5/25/15, “Helsinki 1952”
Helsinki, Finland
From the photo here, it is quite obvious that I can declare the trip a
success. Here I am inside the 1952
Olympic Stadium, and I didn’t even have to sneak in (my ass muscle is still
hurting from hopping that fence in Stockholm).
What was going on 63 years ago, in 1952, when the Games of the XV
Olympiad were held? My father was still
in high school, getting into the same kind of trouble I got into in grade
school. My mother was not even born yet,
her parents having just been married, I think.
The Korean War, was underway, I believe, and Dwight Eisenhower was
running against Adali Stevenson with the pledge that he would “go to Korea and
end the war.” It is now 63 years later,
Eisenhower is long dead, the war is still not over, and our troops are still
stationed there.
However, what does any
of this have to do with Helsinki? The
Cold War was in full bloom, and Finland had, I believe resisted the sway of the
Soviet Empire, instead remaining independent as the Republic of Finland
(Sweden, Denmark, and Norway are kingdoms, are they not?). It was joked that when someone in Leningrad
wanted good Russian food they had to go to Helsinki. Mayhaps I will go to one of those restaurants
for dinner tonight.
I said the definition
of success of this trip was going inside both Olympic Stadiums. I have now been inside both Stadiums. I will not be back in New York for at least
32 hours, though. Despite my late start
(it is now close to 1 PM), I have plenty of time. I want to see the fort and then go to Senate
Square, that’s it. I can be done with
all of that by 6 PM, easily, get a quick bite, be asleep by 9 PM, and wake up
early for my flight. I’m sure my reader
knows that there is zero chance I will be asleep before midnight tonight. I will enjoy every last minute I have in
Finland.
After I closed last night, I
managed to upload my entry and photos just before the power went out. It was still light. I tried falling asleep, but no dice. At some point, it must have been half an hour
later, I realized that I was not going to fall asleep at all. There was still too much light coming into
the room, and I didn’t want to use the blackout shades, without the electricity
I couldn’t use my sleep machines.
However, I slept fine in the plane with light and no sleep machine, why
then did I lay in bed for three hours?
Finally, I realized that I needed to get out of bed. It was 4 AM.
Had I seriously being lying awake for three hours? It didn’t feel that way. The electricity soon came back on, and I used
the blackout shades, falling asleep quickly, waking up all too soon for
breakfast.
I rushed down, had a nice
meal but not much of an appetite, and came back upstairs to nap for another
hour or so. I’m still a little
groggy. In all, the Stadium (and
everything else) opened at 10 AM, and I will be done here around 1 PM, so I
really only lost a couple of hours, but leaving my hotel room past noon just
felt wrong on so many levels. I can now
triumphantly walk back to the harbor, getting my souvenirs on the way, and head
to the fort.
Right, so I left my hotel,
the Tower clearly visible from the sidewalk, and I found the entrance to the
Tower. I asked if I could go inside the
Stadium? He said that I could sit in the
stands but not run on the tracks.
Perfect. “The middle door is
open.” No admission fee? Apparently, the admission fee was just for
the tower. Maybe I’ll come back later to
visit the tower, since they’re open until 8 PM.
I went inside and found a nice place to sit on the wooden benches,
probably original from 1952, where I proceeded to write this entry, which I
will now close so that I can explore the rest of Helsinki.
Suomenlinna, Finland
In its prime, Suomenlinna, originally known as Sveaborg, was the
premiere fortress in the Baltic. I am
sitting on 250 years of history. Today,
it is one of Finland’s most popular summer tourist destinations. I do not want to write about 250 years of
history. I want to write about a very
simple moment that happened on the boat to the island. “Where are you from?” It’s such a simple question, one I have been
asked dozens, maybe half a hundred times in my travels. Why then have I never been the one to
initiate that question, that simple conversation starter?
I guess my extreme introversion would be the
root cause of it, the reason why, it took me a solid ten minutes of constantly
reminding myself that I would never see her again and thinking what the worse
that could happen was. It was the same
feeling I had at the Tony’s three years ago and in philosophy class three weeks
ago. I am quite pleased that I found the
courage those two times in New York, just as I am pleased that I found the
courage. Nothing came out of this, no
new best friend from the Tony’s, no potential new girlfriend from philosophy
class, nothing other than a tiny little bit of self-improvement, and maybe
that’s more important than anything else this trip, except the Olympic Stadiums
of course.
