben & Jerry's, a bakery, a place to sit down and eat, a coffee shop, a pharmacy, and three different restaurants.

By the time we left Stockmann and Hesburger, it was already getting dark -- 3pm, a very strange time to be wandering around in the twilight. We went back to the room to regroup and start planning tomorrow (really, I just took an hour nap while Zae read). Since we had a rather late lunch, we decided to have a late dinner -- sensible, right? People do that?

No.

You guys, it's Epiphany. Every decent-looking restaurant was either closed entirely or had closed at around 6pm, leaving us almost no place to get food that wasn't processed or some sort of variation on American fast food. If Hesburger is the Finnish equivalent of McDonald's, then Southern Fried Chicken is the equivalent of KFC. It was pretty good -- not what we were looking for, but the other place we were investigating had an ominous-looking bouncer at the door that neither of us was willing to attempt getting past. So, chicken it was! All in all, a very uninspiring day. Tomorrow it's supposedly going to snow, so we're planning on going to the art museum, and maybe to the MoominShop and also another huge department store a little farther away. Though if it's sunny, we might be going to Suomenlinna. It all depends on the weather (and of course, on when we get up).

At least I managed to wrap my scarf in the popular Helsinki style.
( picture under here. )

FINLAND: Helsinki day 2

After a sleepless night (which entailed Zae finally sleeping at around 5ish, with me passing out around 6:30am) we woke up around noon. Thankfully, we didn't have anything planned for that day -- because it snowed. And a good deal of it was sitting around on the streets when we finally decided to wander outside. Today, we decided to be serious shoppers.

Starting, of course, with the Moomin Store. Moomins are these troll-like creatures that actually kind of look like hippos. And they are the most adorable creatures in the world; Zae and I spent a good deal of time wandering through the tiny store, looking for things to buy. Both of us are entirely enamored with them. She got a scarf, while I got the ever stylish purse. I am totally validated in this purchase.

After wandering through endless shopping malls, which varied from the strange shops called "Your Face" to normal American stores like H&M, we finally decided to head back to the hotel to regroup for dinner. It turns out that when they go out, Finnish people don't really want to eat Finnish-themed food. So we attempted to find a place to eat that was rather tourist-like; turns out that you have to have a reservation a day in advance. We made that for tomorrow -- hopefully bear is going to be good! Tonight we just had a restaurant that served really strange burgers. Lamb-bacon burger with cheese sauce and onions anyone?

The only funny thing about traveling around Finland is that everyone seems to mistake me for being authentically Finnish. Not Rachel, however. If they are going to speak to us in Finnish (or Russian), they direct their comments to me; if they are going to speak English, they generally speak to Rachel. We swear that it's because we are now living in the Land of the Blonde Haired People, so it's almost like coming home for me -- Rachel's hair sticks out a little bit like a sore thumb. I honestly have no idea why they keep thinking I'm Finnish (or even Russian). It's a little bit of a mystery. But then again, it's also hilarious -- the only Finnish words I know are "hei" (hello), "tervetuloa" (welcome) and "kiitos" (thank you).

Hei, tervetuloa, kiitos!

It's almost 1am, and in the spirit of getting to bed early so that we can go to Suomelinna tomorrow morning I am planning on uploading all of my pictures tomorrow. There aren't that many -- a lot of them are kind of dark! But stay tuned, I suppose. It'll be a blast.

PS: Because I know you read these now: Hi Rob. Talk to you soon. ♥