Moved in

We are in our new apartment in the Ruoholahti neighborhood of Helsinki finally. There was a different container outside the apartment when we arrived on Wednesday, up on stilts, and our stuff was all in there. We are almost out of boxes now on Saturday and are dealing with the chaos of how to use the extensive closets in this place. That will take a while. One thing that's quite different is the Finns take their lighting - all of it - when they move. So I was on the hunt for lamps all week, and we'll be back at it today. I think it's that lighting here is of very particular designs, and mostly very expensive, so it's assumed you'd want your own style and to hang on to your investment. We'll be more frugal. I'm talking overhead fixtures too! We had lights in the kitchen, hall and bathrooms the night we moved in - plus candles that resurfaced in a timely manner for our first dinner.

The next night was the first wow sunset, as the clouds broke on the horizon and filled the place with mauve light.



We are at the end of the block and by a shore walk so we see all the dog walkers, which is great. Then we also have a resident swan family with four cygnets that naps right outside our windows. They are very tame here. Plus a guy who does a quick dip in the water every morning. I'm curous to see if he also does this through ice in the winter - it's very common here!

As to water fowl, here's the loon looking out over the canal - see the boat too? If you want to view pics larger, you can click on them - but they may get huge, fyi.

Until Monday, I thought we were going to be sleeping on the couch as we did not bring a bed due to the different European bedding styles, but after much internet research, I found this whole bed at a great sale price (ale in Suomi) and a store I could actually find right in town. So I was able to buy it and have it delivered Wednesday evening, and Gerald got it put together before the sun set completely too. It will take a while but each thing is coming together, bit by bit.

Kahvila dinner

We have been lucky to find ourselves staying across the street from a nice cafe, the Kahvila Suomi, which also happens to have been the location of a popular Japanese film (Kamome Shokudo aka Kamome Diner aka Ruokala Lokki) a few years back that draws a lot of Japanese people in to take pictures and have a meal. It's a small place that is very relaxed with great people running the kitchen, serving typical Finnish dishes.

The Finns like a big lunch and this place serves that mostly, though if we can make it before they close at 6 we can have early dinner. They already know us and kindly help us translate the menu. Tonight we both had the smelt plate with bean soup and salad to start - all delicious. People have asked about the food so I thought I'd share pictures here, plus Gerald helping the tourists record their pilgrimage to the diner.

School days cool days

I just finished my Finnish homework. We did make it into a beginning Finnish class at the university on Tuesday evenings. Our first class last week went very fast and our instructor spoke mostly Finnish so we had to intuit a lot. Of the thirty or so people we have in the class there are more than a dozen nationalities and sixteen different languages spoken. With the speed of the class I don't think we'll get much of a chance to get to know the others which is unfortunate, since they must all have interesting stories as to what brought them to Helsinki. Things I learned - there's a language in Switzerland called retoromanian which I had never heard of, and the Finnish word for Russia is Venäjä. People were using it thoughout the class and I couldn't decipher the meaning until I turned to the woman behind me who is Venäläinen to ask. There are so many times where I wonder about the derivation of a given word as the roots are so different. We both definitely now have a much more empathetic sense of how isolating it is for people who don't speak the language where they live - you miss the subtleties and humor that native speakers just take for granted, and must communicate on the most mundane levels. Being barred from media is frustrating, though we've got the internet of course, but we miss our Sunday papers. We aren't encountering any hostilities at all though, and the Finns are very adaptable linguistically. It's impressive. That and our fellow students who speak four languages and are learning a fifth with us.

We are in our adjustment phase as we deal with more paperwork and try to settle into this interim routine, but we move to our apartment next week and retrieve our things from the container so that should help us feel more settled. And the Z should be here tomorrow! I'll take its picture soon. It's the sense of being on vacation that is wearing off now - that and the very cool fall weather. I can't wait to get some other clothes out of storage.

I was getting a bit concerned that the aforementioned and pictured here Totally Black (cue Superfly theme song here) licorice ice cream bar was just available in the summer, since I couldn't find them lately, but I found one at a bigger market down by the harbor tonight. I braved gale force winds on the walk over - not really - but it's a harbinger of things to come right here on this northerly coast. We're acclimating day by day.

Here's the windmill and water mill house, plus the boat house and the tar boats within.

We found a house with a roof steeper than Third Street! And also a nice swing to substitute for the one Gerald likes to reserve for the 4th of July at the lake. Though they don't have fireworks on this island - they do have a huge bonfire at Midsummer. Here's the restaurant where we ate a light lunch of salmon soup and bread. We opted for the cafeteria line over the pricey dining room, and sitting on the terrace was very pleasant. Down the hill from the restaurant there is a small pier where people can arrive by boat.