I have a theory, and it might
be one of my most important theories. It
goes like this: “The more I do things that are hard for me when the results
don’t matter, the easier it will be to do them when the results do matter.” It is such a simple bit of philosophy, and it
was a life-changing revelation when I first realized it. It was what gave me the courage to talk to
the cute girl on the boat. Okay, I
suppose my reader would like more details.
“I left the stadium, got on a boat to the island, talked to a cute girl
on the boat, and walked to the top of the fortress, where I proceeded to write
this entry” makes for a boring entry, but I will need to pause to light up a
pipe before I continue.
After I closed,
I headed towards the ferry, stopping for ice cream and souvenirs (just a pin
and t-shirt) along the way. The ferry
was at a placed called “Market Square,” an apt name with all the food and
souvenir vendors there. I also stopped
at the theatre along the way, since Mamma Mia! Is playing tonight, and I am
considering seeing it. The show is in
Swedish, but I know the plot well enough that I have no doubt I will be able to
follow along. It’s a little pricey, but
it might be worthwhile. Not for the
first time, someone has just taken a picture of me writing my entry, smoking a
cigar or a pipe, and I am always happy to oblige. The Travelling Philosopher needs his image
spread across the globe.
Alright, the
ferry boat to Suomenlinna. I sat down,
and there a group of three very good looking girls. They had the Northern look, but they were
speaking English with an accent. The
girl on the far right was gorgeous, absolutely stunning. I did not catch a glimpse of the girl in the
middle. The girl on the far left was,
quite simply, adorable, the way she conducted herself more than anything
else. She kept smiling at me. It took me a solid five minutes to work up
the courage to meekly say “Hey,” a greeting she cheerfully returned. All I had to do was ask her that simple
question, the one I have always been asked but never ask. It took me another five minutes to work up
the courage to ask her that.
Reader, the
boat ride was only fifteen minutes, and I spent ten of them overcoming my
introversion. “Scotland,” she gladly
offered. Ah, that explained it, the
Northern look, the accent, the English-speaking. I should have guessed. We chatted until the boat pulled in, and I
got off feeling quite triumphant. When I
was in Scotland, the opposite happened.
I could not find my courage to talk to a gorgeous girl at the hotel, one
of the most gorgeous (top ten, for sure) girls I had ever seen. Now, a year later, I have managed to do
so. It could be said that my travels
have given me the opportunity to overcome my introversion, knowing that these
people I meet are strangers and that I have nothing to lose and everything to
gain.
Suomenlinna was not exactly what I
expected, but it was not disappointing either.
I got my first fika in Finland, and then I lit up a Partagas for a walk
through the fortified city. The gift shop
was disappointing. I made my way up the
hill and took a seat in front of a cannon, where I proceeded to write this
entry, which I will now close so that I can finish my Ardor and make my way to
the end of the island, where I will catch the boat back to Helsinki. I can see the Cathedral, the most famous
landmark in Helsinki, from where I sit, and that will be my next
destination. After I take my pictures
there and buy my souvenirs, I will head back to the hotel, where I will decide
how I want to spend my final evening in Helsinki. On that note, I close.
Helsinki, Finland
The sun is setting over Helsinki, and that means that my time here is
coming to an end. “A moment like
this.” Sometimes one special moment, one
unforgettable experience is the difference between a good trip, and a great
trip. I just came back from seeing Mamma
Mia! in Swedish. It was truly a magical
experience. I have been on many great
trips and however I choose to rank them, it rarely these magic moments that
bring something into the top ten. It’s
trips like my Eurotrip with a 100 little magic moments. It’s so often the aggregate that matters
rather than individual. To say that I
loved every minute of this trip would be a lie, but I have certainly not done
anything that I didn’t enjoy.
It was
merely 60 hours ago when I got on the boat to Birka, and I have now seen
everything I want to see in both Stockholm.
