Helsinki 2021: Part 4

16.9.21

Ugh...OK. I’ll write more once I’m in Stockholm. I need to finish this before the end of the day. Luckily, I only have three and a half days to catch up on.

---

OK, so...OK, OK. Lexi had brought a lot of goodies with her from Estonia, including run and chocolate wafers, and moose sausages. Moose? Deer? I’ll check once I arrive. There were also snacks that looked like meringues, but were softer and tasted nothing like meringues; more like a fruit. I wasn’t as keen on those, but it was an excellent night.

Tuesday! Ilona had to go to work in the morning, so Lexi and I spent most of the day together. We could afford a slow start, so we had some tea and coffee – or rather, I had tea, and Lexi didn’t want the instant coffee – whilst we decided what to do. What we decided to do was walk around Töölö Bay nearby. The wind made for a chilly day, and I crossed my arms over my jacket to stay warmer as we walked. The trees ran the spectrum from green to red, adding some much needed colour to a cloudy day. As we walked around the lake, we caught up with each other. Lexi is currently being given the run-around by several magazines that decided to steal her pitch without giving her credit, or even contact her to ask. How soon her fortune would change! Other than that, her book on Soviet-era fashion is progressing well; she’s up to three chapters now. I promised I’d have a look at it if she ever needs second pair of eyes, which she was happy to hear. She wants to move back to London, but rent prices are so high that that there’s no chance of that at the moment. She’s sad about how dispersed everyone has become after university, even though it’s been five years now since we finished our undergraduate degrees. I feel the same way; why do you think I had to go all the way to Finland to see one of my friends that I used to see every day? Lexi asked about me next, which precipitated a hearty, deep, sad, sarcastic laugh. Things are not very clear for me at the moment, I said, and as I have said here before. Yet she was nothing if not supportive. She loves my writing, and is excited to see how this travel journal turns out. It’s funny how you can be so positive for someone else, and yet neglect sharing that positivity with yourself.

After we’d finished our loop, we stopped at the Art Café Taideterassi, which sold tea and cakes. It’s clearly been there for a while, as it has been converted from a country house; you know, the ones with a white balcony and crisscrossed beams on the outside? Pastel blue colouring? Like that. I’ve been travelling around for a little while by now. I’ve seen cats as replacement scavengers from pigeons plenty of times. They were bordering aggressive in Antalya. But in Helsinki? Tiny birds. I don’t know the species, but they are everywhere, like a prettier, more endearing city pigeon. In fact, it’s as if they’ve filled the power vacuum after the pigeons were evicted, or otherwise removed. They. Are. Relentless. They don’t care if you are still eating your food. If you take a break for a second, you'll be swarmed by them. I resigned my carrot cake crumbs to them whilst I waited for Lexi to come back from the bathroom so we could go.

We carried on into the city, talking the whole way. The Gossip came up. What is the Gossip, you ask? You’ll never know, but it was great to bitch about people and indulge the divas in us. But as were standing in the queue for lunch, and the Wi-Fi connected to her phone, Lexi saw she had an email from about an hour ago. It was from one of the magazines that originally dropped contact with her; they were now offering her a job to start next month! Just like that, her fortunes had changed, and now she could stress about where to live, how to get to her job, and all the rest of that. I’m still waiting on around 250 replies from increasingly irrelevant job advertisements. At least it’s given me time to travel.

So that I don’t run out of time, I’m going to skip ahead a little bit. I managed to pick my parcel up which had been stuck in customs because it included my medication. Dad had stuffed the box with lots of things from home. I was expecting the jumper, and a few shirts, but not the can of beans! I had them for dinner immediately. Also included were Digestives, Reece’s Pieces (enjoyed mostly by Ilona and Lexi), flapjacks, truffles, two cakes (Victoria Sponge and Carrot) plus a full size can of deodorant that I wouldn’t be able to take on the flight with me (nor would I be able to take on the smaller can I’d bought previously). The package also included big, embarrassing ‘Happy Birthday!’ badge, with a birthday message written on paper in lieu of a proper card. Dad’s so sweet. I’m happy for all the support he’s giving me on this trip. Some of his shirt choices are getting a little questionable, however. Later, the girls died at my impression of Elvis Presley during a party game we played. Those are the key points of that night.

