I’m sitting at the airport waiting for my flight to Kemi for Christmas and my date with Santa. After the fiasco in Paris, I was paranoid about getting to the airport on time and even though the Finnair bus goes every 20 minutes, I wasn’t going to risk getting here late. And besides, I get plenty of time to write my blog as the next few days are going to be pretty jam packed.
Coming back to Helsinki had a touch of déjà vu to it. I opted to stay at the Holiday Inn because it was right next to the bus station and as I knew where it was, I didn’t have to go hunting for it at 9pm. With street names like Mannerheimiptie and Kaisanremenkatu and just for luck Pohjoisrantafinding your around isn’t the easiest. The amazing part is that with such long the names the streets signs are really small and they have them in both Finnish and Swedish just to confuse you.
It was snowed the majority of the day but I was really keen to see the Christmas markets at Senate Square. Unfortunately, I was a bit disappointed after all the markets in Paris, these were very small and not the same sort of quality however they have some really cute decorations but I will save buying them until the Santa Village (they’d better have some left). I finally got to see the Uspenki Cathedral and it’s very ornate and I just did a bit meandering but the driving snow was getting a bit much. I had contemplated taking a day trip to Tallinn in Estonia but it’s a 12 hour tour and I decided that I cane myself on all my holidays and I was going to take it easy for a change…..heaven forbid, what is the world coming to. So, I opened my curtains to see what the world was doing and then hopped back into bed and read my book for a while and then watched the sun come up about 9am. It was a beautiful day in Helsinki, the sun was shining, the birds were singing….okay I lied about the birds but the sun was definitely shining. The only problem was that when the sun is shining there are no clouds to keep the warmth in, so it was bloody freezing, but lovely all the same. And I ended up pretty much covering the same ground I had the day before.
Getting around is quite easy, once you turn the map around!!! Yes I know it’s a girl thing but it works. And thankfully they have lots of pedestrian crossings, with lights. With all the snow and ice, wait until the cars have slid to a stop before stepping out. I have my lovely Apres Boots and my toes are toasty which is fabulous and they have great grip but every now and then you hit that piece of ice and do the little whoa, ice skating motion without the ice skates. It’s very unnerving but everyone does it. I watched a woman yesterday in her stilettos trying to get around. She couldn’t take a step without hanging on to the boyfriend. Nasty Lindy was dying to see her go arse over!
My sheepskin fur hat is great but gives me uncontrollably shocking hat hair….very, very unattractive. My gloves weren’t cutting it in Helsinki even with glove liners, so I figured there wasn’t a hope they were going to last long in Lapland so I bought a furry lined pair of mittens with what feels and smells like leather on the outside and they are much warmer. But it does make it harder to take photos. And just so you know, mittens are apparently better than gloves because your fingers keep each other warm, it works on the body heat principle.