Vacation: Traveling¶
I’ll shall be on my way into my well deserved vacation from Wednesday on. This was one reason to bring the site back online. Then I can keep track here, at least a bit.
But I already will miss Oslo a bit. You know why? Well, shots like these are possible while just crossing the street and a lot is happening here.
Helsinki, day 1, 2018-08-04¶
Welcome to Helsinki!
This is the first day of my vacation tour for the next 11 days and I started today in Helsinki. The flight left about 0640 in the morning, which caused me to get up pretty early. Yesterday I also developed some kind of illness. Nothing serious (as usual), but I wasn’t feeling very well and a kind of weak. Anyhow - I made it to Finland in one piece.
Actually: I’m a bit lost here. Don’t misunderstand me, that’s not a bad thing. I feel a bit reminded to my first weeks when I left my former home country about two years ago. Everything is a bit different, I don’t understand a single word. I like that (ok, ok.. there’s some Swedish as an official second language).
What is a bit annoying: it’s 25C and it feels like 35C. I caught another sunburn. This is supposed to be Scandinavia, not the middle east. But I’m overreacting a bit. Carrying a 10kg backpack around might be related to this as well. Therefore my first decision (after getting a City-Map (I somehow picked one from the closed Tourist information at the airport), was to find a nice park and rest a moment. I actually felt asleep in a park called Kaivopuisto/Brunnsparken in South of the city. Sea around me, soft blowing wind and a bit of sun. Very nice. I fall asleep and when I woke up, all of my front of my T-Shirt was green. Damnit. I fixed it in the next Dressmann Store.
Then I tried to find the National Museum of Finland. While writing this I still haven’t managed to do so. The area around the main central train station is a bit confusing for me, but I will try harder.
Tomorrow I shall check out the west part of the inner city area and one or two other museums. I’ll most probably also meet someone I already know from Home. Might be able to pick up some additional Sightseeing tips there.
Then I’ll also see if I like the City or not. Haven’t made up my mind about that yet - Just feel like I haven’t seen enough.
Update:
I found the way to the national museum. I don’t know, but the map of the city I’ve got is a bit stupid. Or I’m not half as good in orientation as I thought I’d be. But it was too late to go in there anyway. This is the plan for tomorrow: After going to Suomenlinna Maritime Fortress, there might be some time left for the National museum of Finland.
I think I’ll also start a new list, called “Things I didn’t know”. Thought theoretically it might become endless, let’s start with “Helsinki”
All Trams have free Wireless LAN. Buy a Period Ticket for one day (~ 6 EUR), sit down in a Tram and be online as long as you want while driving.
Inside the city borders of Helsinki it’s illegal to smoke even inside your own apartment or on your balcony. I haven’t found a proof for that story, so if some has a link or something???
Helsiki, day 2, 2010-08-05¶
Done today:
Fortress
National Museum of Finland
Swimming
Sauna (yepp)
The second day in Helsinki is over and I’ve managed to do all the things that I putted on my list yesterday. Yesterday as well I yelled about the too sunny weather, which might have been heard by someone: Until 1600 it was continuously raining. Not heavily, but strong enough to keep me wet all the time.
On the other hand I wasn’t freezing at all. These Canadian and Asian tourists instead, well, I don’t really know. They were hidden under about three layers of clothing and didn’t seem to sweat at all. But why am I writing about sweating at all? Never mind.
I took the Ferry to the Fortress, walked around a bit, crouched around a bit and ruined by trousers. Nice. Together with the rainy weather this was reason enough to end this and to take the ferry back to Helsinki. Into the next store and the trousers replaced. Damnit I wanted to this in Germany, not already in Finland. :(
This day didn’t started promising so I started my way back home. But on the way I thought: Well, how ofter are you actually in Finland? Right, not very often. Check out the National Museum!”.
Done.
I was a bit disappointed about that as well, maybe because I still had the Scottish one in my mind, which was really focused on presenting the Scottish history into every little detail. The finish one wasn’t. Was more like a review about the last 1000 year of nordic european history. Either I haven’t understand something correctly or it was really less information about Finland itself. But at least you get a lot back for your money.