Fortunately for me, the next day was one spent tidying up some administrative tasks. Not every day can be an adventure; need to plan for flights and accommodation some of the time! Lexi left after Ilona in the morning, promising we’d see each other again sooner this time. No idea how or when, though. I won’t even have a bed when I return home. Good job I’ve planned around staying with friends and family on this trip. It gives me good practice for once I’m back in the UK.

So, the plan as it stands is to check in on Uncle Martyn in Germany, before heading to the Netherlands/Belgium, before heading back home in time for bankruptcy. The fun thing about travelling through Europe is that someone can, with a completely straight face, offer to pick you up from a different country, because “it’s closer.” In that case, I suppose I’ll be letting you know what Luxembourg is like soon too.

Once Ilona had arrived home from work, I once again triggered her over Nevernight when I ask for the title for reference. This led to another fun, furious discussion about bad writing, which this time included reading selected extracts from the offending text. There was a section where the main character ranted about the use of ‘cunt’ as an expletive which sounded awful. Most criminal of all was the liberal use of footnotes. They were a kilometre long! In a fictitious book! And all of the information was so unnecessary to understanding the scene!

The conversation somehow then led onto Finnish regional stereotypes, which I will quote Ilona on here:

• Ostrobothnia and Pohjanmaa: the “Deep South” of Finland. South Ostrobothnia is the ‘real’ Ostrobothnia and is where Ilona’s dad is from. Everyone in his family has had heart attacks from too much lard and spirits.

• You can never get a straight answer from a Savonian.

• Karelians are cheerful by Finnish standards.

• Häme are considered slow and honest.

• The South and West coast of Finland are Finnish-Swedish, as evidenced by all the crab/crayfish parties and schnapps.

• “Beer is not for drinking; it’s what you have with a meal. It’s also a snack.”

This brings up to date! Finland (Helsinki really) was lovely, and it was great to see Ilona again, but I’m sure she’s very happy to have her shoebox home to herself again. God knows what I’m going to do with all this moose sausage.

Helsinki 2021: Part 3

14.9.22

Lexi’s here! No time for writing.

---

15.9.22

Morning again. Really wish my sleeping pattern would improve, by which I mean I wish I could sleep. So... oh my god, am I really writing about Sunday still? It’s Wednesday. Poor form, Alex.

On Sunday (12th September) it rained a lot. It rained hard and persistently all through the morning. Ilona and I had planned for this by choosing museums the night before, but even so, the rain was so bad we decide to wait inside. It let up at about midday, and so we grabbed the opportunity and scampered down to the Helsinki Museum. The exhibition rooms were closed, and in fact the only one open was on the second floor. Many more fun facts about Helsinki were revealed, like the effect of prohibition in the 1920s, crime in the city, skateboarding that’s more a thing than just that guy I saw the other day, and what a home in the 1950s looked like. I asked Ilona how it would feel to see a room from the 00s in a museum one day. She replied that they’d better show an accurate one, instead of a pretty one. I asked her what that meant. She didn’t want to go into details, presumable because everyone’s bedroom is a little embarrassing when they’re 5-15. Except mine; I’ve always been cool. I just hope they’d get the music right when they do make a display.

A lot of classic buildings have been torn down in Helsinki to make way for new developments, said one of the signs, which is a shame because the new developments aren’t all exactly lookers. Generally, though, it was a neat little museum that shed more light on the city itself. Before we left, there was a replica sauna we could have a look at, which must be the most touristy thing ever to a native Fin. They had three hand-knitted mannequins inside that took me by surprise, as they certainly didn’t shy away from their nakedness aspect. Knitted old lady vagina was not something I expected to see that day, for sure.

