Moi.
After a good night’s sleep (Karen does like rooms where they have two single quilts on the bed) we were up and in breakfast just before 9am and seated immediately. There was a good choice of food on offer although Karen only seemed to pick things that had berries in it, including two glasses of blueberry juice. I went berry free.
Instead I went for the hot choice and would have to score the scrambled eggs a good 9/10. They were creamy, fresh and hot. The sausage left more to desired and I was not sure what animal it had most recently been.
There were no English Breakfast Tea bags out with the hot water. I repeat that no English Breakfast tea bags. There was lots of flavoured tea nonsense which was not surprising as nobody in their right mind would willingly drink that.
I checked again later to see if where I thought it should have been had been replenished. It hadn’t and so eventually I attracted one of the staff members attention who said there was plenty of English Breakfast tea out. I begged to differ and asked to have shown me where. We were both correct. There were no tea bags out as but instead there was loose tea. I was apparently expected to make my own tea bags using the loose-leaf tea and these long empty tea bags I had to fill. My flabber was well and truly gasted. I have never known such a thing. It seemed to be an unnecessary palaver, but I got an acceptable cup of tea from it. Tomorrow I will bring down my own tea bags.
After cleaning our teeth back in the room, we set off on the 10-minute walk to the meeting place for our ‘free’ walking tour of Helsinki starting in Senate Square. On the dot of 10.30am the tour started with about 20 of us engrossed in the very good English spoken by our local Finnish guide.
The guide got the tone right with some historical facts alongside some current day titbits. Like there are 4500 trees for every person in Finland. Education here is free for all with no private provision. Taxes maybe the second highest in Europe but the benefit system is second to none whether you work or not. There is 3 years maternity pay for all women.
He told us that Life is hard in the winter months from November to April where it is very cold and dark all day. Because of that Finland has more than 20% of its population suffering with mental illness and has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Yet paradoxically it has also been named as the happiest place in the world for the past 8 years. The Finnish people keep getting surprised by this and our guide said with tongue in cheek that many wonder if it is because many of the people who are unhappy happy have already committed suicide.
One of the many buildings he pointed out contained the only restaurant in Helsinki that still serves Bear Meat which is more frequently found he further north you go as an alternative to Reindeer. All a bit strange as it is still the national animal of Finland. Apparently bear meat tastes of whatever the last meal it ate. You also must careful when cooking it because of all the parasites it contains. I never knew eating Bear was a thing and Karen vowed never to try it.
In the free Finland City Museum, we learnt about the Finnish obsession with the only Finnish word in the English Language – Sauna although they pronounce it as ‘Sowna’.
It is their answer to everything. People celebrate in them, down their sorrows in them, have first dates in them and everything in-between. Despite the entire population being around 5.5 million, there are over 3 million saunas. Most buildings and workplaces have them. Even the big wheel had a sauna cabin going round. It originated to clean people rather than having to wash during the winter months. Personally, I have always liked Steam rooms more.
We walked past the main entrance to the magnificent central railway station into which we had arrived last night but had left by a back way.
The final stop was the public library known as Oodi. Calling it just a library does not justify the beautiful outside structure nor the brilliance of what is inside where everything (apart from the café) is free for Finnish people.
On the top floor is the usual library where you can borrow books etc like a UK one. The middle floor though is where you can use things like 3D printers, laser cutters and printing presses for free. Alongside free meeting rooms, free full recording studios, using free musical instruments, free podcast and audio studios all equipped with the latest versions of whatever you need. If you need DIY equipment, then you can borrow anything and everything from here for free. As our guide put it ‘whatever you need for life you can find for free in here’. It was a fantastic resource that was being put to excellent use.
Here the tour ended and so we had a drink in the third-floor café along with a weird but nice small pastry that seemed to have a quiche-like filling.
After resting for a short while we decided to walk to the ‘Rock Church’ which had nothing to do with the other strange Finnish obsession of Heavy Metal Music. Instead, someone had decided to construct an enormous Church in hued out piece of rock. It was most strange with an almost pagan like feel and although we felt we had to look inside was not worth the 8 Euro admission fee. Still, we were glad we went in just for the sake of it.
Then it was time to buy a day pass on the Tram network before hopping the number one tram to take us to the Olympic Stadium. I do like ‘collecting’ Olympic Stadiums and this was an iconic one in view as I recall it from my youth when Ovett/Coe/Cram used to regularly run here and break world records. I was quite excited to see the tower as we approached it and even more delighted when I saw Teemu Pukki’s team out training on a pitch next to it. I couldn’t quite make out the main man himself and wondered if it may have been the reserve team.
We went in the visitor’s centre which was free to look around. Karen rolled her eyes when I wanted to buy a piece of the original seating from the 1952 Olympics. Instead, we paid the 7.50 Euro each and went up the tower. As we entered the lift there was a sudden heavy shower. By the time we got to the top it had stopped and didn’t restart until we were on our way down. The view from the top was great and we could peer into the stadium as they were starting the set up for a Robbie Williams gig.
From here we caught the tram back to the central station and wandered into a chaotic Lidl to get some snacks and drinks including a can of ‘Long Drink’ which was a delicious Gin & Grapefruit drink.
After chilling back in our room which included me somehow falling off the wheelie chair and banging both the front and back of heads and receiving zero sympathy from Karen we headed out again for dinner. Today’s choice was a short walk to an Australian Gastropub called Woolshed which turned out to be a good choice. Our food included a special offer and was very reasonable as well as being very good. Sufficiently so that Karen has suggested we return tomorrow.
After probably overstaying our welcome, we walked back. The temperature had noticeably dropped which was ironic as today it has been 30c at home. After watching the BBC news we retired for the night.
Moi Moi.
