Helsinki Is Shut On Sundays, Surprise!

It dawned on us pretty suddenly in Estonia that staying two nights in Helsinki was more than just passing through. Prior to arriving in Finland it had seemed as though it was just this dot on a map that we must go through to get to Russia. And with the ultimate, Russia, being well in focus it was our mistake to overlook Helsinki. Everything took us by surprise.

Finnish Sculptures

The day before taking the ferry across the Baltic Sea we found out that all the hostels in Helsinki were either closed for winter or fully booked out for the weekend. This left us in a bit of a frantic hussle to find something that could accommodate us. The options being, a free sleep at the airport (rated 4^th best airport in the world to sleep in, LINK), email everyone we know and every person from the website 'hospitality club' to find a couch to sleep on, find some alternative to a hostel like a camping ground, or splash out on an expensive hotel or apartment. In the end we did not receive any replies to our couch requests before leaving Estonia, but thankfully found a camping ground that had a cabin going for the same price as a hostel which was only a small metro ride out of town.

Arnika in the magical world of butterflys

The ferry ride was rather bumpy and not very pleasant, but to our surprise we arrived in Helsinki to be welcomed by one of the best markets that I’ve visited so far. We enjoyed a delicious smoked salmon sandwich which was so freshly caught it could have still been released back to sea. Soon enough we found some things to do in Helsinki, we chose shopping. A new beanie and sunglasses from H&M (greatest store ever) were topped off with a visit to a vintage clothing shop and second hand book store. It was here at the book store where our second surprise came. The back room was actually a private gallery filled with an absolutely incredible array of butterflies made from rose petals. We were close to being locked in after the shop had closed as we’d got lost in our own little world of fantasy nature.

Enjoying an awesome salmon sandwich at the side of the port

The camping ground turned out to be a fun in a 'different to a hostel' night’s sleep. The cabin was nicely warmed with a heater which was much needed as Helsinki is cold. Temperatures have dropped by going north so far that 10 degrees in the day is all we are allowed. According to some maps I looked at, we’re about as equally north as the tip of the big peninsula of Antarctica is south.

Beaded horse in the cool gallery

With a quick nap snuck in, we headed out to find the Helsinki night life. Great success at first, warming up with a beer at the Kola café/bar, but then after not really researching into the foreign cities nightlife thoroughly we ended up walking for about an hour and a half for nothing, and had to return to camp without a real Finnish party experience.

Chillin out before leaving the camping cabin

Sunday we woke up to something that we hadn’t expected which was that everything is shut. We found a hostel for the next night in town called Erottojanpuisto. The place was a hostelling international hostel which we’ve tried to avoid due to the fact that are generally sterile and boring, but seeing all hostels in Helsinki are HI we had no choice, but this was OK as no one else has the choice not to go HI, so there was plenty of friendly people to socialize with especially after a long hiatus of social activity since Riga.

It was here where we were finally back in range of some wifi that we found out that we’d unfortunately missed the chance to get lots of free accommodation from all the people we'd emailed. But such is life, and the afternoon was sipped away in a cup of coffee at the only open café in town. “We take Sundays easy”, the blackboard in the café said.

The night seemed to be over and we were all preparing for the 7am train the next day into Russia. That was until Arnika received an email from one of the hospitality club members saying we could go over to their place to experience some typical Finnish life. Hesitant about going to a random person’s house who we had just met off the net I reluctantly hopped in this random person’s car with Tom and Arnika and was driven to a flash apartment 15 mins out of town to join the four locals and one kiwi living in Finland.

The train into Russia, hell yeah!!!!

Things started out pretty normally with drinks offered and polite conversation. But right from being introduced it was subtly obvious that these people were not normal. The guy who picked us up was suffering from short person syndrome, and the people at the apartment all had certain characteristics that I’d assume would make them outcasts at school. I generally try to not judge people, so participated in the general conversation for a while until it was going absolutely no where, with calls like “I’m a Buddhist” from the kiwi drinking a beer and “Here is a towel, let’s have a sauna”. Unable to easily get out of the situation we were led down to the basement where the typical Finnish sauna is located. Giving Tom and Arnika the ‘let’s get out of here’ eye we talked our way out of joining the socially defunct young people into removing all our clothes and getting all sweaty with each other. This unfortunately did not stop the male hosts from flopping out their long john silver’s. As it is possible that this is just normal Finnish behaviour we were as polite as possible in saying that we must get back to our hostel quite frankly due to the early train in the morning. After much protest from the hosts, we managed to escape the ‘very friendly’ Finnish kids and catch a tram back to the hostel, with many a laugh had at every single awkward moment. In a way I was glad that we got to meet some locals and experience life as a Finn, but also wished that we’d not found them off the internet without firstly knowing them at all and instead met up with Finns that were friends of friends or whatever.

The 7am train to Russia was not near early enough.

Costs:
Helsinki Accommodation 2 Nights = $80
Food = $30
Metro (about 5 rides @ 2 euro each) = $20
Train to St Petersburg = $121
Running total = $4573