Back outside, and a light dusting of rain had reintroduced itself. We dithered on which place to go next, but it worked in our benefit in the end because it gave us an opportunity to smell incense of the ‘First Forest’ and the ‘Last Forest’. A lady stood on the pavement looking a bit damp under her umbrella and was eager to cling onto her coffee. She was handing out pamphlets about the installation (probably a bit generous to call it an installation; it was two sticks on incense in two different windows) and helped describe the smells we were meant to be smelling. It was about as nice as smelling incense could be, I suppose.

In reality, we were still far away from our next stop; the Museum of Finland. We hurried along down the posh shopping district, which Ilona mentioned had been designed as the premier shopping destination but was only really visited by tourists at this point. I was living proof of that, as I stopped to take pictures of small architectural features and the like. Ilona didn’t stop walking to wait, a habit that would continue for the rest of the day. A few times, she waited for me because I was so far away that I was at risk of disappearing from view. I hope I wasn’t actually annoying her. This is my underlying worry now.

Since I’d taken the tube to get to Ilona’s, I hadn’t seen the masks that the giant statues outside the central train station had been wearing. I thought it was a cute addition, a fun way of commenting on covid policies. Had to run to catch up again after that.

The music hall was big, the parliament building was cool, we didn’t really stop to look because we were getting rained on. The Museum of Finland looks like it was converted from a church, but Ilona assured me it was just designed that way. And to be fair, so many museums have a purpose-built clocktower. I can count at least one, after this. On the ceiling was painted scenes from the Finnish national epic, which I will include here once I find some Wi-Fi to look the name up again: (Kalevala!). Judging from the image presented to me, along with Ilona’s explanation of it, it’s for sure the sort of story I should have a look at seriously. Wizards and warriors, that sort of thing. The museum was filled with other awesome artifacts; it showed me the horrors of Finland in the early 20th century, but also their success in the 1952 Olympics and how that buoyed national pride.

There were whole sections dedicated to the Christianisation of Finland, and the myth that Lalli killed bishop Henry as their first contact with Christianity. The wooden carvings of different biblical characters were quite varied, and quite impressive. I wonder if wood carvings like that are still being made today, or if they’re not as stressed in modern worship. Speaking of which, one of the was a bit more Pagan-inspired; it had stone eyes and had been thrown into a lake by a priest who was fed up with not catching any fish. Then, the fish arrived, and he ended up having a great time, I guess because they were disturbed by the wooden stone-eyed god. It reminded me of the kind of religious syncretism that happened in Sweden with the Norse gods from way back at college, when I did that awful Extended Project on Frey and Dumuzi. Did you know my first pitch for that 5,000-word essay was to compare the Roman Empire with the Han Dynasty? The point is that the holy trinity was used to disguise worship of Odin, Thor, and Frey. Looks like a similar thing happened in Finland. Did you also know that there was no official Finnish translation of the Bible until 1642? How do you preach a religion when no one understands you? I liked that museum a lot. It was extremely informative, and I hope I can remember as much as I can. It may just end up being what’s written in here, which would be a shame.

Oh, and one last thing. One exhibit focused on Animism, and how the old Finnish religion and traditions gave inanimate objects souls of their own. Everything had a spirit. Ilona talked about how annoying it had been to see Twitter SJWs declare that it was problematic to use the term ‘spirit animal’, and that they should use the Finnish equivalent instead, even though the Finnish translation would be to ‘spirit animal’, and besides, spirit animals existed in Finnish traditions too. To illustrate this concept to visitors, the museum had planned a comically small toy of Lightning McQueen in a glass case, and Ilona and I hated it. Cars is in a national museum, and it’s entirely appropriate, and we hate it.

