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(Day 30 on the road)From Tallinn I took the ferry across the straight to get to Helsinki. The two cities lie only 80km apart, and the crossing takes just under two hours. After boarding the ferry I took a nap, and when I woke up about 1 1/2h later, we were, well, still in Tallinn. Great! I discovered that we had not even left the port due to some technical problems with the ship. After spending another good hour on the broken ferry and not being allowed to leave, we were finally ushered onto another (although much nicer) ferry. Best thing there was that they had a complimentary sauna on board, so me and two Finnish blokes sat inside the hot sauna on the top deck and watched the ocean go by through the enormous glass windows. Serene!
Arriving in Helsinki on April 30th (Walpurgis Night!) was just perfect timing. I had just gotten off the ferry and reached the center of Helsinki when I met Tehri & Francois, a Finnish-French couple, and their friends. After a bit of a chat we decided to take off together. I dropped my bag at the lockers in the train station and off
we went to a great night that included sitting in parks, pubs, and a funky private party in a flat where no one actually knew who lived there. To put it into perspective: The evening before the May 1st is called "Vappu" in Finland, and it is basically one big party. The amount of people out and about (and what the city looked like the next morning) was incredible, comparable to a New Year's eve-celebration in a typical medium-sized capital-city. The 1st of May itself then is traditionally spent having a relaxed picnic in a waterfront-park. The Finns sure know how to have a good time!
The only downside was that the locker-area at the train station closed at 0130h in the morning (why on earth???), so I was unable to get my bag back out when I came back around 4 o'clock that night. As the directions to the hostel (and the exact name of it as well) were in my backpack in the locker, that meant that I spent a good 2h first walking to and then locating my hostel. I finally checked in just after 6 o'clock - I might have well saved the accommodation for
that night altogether!
After a slow recovery-day just wandering round the city and doing some laundry at the hostel, the day after (May 2nd) I went back to meet the people for a nice BBQ and also a sauna at their place. As my guidebook said that receiving an invitation to a private sauna is a great honour in Finland, I guess I was pretty lucky. And it sure was a great afternoon and evening...
The last 2 days in Helsinki I spent exploring some of the major sights and museums I had not seen previously, and I also went to the island of Suomenlinna just off the coast of Helsinki, home to an old bastion (UNESCO-protected site again, I guess they are just everywhere). My stay in Helsinki also marked the last time that I was in the Euro-money-zone, so now for a long time I will be dealing in (for me) foreign currencies.
One other great thing that happened was meeting Steven, an old buddy of mine from Australia, whom I had last seen in 2003 in Dubai when he was still working there. He came over to Finland from Australia for only a few
days to see some family - how odd that we met up in this part of the world. See you later this year in Melbourne, Steven!
Next stop: St. Petersburg (Russia).
To view my photos, have a look at
pictures.beiske.com. And to read the full account of my journey, have a look at the complete
book about my trip at Amazon (and most other online book shops).
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Susanne
non-member comment
;-)
quotation: "...the last time that I was in the Euro-money-zone, so now for a long time I will be dealing in (for me) foreign currencies..." ... now you can say "der Rubel rollt" ;-)