Goodbye Estonia, hello Finland!
I’m here in Helsinki, the capitol of Suomi, otherwise known as Finland. We arrived here this afternoon by ferry from Helsinki, and our duo has become a trio, with Catherine’s arrival from France.
Abandoned Soviet Prison Tour
First off, though, I last left you in Tallinn, where Alex and I set off for a last couple of hours of exploration before leaving Estonia. Our destination of the morning was Patarei Prison, which I’d seen on Friday but Alex hadn’t had a chance to see yet. As it turns out, it’s a great thing we went back, because this time the entrance to the prison itself was open, while on Friday I’d only seen the courtyard. The place is amazing — it’s enormous, for one thing, with cell blocks that seem to go on forever. The whole thing feels like it’s about to fall apart at any second, and in most countries we probably wouldn’t have been allowed to go in it since I’m sure it’s a huge safety hazard. But in Estonia, it’s 3 euros please, come right in.
We were so pressed for time that we hardly had any time to really explore, but we each took off in separate directions, snapping photos as we went. There was an abandoned warden’s office with records and paperwork scattered about the rotting floor. There was a medical ward with scary-looking abandoned equipment. A sign pointing to a rubber room. What made the whole thing even better was that, unlike a museum, there were no efforts made to put up plaques or explanations for tourists. It was pretty much just abandoned that way about a decade ago, and everything has been left as is, save for some graffiti and guerrilla art put up since. The whole thing was extremely cool.
We headed back to the hostel, stopping along the way to get some delicious pancake-type blintz-looking things filled with apple and cinnamon, sweet cheese, or potato. Yum.
Estonia, it’s been real. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my few days spent in the country, and would happily come back in a heartbeat.
The ferry cruise ride
So I thought I’d be taking a ferry to Helsinki. In actual fact, what we boarded after a hectic check-in at the ferry terminal was what appeared to be a giant luxury cruise liner. Seriously, the ship was enormous. It had 10 decks, a handful of restaurants, a nightclub, a casino, a giant duty-free shopping complex, and amazing views over the sea.
Alcohol is much cheaper in the Baltics than it is in Finland, so the ship was full of people wheeling enormous shopping carts full of crates of liquor back with them. Really quite funny.
One of the funniest moments on the ferry ride was when Alex went to order a baked potato and was asked if he wanted it topped with shrimp or reindeer. Which is how he ended up eating reindeer on a Finnish ferry boat on the way to Helsinki.
The ride took about two hours, and we pulled into Finland’s impressive harbour around 5pm, getting a panoramic view of the port and city in the process. We opted to walk to the hostel instead of taking a tram, since the weather seemed a bit cooler and we wanted to get oriented. Of course, the walk was a bit longer than it had looked on a map, so about 30 minutes later we arrived, sticky and sweaty and with sore feet, and made a beeline for showers.
First impressions of Helsinki: Nice town, fairly Scandinavian-looking though it does tend to bridge Russia and the Baltics a bit more. It’s much bigger and more sprawling than the compact
little medieval old towns of the Baltic nations. Helsinki seems to be a city of neighbourhoods more than a concentrated city centre. Some of the architecture is truly stunning. And as a port city, it of course has a fabulous harbour.
But mostly, we’ve just been massively amusing ourselves with the language. If you thought Estonian was tough, you haven’t encountered its cousin language Finnish. Impossibly long strings of vowels have created pronunciation nightmares and lots of giggles.
For dinner, we wandered about until we found a little cafe with an outdoor terrace. It was Monday night, so the city seemed pretty quiet and a lot of places were closed, but we had a nice meal and felt restored.
Watch out, Helsinki; the Badgers are here.
After dinner, we headed back to the hostel and got a drink in the bar next door to the hostel. Catherine arrived just after 9, soaked due to a freak two-minute downpour while she was walking from the train station.
Our dynamic trio reunited at last, we set out to experience Helsinki’s nightlife. Trouble was, it was Monday night, so locating said nightlife was a bit of a challenge. Of course, no challenge is too big for a Hunny Badger. We asked, cajoled, befriended, and practically accosted our way to an epic night out, which included a salsa club, a dance bar in a main square, an outdoor terrace on the roof. New friends on the night included Omar the salsa instructor, Patrick the Austrian who was going to Iceland to ride ponies, and a group of Scottish women who we met in the middle of the street… twice. Drinks were consumed, laughs were had, and the rest faded into the blissful blur of the beer vortex until the small hours of the morning.
Helsinki, you’re all right.