We headed home via the shops afterwards. I got a salad that I bulked up with chorizo back home. Whilst eating our lunch, Ilona and I began a conversation about good vs. Bad writing. She highly recommended She Who Became the Sun by Shelly Parker Chan. She said it was absolutely fantastic, and the main character was refreshingly ruthless. She contrasted it with a very different book – Nevernight by Jay Kristoff, and how terribly your character can fall apart when you write yourself into a corner. Also, she loathed the pretentiousness of some authors in how they write, or how they address the audience. Do I do that? Do I sound pretentious? I hope not, but I can’t really judge that by myself.

As we got ready for bed, we had a small heart-to-heart about life in general, and work specifically. Ilona’s pretty happy with the job she has. Fortunately for her, her boss sympathised with her struggles with the benefits office, and offered her an office job as long as it paid the bills. Which is fair enough, I suppose. I’m worried I’m running out of time to do anything else. What if nobody cares about this? Why should I expect people to care? Who am I, that they would care about my adventures? I explained this inner dialogue between the two parts of me – the writer for myself, and the writer for others.

‘Stop trying to convince yourself you’re a travel writer, no one's going to want to read this,” says one part of me.

“I don’t care if people don’t read it, it’ll be a fun record of my trip,” says the other.

“So, stop advertising it to people like it’s anything more than that!”

“But I want it to be more than that!”

“You’ll never have the patience to type this all up, you’re so slow to do anything.”

“I bet I can.”

“You won’t and then you’ll be out of time and never be an author because you’ll be looking at emails and spreadsheets for the rest of your life.”

“You don’t know that!”

“I DO!” And so on and so forth. Ilona tried to ease my anxieties, but they’re still there. Who knows which side will win out. That was the end of Sunday.

Monday, Ilona was at work, so I had time to catch up on writing at her flat before I went out exploring. Nothing too crazy, although I like how there are still rocks left untouched from before Helsinki was even here. Reminds you of how recently this city was invested in. Would’ve liked to see the area before all the buildings were built and it was still a wilder seaside town.

I ducked into a coffee shop to sneak some internet and plan where Ilona and I would meet before going to collect Lexi from the ferry. My timing was completely wrong, so before I’d even taken a moment to relax back at the flat, I had to get up and go out again, which I did with a hardly exaggerated groan. It was getting really quite windy at this point, and Ilona and I decided there was no shame in taking then tram.

The ferry terminal was down a way a hadn’t been before, down past the wharfs. A piece of wall art on the side of one was either a brilliant recreation of a child’s drawing, or just a really shit piece of wall art. Either way, it’s not my favourite piece I’ve seen on this trip. We tried to get out of the wind, but with no luck, and the ferry was late as well. I may have been a bit melodramatic while pacing up and down and groaning more at the cold. Ilona could do a pretty good impression of me if you ask her. But then, like an angel from the clouds, Lexi arrived. It was so good to see her again after so long. Just like that, you could assume we were all at university again. We had a ways to walk to dinner, so we had time for a preliminary catch up on the way. We went for Scandinavian food which, for me, translated to mashed potato, pickled beetroot, pickles, and meat stew; essentially, a well-presented cottage pie. Lexi and Ilona were excited about someone who had sat in our booth before, which now has a small plaque mentioning it. Presumably, this was very cool to experience, though I had no idea who it was.

Coffee Conversations: The Queen is Dead! What Do I Do?

Coffee Conversations is a segment that talks about things usually overheard in quieter moments; like when talking to a friend in a coffee shop. The subjects are loose, opinionated, and poorly researched. I promise nothing and will deliver less.

Image by Van3ssa 🩺 Zheki 🙏 Dany 🎹 from Pixabay

I’ve really been getting into Earl Grey recently, since they had a big box of it by the kettle at work. Drunk through the whole lot by myself at this point. Why buy so much tea if you don’t drink it? Shouldn’t complain though; saves me the money on buying my own.

Did you know I turned 27 today? 9th September keeps coming earlier and with less importance. The first event of my new year was stepping on something soft and wriggling in the bathroom that ran away when I lifted my foot up. The next thing I heard was the Queen had died. No connection implied.

