helsinki, saturday 29 december 2007

it's been 3 days since we left ny but we've walked and done so much that it feels as though we left a week ago. we were so sick of all the planning, of all the emails and calls we made to arrange accommodation and book train and flights in india, finland, and estonia, and we couldn't be happier that all of that came to an end, that we at last began our journey.

our trip to jfk was uneventful, but we were so happy that our flight on the 25th was cancelled. that gave us an extra day to pack, to rest, to prepare mentally for the chaos that this trip will certainly be. the flight to helsinki went by in a jiffy---thank you, sleeping pills! and thanks to those sleeping pills we were able to run up and down helsinki throughout the day almost without taking a nap, even though we arrived very early in the morning of the 27th.

it took us a while to figur out what we wanted to do. helsinki is not exactly the most tourist-friendly city: the information you get at tourist info booths is scant and hard to come by. besides, althout finns definitely try to help when you ask for directions or suggestions, they're definitely not the simpatico type. one person that was very helpful--although still quite dry-- was a lady at the information point in the rail station. she gave us plenty of information on what to do in helsinki, how to move around the city, how to get to tallinn. she also said she could help us book a hostel in rovaniemi, although it'd be difficult to find something given that we're in high season. ever since we read about this town by the arctic circle, home of santa claus, we've been really trying to go, but it's been impossible to find something. in our attempt to find a room, we came across an incredible comunity of world travelers called couchsurfer.com, whose members offer their couches to random backpackers for free. these people are simply excited about meeting other travelers and not only do they offer their couches to them, but they also pick them up at the train station in the wee morning hours, take them out for a drink, and show them around town. we definitely wanted to take part in this experience and get to know at least one of these cool people, but unfortunately all of the couch surfers living in rovaniemi would be going home or on vacation to another town for the holidays. besides, we learned that the finnish rail system only considers to be "students" those youngsters studying in finland, so our individual rate for a sleeper train would go up from 36 to 72 euro each way!! that meant to visit to santa for us this christmas... :(

anyway, we bought a one-day travel pass and ventured into the cold to explore the city. we dropped our bags at the eurohostel and then headed downtown to the senate's square and the alexsanterinkatu (alexander road). this looks like a very posh area of the city with lots of trendy shops and restaurants. we were hungry and looked for a spot to eat. walking along the esplanade (a beautiful pedestrian road in the middle of two very busy streets packed with more trendy stores and cafes), we came across the ----, our lonely planet's favorite restaurant in helsinki. main dishes were very expensive, between 20 and 30 dollars, so we decided to walk further south and look for seahorse, a finnish specialty place much recommended by my friend julio (a mex ex-pat in helsinki) and some thorntree forum contributors. it was closed..! so we went back to aleksteschingando and ended up in a kebab place--one of those few places that seemed relatively friendly to our wallets...

(to be continued)