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helsinki...
Jul. 24th, 2008 09:39 pmI don't often do historical posts but I wrote this in Finland when didn't have Internet to post it so you may as well have it!!
Sleigh (slay?) bells - 20th July (Sunday)
After the intensity of the conference proper, and the utter exhaustion of the post-con sightseeing day in Helsinki (featuring a decadent champagne and strawberries rooftop reception sponsored by a local law firm, and a fabulous final conference meal in the Helsinki version of the Crystal Palace (Keppeli), of local salmon, completed with cloudberry liqueur) Sunday is a much needed chance to sleep in, read my email and veg. It also turns out to be reindeer day.
Reindeer meatball and fried potatoes and sausages with lingonberries at the outdoor market square (mmmm); reindeer roast with cheesey creamy sauerkraut at night at the amazing Zetor, a 50s style cellar restaurant opened by a member of the Leningrad Cowboys, kinda the Hard Rock Cafe Helsinki gone dada, with extra tractors. Dishes have names like “Netiquette”, “Love poem with meatballs”... and “Snack for the women’s DDR Shotput team” My reindeer is called, appropriately(?), “Slip into something more comfortable”. Almost everything comes with either sauerkraut or beetroot, which is why I end up with the former. Despite my qualms, it’s all lovely. And I still want to go back try the sour rhubarb liqueur. (Other rec for those heading Helsinki wards – Strindberg’s for lunch – amazing salads and rolls and cakes, and the best people-watching.)
My dinner companions are Andy-from-Hull, a very longtime IT law friend, and his wife Karen, who’s Canadian and a bit more serious than I’m used to dealing with. I hope she isn’t bored as Andy and I fall into our usual repartee of appalling gossip about fellow colleagues, anecdotes of what foreign places we’ve been to lately (we both get points this year for Finland and Estonia as new countries visited but Andy trumps me with Roumania and Bulgaria. And I can’t count Montreal even as Andy and Karen live in Toronto. Bah!) and reminisces about times we’ve been horribly drunk together (many). We emerge out of the dark restaurant at 9 ish into the usual bright daylight. It is kinda weird.
The rest of the day is mostly shopping (a cute as anything Japanese Moomin luggage tag, a purple hand dyed linen poncho and a red-purple pendant made from hand-dyed silk too). The market on Sunday is full of local handicrafts – moose and Moomins with everything - as well as the usual stalls of food, ice cream and luscious soft fruits. In a vague attempt to be a proper sightseer, I take the 15 minute ferry to a former Swedish-Russian fortress island which has a real name Suomo-someting but which I have taken to calling Semolina as the Finnish is so impossible to remember. It’s interesting to see as it’s not just a military museum, but also an example of Finnish commuter island life: 850 people still live there and there’s the required church, parks and beach. I make the mistake however of catching what I think is a water taxi which will tour me round the island: instead it takes me back to Helsinki slightly early. Oh well!!
Monday is getting the 8am ferry to Tallin, Estonia as the 10 am was cancelled: and I have to get there 30 mins early to check in too: oh god!!!
To be continued!!!
.. meanwile.. how they can spin an hour out of watching John Barrowman take an MRI and a DNA test!!! My god it's good he's so nice :-) but Stephen Fry on being bipolar it is NOT.
Sleigh (slay?) bells - 20th July (Sunday)
After the intensity of the conference proper, and the utter exhaustion of the post-con sightseeing day in Helsinki (featuring a decadent champagne and strawberries rooftop reception sponsored by a local law firm, and a fabulous final conference meal in the Helsinki version of the Crystal Palace (Keppeli), of local salmon, completed with cloudberry liqueur) Sunday is a much needed chance to sleep in, read my email and veg. It also turns out to be reindeer day.
Reindeer meatball and fried potatoes and sausages with lingonberries at the outdoor market square (mmmm); reindeer roast with cheesey creamy sauerkraut at night at the amazing Zetor, a 50s style cellar restaurant opened by a member of the Leningrad Cowboys, kinda the Hard Rock Cafe Helsinki gone dada, with extra tractors. Dishes have names like “Netiquette”, “Love poem with meatballs”... and “Snack for the women’s DDR Shotput team” My reindeer is called, appropriately(?), “Slip into something more comfortable”. Almost everything comes with either sauerkraut or beetroot, which is why I end up with the former. Despite my qualms, it’s all lovely. And I still want to go back try the sour rhubarb liqueur. (Other rec for those heading Helsinki wards – Strindberg’s for lunch – amazing salads and rolls and cakes, and the best people-watching.)
My dinner companions are Andy-from-Hull, a very longtime IT law friend, and his wife Karen, who’s Canadian and a bit more serious than I’m used to dealing with. I hope she isn’t bored as Andy and I fall into our usual repartee of appalling gossip about fellow colleagues, anecdotes of what foreign places we’ve been to lately (we both get points this year for Finland and Estonia as new countries visited but Andy trumps me with Roumania and Bulgaria. And I can’t count Montreal even as Andy and Karen live in Toronto. Bah!) and reminisces about times we’ve been horribly drunk together (many). We emerge out of the dark restaurant at 9 ish into the usual bright daylight. It is kinda weird.
The rest of the day is mostly shopping (a cute as anything Japanese Moomin luggage tag, a purple hand dyed linen poncho and a red-purple pendant made from hand-dyed silk too). The market on Sunday is full of local handicrafts – moose and Moomins with everything - as well as the usual stalls of food, ice cream and luscious soft fruits. In a vague attempt to be a proper sightseer, I take the 15 minute ferry to a former Swedish-Russian fortress island which has a real name Suomo-someting but which I have taken to calling Semolina as the Finnish is so impossible to remember. It’s interesting to see as it’s not just a military museum, but also an example of Finnish commuter island life: 850 people still live there and there’s the required church, parks and beach. I make the mistake however of catching what I think is a water taxi which will tour me round the island: instead it takes me back to Helsinki slightly early. Oh well!!
Monday is getting the 8am ferry to Tallin, Estonia as the 10 am was cancelled: and I have to get there 30 mins early to check in too: oh god!!!
To be continued!!!
.. meanwile.. how they can spin an hour out of watching John Barrowman take an MRI and a DNA test!!! My god it's good he's so nice :-) but Stephen Fry on being bipolar it is NOT.