Finally on the way home and walking round [Lake in the middle of Helsinki] the sun came out for the first time of the day. Back in the Apartment of my Hosts which give me accommodation for two nights), relaxing a bit, eating Boller and when Jad arrived getting convinced to go and visit a Sauna. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that I’ve never visited a Sauna before? The reason is simple: I don’t like sweating (hey, that’s how I started this arcticle!). But there it’s more like system-based. So I’ve seen a lot of naked Fins lately, top tainted, bottom tainted and in between: white like lime rock :D Compared to that my humble paleness looks really good.
So now I can finally say: “Sauna? Checked!” I might do it again, but just the other thing. The one with jumping into the Snow and so. Haven’t done this yet.
Now where I am leaving Finland, I wished a bit I would have stayed longer. Maybe toured a bit around. But I can come back, I’m sure.
PS: I’m still feeling sick, but I soldier on.
Germany, day 3, 2010-08-06¶
Today I left Helsinki, took the train to Tampere and jumped over to Bremen. My father has been so nice to pick me up there early in the morning. So I spent almost the rest of the day on my grandmothers birthday. But: before that we picked up my fathers Motorbike. It’s not becoming better by just standing around, you know? So I took merciful responsibility of this and keep the machine going.
The lack of sleep during the last days otherwise kept asking me for a payback, so I layed down for an hour or so during the evening before re-joining the party. My original plan for the evening was to later go out and have some fun in the next City or so, but I had to cancel this. I tried to watch “Apocalypse Now Redux” for a while, but I felt asleep. Nonetheless I this small video was taken during the ride from Helsinki to Tampere. Nothing special.
http://video.micronarrativ.org/blog/20100806-tur_fra_hel_til_tam.flv
Germany, day 4, 2010-08-07¶
A nice day. Met some friends for Brunch, then Shopping (I’ve got a nice, new bag - so I can finally throw away the blue one), then a huge Ice-cream for all of us. Then home, a bit relaxing and spending the whole evening at the grill-party of my friends (where I’m Best-Man). Meat for Free, was the Motto of the day. I made it up to four times to the Grill ;)
Some Veggies were involved, too. Since my friends have some international friends as well, I got into the lucky situation speaking with some guys from England. And - funny enough - the liked Berentzen Korn. Usually we used this in ancient times to make other people blind by drinking it. :D Unfortunately they just had hand luggage, so they couldn’t take a bottle with them. Since it was easier for me as well I just continued speaking English to everybody as well. Michael at the bar become a bit pissed, I think, because he knew I could understand German. His own ambitions to answer in English as well got in his way, I guess :)
Germany, day 5, 2010-08-08¶
Well, this day didn’t end that well as it started.
After the last long night I woke up pleased, had a nice breakfast with my Aunt and Uncle and updated the blog a bit. In the meantime I was checking the weather-forecast on www.windfinder.com for the wind conditions that afternoon. Everything was fine so we went sailing with my uncle for a bit.I think we spent at least two hours on the lake, making our first experiences with sailing. And I have to say: I like it a bit. Maybe in summer next year? Back home it will be even nicer. When the thunderstorm approached we went back home. We were lucky, the storm passed without any serious drops. So while waiting for the Grill to heat up we decided to make a quick motorbike tour.
And the we crashed.
I had an accident in a town nearby with the motorbike. I’ll not explain the circumstances here in detail, but I’m OK. Some clothes I need to buy new, the machine got be handled a bit roughly and has some scratches. All other people are also still alive and not in a critical state.
That was my evening. Not very pleasant, but some kind of a “highlight”.
Germany, day 6, 2018-08-09¶
After the big bang yesterday, I had to run this day a bit slower and more calm. So I did. A quick visit to the police for testimony is one of the only things I remember of that day.
I didn’t do very much and I thing that’s OK. There were enough highlights these days… I need to recover a bit.
Germany, day 8, 2010-08-11¶
I missed my flight to Barcelona, because
I calculated with 30min buffer
The “Deutsche Bahn” had a delay of 20 min
The security check expected explosives in my computer
I also had to throw away all the liquides in my luggage because I was supposed to have it on board as hand-luggage instead.
3 minutes to late. Looking for a place to sleep now….
[Update:] I found a place. Stayed at Jenny and her friends place on the couch. Nice. They have two cats as well :D