I will do the Fenno-Scandia Complete trip and, when I do, I will not
need to set foot within the city limits of Stockholm or Helsinki. I will do a proper Baltic trip, three nights,
Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius. Those are
future trips, and I am sure I will love each of those trips. I think the most significant part is that I
can effortless rattle off the Olympic Stadiums that are remaining to me:
Beijing 2008, Athens 2004, Sydney 2000, Seoul 1988, Rome 1960, Melbourne 1956,
plus possibly revisit London 2012 and Antwerp 1920 to set foot inside. That’s it.
What else do I have left on my agenda outside North America? Machu Picchu (Peru), Christ the Redeemer and
the Harbour of Rio (will have to visit for the 2016 Games anyway), the Great
Barrier Reef (same country as Sydney and Melbourne), the Great Wall of China
(near Beijing), the Coliseum (in Rome), Rhodes (same country as Athens),
Victoria Falls (going for my birthday this year), the Pyramids and Alexandria
in Egypt (might go for Thanksgiving this year), and the ruins of Babylon. It is that last one that will be most
difficult due to the current geopolitical situation, but a lot can change in
two years. When I was at Grantley Adams,
I outlined what remained to me in North America. There is slightly more than two years left in
my mission, and I am well on track to complete all 17 of my goals. Enough about this.
After I closed at the Stadium, I headed down
to the harbor, picking up just a t-shirt and flag pin along the way. All the other souvenirs featured the Helsinki
Cathedral, and I refused to buy anything with an image of the Cathedral until I
had taken a picture of it. I walked
through Market Square right next to the harbor, which had all the food and
souvenir vendors. Again, I hadn’t seen
the Cathedral yet, so no point. Wait,
hold on, didn’t I write an entry at Suomenlinna? Oh right, I spent that entry talking about
the cute stranger I chatted up, something that took me 27 years and 52
countries to figure out how to do.
Alright, after I closed at Suomenlinna, I walked to the ferry terminal
at the other end of the island from where we had first landed. I was running low on water and battery in my
phone, so I had to limit the number of photos I’d take. I got off the boat at Market Square, seeing
the food and souvenir vendors starting to pack up. It was not yet 5 PM, but I guess people had
boarded the cruise ship, so there was no point for them sticking around. I walked up to a food vendor that had
interesting choices, but I had no appetite.
I had a meager enough breakfast, and all I had had since then was a fika
at Suomenlinna. Where was my
appetite? I then walked towards the
cathedral, finally getting my souvenirs, including a replica of the Cathedral. I took my pictures, and I started to have a
bit of an appetite, but the vendors were all packed up.
Then I saw it, a big grill with lots of
meat. I was about to ask for a sampler
plate or something, but she seemed to have read my thoughts. She put a paper plate down and offered,
alright, I avoid using specific monetary amounts for a few reasons. First, I don’t want people to know exactly
how much I spend on these trips. Second,
I want these entries to be timeless, and including dollar amounts or other
currencies, which fluctuate based on exchange rates and inflation, makes it
specific to a certain time. I hate when
I read books and find myself having to constantly convert to modern dollar
amounts, so I avoid my future readers having that issue. However, I will include the quote, and a
reference. She announced, “Big plate of
food, five euros.” That was outrageously
cheap, less than half of what I would have expected to play for a much smaller
plate, but she just wanted to get rid of the food, so she didn’t have to throw
it out. It was reindeer, venison, and
fish, crisped up in various forms. It
was so good, but I couldn’t finish it, not having a full appetite yet.
I headed back to the hotel, needing to charge
my phone, lighting up a Heisenberg for the walk. When I got upstairs, I had a very limited
amount of time (only thirty minutes, tops), so I couldn’t get a full charge on
my phone. I lit up an Undercrown, not
finishing it and having to let it go out so that I could bring the rest of it
with me on the walk to the theatre. The
tickets were actually kind of pricy, especially for the seats, about twice what
I might pay for student tickets on Broadway.
I got a piece of cheesecake (either raspberry or lingonberry) before the
show. I knew the show would be in
Swedish, but I guess I had expected the songs to be in English. I was wrong.
I didn’t have much trouble following along, and it was truly a magical
experience.
I had my last fika
(blueberry cake and coffee) of the trip during the intermission, and the second
half was even more magical. After the
show, I walked back to my hotel, arranged everything for the morning, went up
to my room, put on the Mamma Mia! movie soundtrack, lit up my Ser Jacopo, and proceeded
to write this entry, which I will now close.
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