Seurasaari Island

After a few weeks of regular rain showers each day, Sunday looked to be especially nice so we found our way to Seurasaari Island by a quick bus ride from the center of Helsinki. We were looking for one of the seasonal summer restaurants that are found on small islands around the city, a few of which I've posted pictures of earlier. These will close down soon so we wanted to try one while we still had the chance. What we didn't know was how extensive the historical exhibits are on the island, and we only saw a portion of them so we'll definitely be back to see more, and to go to the museum too. There is a Lapp cottage and a tree hut for storage, an interesting fence made of logs, a little summer house, plus some nice swans we saw on our way off the island and the bridge back to the bus. Seurasaari is a must-see in Helsinki.

A short sail

I got out of town today. Gerald worked from home recuperating from his cold, so what did I do? Stay home and nurse him? No - I went out to sea instead. It's actually one of the last warmer days, I'm guessing (~60-F) and so I took an afternoon sightseeing boat out around the Gulf of Finland into the east archipelago. Since he had his sail last week, we're even now. We do hope to get to one of the summer restaurants before they close for the season too. I'll post the two I saw here. They are out on small islands near Helsinki and you catch a boat out to them from Market Square where I caught this ride. I was out for just under two hours, and what a change of scenery in such a short time. I'll post pictures of island saunas, the granite that underlies this whole area, a tiki hut someone is building (I'd like to see what that looks like in five months), and the old market from the water. I didn't wear quite warm enough gear but it was invigorating! The schooner that sailed by was so beautiful - I think her name is Astrid.

Out of town

Ensilumen & fireworks

It was a busy week. particularly for Gerald working all week at various locations around Espoo (pronounced expo with a b) and last week he should have won a transportation badge for getting on all the various transport systems in two days, including trains, trams, buses, subways and a sailboat too. He's really getting a hang of it and we now have our travel cards so we don't need to pay per trip and just walk on and ride. Mass transit works great here and we're happy to be able to use it all the time. Here's a picture of the metro stop in our new neighborhood - a 3 or 4 floor descent! I made my way up to the University of Helsinki early in the week and had a helpful chat with the administrator in the English Department. As school is just about to begin most everyone is all staffed but she had some good suggestions for me otherwise for teaching and editing work.

Ensilumen means first snow as I decipher it. When looking words up in the dictionaries, we seldom find the exact word and have to make uneducated guesses on what the parts of the word may mean. So when watching the news the other day (trying to learn the language by osmosis) I saw a nice lakeside picture with snow and titled Ensilumen or something close to that. It's a reminder that we are here in this country that has the arctic circle running right through it, and way up in the top of the country it has gotten to 0-C and so they did get a dusting of snow. For the last week the winds have been coming from up there so it's been cool here (50s & 60s-F), but also really interesting. We've seen two rainbows as the rain will pour down in one spot and bright sun will be shining just a few blocks away. The air is very clear too. They do say it's unseasonably cold so I hope we do yet get some of those warm fall days that are so pleasant in Michigan.

It was a week of contrasts - probably typical for expats - like the rain and rainbows. I decided to walk over to the Design Museum Thursday and happened upon an exhibit of vintage Marimekko dresses, evening gowns and fabric designs- it was a fantastic surprise. Then yesterday I got all pent up trying to sign up for Finnish classes for us online, and encountering the majority of those sites in --- Finnish! Like this emphatic note: Kurssille täytyy ilmoittautua henkilökohtaisesti koulussa. Kela-kortti ja työvoimatoimiston asiakaskortti mukaan! Huh? We finally settled on a course at the university's language centre so hopefully we can get registered for that. Then Gerald was too fatigued from his busy week to go up to a fireworks competition last night, so I found my way onto the roof after he went to bed and saw the most awesome and unusual fireworks (well the top two-thirds which showed above the roof tops - pictured here in the daytime) that I've ever seen.
All different shapes and colors - some like Saturn. The moon was out and I had the terrace to myself so it was a very magical hour on the skyline of Helsinki. I only learned today that the terrace is not really a public space so I feel lucky to have inadvertently snuck out there last night. Next year this event is a must as it is done on a bay right in the middle of Helsinki.

We met the owner of the apartment we will be renting this morning and we're all in agreement on things so we'll settle that this coming week, and he was very nice which is reassuring. We should be moving in the last week of September. Jet-setter Gerald is off to Denmark for a meeting Monday and returns Tuesday. In the time I've been writing this entry it has poured rain and now the sun is fully shining, and I'm listening to Michigan Radio - since Gerald wanted to hear Car Talk. We get it at 5pm instead of 10am. And I'm so happy that Gerald got us wireless again today. We've been sharing one ethernet cord and we're not used to that! Oohh - really dark clouds coming this way - that Baltic is quite fickle.