vantaa, tuesday 1 january 2008
happy new year!!! i never learned how to say this (or anything else) in finnish, and as the days went by, i felt increasingly frustrated with my inability to understand ANYTHING of this language! but oh well, thank God most finns speak english very well, so we were able to get by without a problem.
anyway, we're now at the airport waiting to board our flight to delhi. i think the shock of visiting india will be even greater after having stayed in finland for a week. even the "crowded" places in helsinki were so sparsely populated. like last night during the new year's celebrations in senate's square. this is suposed to be the "times square" of helsinki, where everybody gathers to get drunk during the hours of the year and welcome the new year. well earlier that night around 9.30pm we passed by and there were like 50-100 people at the very most, and we heard some of the most awful rap we've ever heard---in finnish!! the kids were so out of tune that we were certain that acho was having a headache back in jersey!
anyway, the celebrations were actually not bad. we went back to senate's square around 11pm and the place was getting more and more crowded by the minute. we joined the crowd and queued to get our share of gloegi (hot red wine with dried fruits), and some finnish-style fruit cakes. on stage, there was now an a-cappella all-men group singing what seemed to be traditional finnish religious songs, and this was much more pleasant that the finnish rap we had heard earlier. the most exciting thing was the fireworks. just one block away, the whole esplanade, and all nearby parks, were full of young people lighting up fireworks and crackers, very well visible from senate's square to the enjoyment of the ever-growing crowd. at midnight, someone (i believe it was the helsinki mayor---and i was disappointed it was not finland's president, conan o'brien's twin sister) wished us all a happy new year in several languages, and a beautiful display of fireworks ensued. that lasted for about 15-20 minutes, and then the people slowly emptied the square and headed towards the esplanade, where pipi and i took a stroll until we decided to go into a french brasserie to make a toast to the new year.earlier that day, we visited the island of suomenlinna, a unesco world heritage site that julio strongly recommended not to visit in the winter due to the cold weather, but which we found very pretty nonetheless. the island is one of the largest island-fortresses in the world and was built in the 17th century by the swedes to defend helsinki from the russians---to no avail. in spite of the grey weather, we thought the walk around the island was quite enjoyable and concluded that helsinki must be a ridiculously pretty city in the summer. still, we were grateful that during this week, average temperatures have been around +4-6 degrees celsius---while, historically, they have been around -3.finally, another of the highlights of our last day of 2007 was our dinner at seahorse, one of the most traditional restaurants of typical finnish cuisine in helsinki. the fish dishes (herring and something called pike-perch, or something to that effect, with lots of potatoes) were just ok, but the salmon soup as exquisite, and the fried camembert (doesn't sound too traditionally-finnish) with very-traditionally-finnish cloudberry jam we had for dessert was superb!
anyway, plane is about to take off... see you all in delhi!!
anyway, we're now at the airport waiting to board our flight to delhi. i think the shock of visiting india will be even greater after having stayed in finland for a week. even the "crowded" places in helsinki were so sparsely populated. like last night during the new year's celebrations in senate's square. this is suposed to be the "times square" of helsinki, where everybody gathers to get drunk during the hours of the year and welcome the new year. well earlier that night around 9.30pm we passed by and there were like 50-100 people at the very most, and we heard some of the most awful rap we've ever heard---in finnish!! the kids were so out of tune that we were certain that acho was having a headache back in jersey!
anyway, the celebrations were actually not bad. we went back to senate's square around 11pm and the place was getting more and more crowded by the minute. we joined the crowd and queued to get our share of gloegi (hot red wine with dried fruits), and some finnish-style fruit cakes. on stage, there was now an a-cappella all-men group singing what seemed to be traditional finnish religious songs, and this was much more pleasant that the finnish rap we had heard earlier. the most exciting thing was the fireworks. just one block away, the whole esplanade, and all nearby parks, were full of young people lighting up fireworks and crackers, very well visible from senate's square to the enjoyment of the ever-growing crowd. at midnight, someone (i believe it was the helsinki mayor---and i was disappointed it was not finland's president, conan o'brien's twin sister) wished us all a happy new year in several languages, and a beautiful display of fireworks ensued. that lasted for about 15-20 minutes, and then the people slowly emptied the square and headed towards the esplanade, where pipi and i took a stroll until we decided to go into a french brasserie to make a toast to the new year.earlier that day, we visited the island of suomenlinna, a unesco world heritage site that julio strongly recommended not to visit in the winter due to the cold weather, but which we found very pretty nonetheless. the island is one of the largest island-fortresses in the world and was built in the 17th century by the swedes to defend helsinki from the russians---to no avail. in spite of the grey weather, we thought the walk around the island was quite enjoyable and concluded that helsinki must be a ridiculously pretty city in the summer. still, we were grateful that during this week, average temperatures have been around +4-6 degrees celsius---while, historically, they have been around -3.finally, another of the highlights of our last day of 2007 was our dinner at seahorse, one of the most traditional restaurants of typical finnish cuisine in helsinki. the fish dishes (herring and something called pike-perch, or something to that effect, with lots of potatoes) were just ok, but the salmon soup as exquisite, and the fried camembert (doesn't sound too traditionally-finnish) with very-traditionally-finnish cloudberry jam we had for dessert was superb!
anyway, plane is about to take off... see you all in delhi!!
posted by adrián at 09:15
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