My grandad had a crush on her all his life. He was still playing in the street when she was crowned Queen. He died a good few years before her too. She was Queen when the British Empire was still a world power. It still unbelievable that it only ended a few decades ago, the handover of Hong Kong being the formal end, when I was 2. Now, I’ve been working there for almost half a year, and I can still see signs of the legacy in road signs, kilt-clad pipe bands, and Victoria Park, though there probably won’t be any 21-gun salutes here I wager. Could be wrong though.

I could, if I wanted to, decide I was a citizen of the British Empire with two years to spare. But the Queen had been there practically from its height to its fall. Can you imagine that? So much history witnessed by one woman. I don’t even know how to feel about the whole thing, quite honestly. I’m a UK citizen, so surely, I should be in mourning, or celebrating a new King, or something along those lines. The thing is, she’s always kind of been there, so there’s never really been a need for me to worry about the monarchy. So maybe I’m just new to this whole hereditary monarchy thing. I don’t know what I’m meant to feel, so I’m not feeling much at all.

The rest of the world is though, or at least they’re performing their roles better than me. Even Putin sent his condolences, which was a surprise. Nice to see him take time out of his war of aggression to console the family of one dead person, but it’s a shame he couldn’t have done that for the thousands of Ukrainian families – or better yet, not have killed their family members in the first place. And yet Elizabeth II was born only eight years after the end of the Russian Empire, which Putin seems excited to recreate.

It makes me wonder how much history I might witness in my life. What will I have seen if I reach the age of 96? Will I have the wherewithal to remember half of it, or will it be a memory of a memory trapped in a bag of crumbling bones? Wait, that’s a bit too morbid for this kind of conversation. The point is, it’s hard to imagine seeing all of that in one lifetime. Maybe that’s what I’ve ended up mourning the most: the loss of memory? Of experience? Relationships with famous or otherwise important people is always odd because it’s parasocial: unless you know them personally, you can form a whole opinion of them without them ever knowing you exist. You can be mad, or happy, or obsessed. You can know everything about them down to what they have in their handbag (“a mirror, lipstick, mint lozenges, and reading glasses” according to Reader’s Digest), even though they’re the Queen! Imagine being that intimately acquainted with Queen Victoria or William the Conqueror without them ever hearing or seeing you.

Image by Van3ssa 🩺 Zheki 🙏 Dany 🎹 from Pixabay

I saw the Queen once, only once. I was taking the bins out at Ascot, when several black cars drove past. I didn’t take any notice of them until someone behind me said ‘the Queen’s in there!” I caught a glimpse of silver hair muted by the tinted windows, and that was it. Back to pushing the bins and washing up in the kitchens. What a legacy we two have. I assume that’s still more than most people. On the other hand, I leave the country in the same year she dies, so now thousands of other people will get to see her closer than I ever will; she’ll just be a little less lively.

Makes you wonder what might happen next to the whole monarchy thing. I always sort of thought that after Elizabeth died, any appetite for a monarchy would disappear. She was the brand, and now the rebranding just isn't as appealing to most people from what I gather. Harry wanted out. Andrew was outed. Charles finally gets his turn, but he’s got the Diana albatross around his neck. What’s popular about the monarchy anymore? The Queen was such a staple that it’s hard to imagine what that institution will even look like without her. And yet, I'm still not sure if I care. I’m in a weird limbo of feeling. Should I mourn her? Which part? Why? It’s not obvious, like with my grandad. He definitely would have mourned her.

Everyone else is performing for it, though, as I said. World leaders and celebrities all sharing how much she meant to them, how nice she was when they met, what a loss it is. It’s hard to tell how much of it is real and how much is obligation. Or maybe I’m just too cynical. But cynicism doesn’t mix well with death. Makes you sound unfeeling, or cold. I don’t think I’m a cold person, especially once I make another tea. This one’s nearly finished now. Funny coincidence Early Grey was also the Queen’s favourite.