I came here 10 years ago. In the ‘not so spring’ day of early May, I followed the instructions given by the hostel website to arrive here at the Euro Hostel, Helsinki, from the Vantaa Airport. I don’t think there were any google maps back then coz I remember me walking these very streets, with a fold-out map. I was new to Helsinki, not only that I was new to travel.
If I say a lot has changed ever since it will be a cliche, but it really has and it hasn’t. Scandinavia still makes me feel the way it did back then. There is still so much to learn from the way people work here, way the things function. Last evening when I arrived in Helsinki, I realized that I am staying close to the Hostel I stayed back in 2009. Back then I had a fold-out, now I just blend in.
Helsinki will always be special because of how cold and grey it felt back then and how warm it feels now, and the weather has nothing to do with it. The radio next to me plays commercials in Finnish, as I wait for my laundry cycle to finish. Finnish is different, in ways where it doesn’t really belong to any family. I think I like that about Finnish, just as I do with Hungarian and Turkish. They all belong to one family; every language is unique.
I think, what can I write about Helsinki? Favorite things to do here? Maybe I don’t like doing anything in particular here. I just like to walk, and if you are coming here for the first time, I would only advise you to take a Tram, buy a day ticket and move. Move with the crowd, which mostly would be tourists. I remember how I stared outside the window on that cold rainy evening, amazed at how clean and empty everything was. Well, it was not only my first time in Helsinki but also in Europe. I did not have anything in particular that I wanted to see back then, and it was only later that I realized that through the walk and the tram ride I had almost passed or entered (more of the former) 70% of the sites, mentioned in Helsinki’s recommended list of things to do.
Helsinki in a day?
- Take a walk to the center from the Train Station.
- Have the sights of the Central and Uspensky (Russian) Cathedral done.
- If your legs hurt, then take the tram number 7 and just take a ride @ 3.2 Euros.
- Lunch out in the market square in front of the harbor. Try Fish and veggies. Later get the strawberries and eat them with ice cream (both separate)
- The rock church in the evening is good to just sit and be in peace.
- Watch the evening come in on the Gulf of Bothnia.
But really, what I like might be so different than what anyone else likes. They might have a list of their own that needs to be ticked off. Travel maybe is not about what needs to be done. Perhaps, it is just about what you feel like doing at that time exactly. Imagine you are walking on the street and you find a really cozy café that looks really inviting, even if you are not up for a drink. Yes, you can pass it and think to yourself, I have so much to do. Or you can enter, answer the call of the moment and who knows what happens next. For many travelers, this moment with that place is just for that moment. They might never come back. Even for me, who knows will keep coming back, the moment is still just a moment. If I feel like living it, I should. Who knows when it will come back again, maybe it never will or if you are lucky like me, it will after ten years!
