Just a couple of pictures taken on the way to the ferry in Helsinki – it’s amazing when the sun is so bright at 6 AM!
Morning In Helsinki
Tag: finland
Lilacs
Lilacs in bloom have always been a sign of summer for me, especially summer in Estonia. There were lilacs along all the streets of Narva-Joessu, and the month of June was all about them.
Yes, there are lilacs in ROgers park, and all my bike rides in May smelled lilacs, but it turned out that I completely forgot what lilacs in full bloom smell like! They are not “shrubs” – they are trees! Forest of lilacs! And the smell os overwhelming!
The flowers were so close to my face that I could not resist the childhood memories and started to look for “piatery” -“the lucky fives.” And guess what – I saw one right away!
And then I did what you’re supposed to do with the lucky five – I made a wish and chewed a tiny flower. And I hope that this wish will come true!
More lilacs – you can’t even see the leaves behind the bloom!
Border Control
One more thing which made my arrival to Helsinki miserable was the wait at the border control. I had never experienced a situation like yesterday when I waited in the border control line for over 45 minutes, like in O’Hare. I lady who was managing the line replied to my question, saying that I was lucky if I never saw it before :). I think it was a combination of several flights arriving almost at the same time, with many of them being late, so passengers with connections proceeded first. Also, I noticed that there was once again a significant trickle of Russian-speaking people with all sorts of passports coming in, and they would always go through extra scrutiny by the border control.
Trying to save time at this last stage of my journey, I gave my passport to the border control officer and said: staying here in Finland until next Saturday, not going anywhere.
–And where are you going next Saturday?
–Back to Chicago
–And you are not here for business, I assume?
–Nope, for husband. It doesn’t count like business, does it?
–Well, more like a hobby! Or… maybe… some business?
It was good to have a laugh, and I think he enjoyed it, too.
The one before the last disappointment was a rail tacks construction for the airport trains, which meant they are less frequent now. Sometimes on the weekends, you would have to wit for the train for 30 minutes! And the last one – massive road construction and a reroute of traffic by our house (it has been going on for a while, but when I was in Helsinki last time, I didn’t have time to notice). So, I need to learn new traffic patterns just when I learned my way around!
Suomenlinna
The is no other place i the world that would give you as much peace, calm and tranquility as Suomenlinna, even in during the busiest summer/tourist season!
A War Memorial For The Fallen Finnish Citizen Destroyed
I saw this in the news yesterday- this act of vandalism was performed after Putin Visited Saint Petersburg on the Day of the End of Seige of Leningrad and mentioned that “all our enemies are our enemies, regardless of nationality.”
Details in Finnish and in Russian.
Before
And after
Fazer Ice -Cream
I wanted to try one of Fazer’s ice cream creations for a while, and yesterday was the first time tried Fazerella. And believe it or not, my verdict – too much chocolate! Boris was wiser to choose rhubarb sorbet with truffle ice cream!
Crossing The Border
I wrote this post yesterday and forgot to post it. I am not pretending I didn’t suspect what was going to happen, but still, what happened today, didn’t happen yet….
A very disturbing thing happened when I went through the border control in Helsinki on my way back. First, I was happy to see they now have the same machines as in London, where you can scan your chipped passport. Then I saw that I still had to present the passport to the officer. On my way back, I never ever encountered any questions. This time, the office started to scroll through my passport pages and asked me which countries I had visited and whether I was in Russia. Just to be clear, since I am a naturalized citizen, my country of origin is indicated in my US passport, but still!
The office kept scrolling, found the stamps from 2019, and looked at me inquisitively. I said – I haven’t been there since 2019. He kept scrolling and finally said: good; I see your entrance stamp. Because if you visited Russia at that time, we would have to question you (and he waved in an unspecified direction).
It was very disturbing but understandable. I know I have my share of guilt with everything happening, and it’s in Finland where I feel it even more.
And since I am posting it today, not yesterday, I want to reiterate – we stand with Ukraine! I saw these flags in the Southern part of State Street, quite unexpectedly:
Helsinki
I was in Helsinki for only one and a half days. On the first (half) of the day, I visited Natasha at her home and met with the whole family – the last time I saw everybody was in March!
This time, the situation in the world (and on the war front) was different, so our conversation was much happier, even in view of the European energy crisis.
On the second day, I did some work, mostly interacting with our London-based team, and then Boris and I biked to IKEA – something he had wanted to do for a while. He already made a couple of solo biking tips there, and he wanted to do it with me as well. We declared a late lunch to be our primary purpose, but it is impossible not to browse what’s out there!
On Tuesday, we had a very early flight to Amsterdam. Since Boris has Finnair Gold, we could hang out in the Finnair lounge and have breakfast there (and I forgot to take pictures :)).
Also, I upgraded us to Finnair Plus, so we had these cool seats with lights and elevated leg rests 🙂
Smells Can’t Be Captured
Since early May, I meant to blog about the smells which follow me on my bike rides in Chicago, how the lilacs were heavenly, and how now they are gone and everything smells with linden. In Helsinki, lilacs were still in bloom when I arrived, but in the past two days they were almost gone and the strong smell of jasmine started to dominate. It’s one of my childhood smells, strongly associated with July. That’s how the second session of the pioneer camp smelled :).
Small Things
When I am in Finland, I always admire many small things which are just done right! There are many big things which are done right as well, like. Oodi library, or the way the trees are re-planted after major streets’ reconstructions or medical services. But sometimes, it’s these small things:
Hettie's Reflections 