Return to Helsinki

We were met at the Helsinki train station by the taxi driver who'd brought us to the station the week before. We talked about our travels to the north and about his upcoming trip to New York and Washington.
About Helsinki. Not surprisingly, Helsinki is a very white city, whiter even than Holden. Finns are not the stereotypical Nordic types, however, with blond hair and pale-to-pink skin. Brown and even black hair, such as my mother's, is common, as are some oriental features (high cheekbones, skin several shades from pale) as the result of mixing with the Sami people of Lapland.
That said, people of color are noticeable for both their rarity and purity. In the 90s, Finland accepted many refugees from the Somali civil war, with the result that you have African teenagers hanging out, speaking what this ear believes is perfect Finnish.
There are also immigrants from other parts of the world - southern Europe, Turkey, south Asia, and a few from the Pacific Rim. Tourists, too, come from all over. The breakfast buffet included sushi and rice. The dining cars on the trains served a decent curry.
We had an early dinner at a Nepalese restaurant a couple of blocks from our hotel. We had the best nan we've ever had. Our meals, with lamb, rice, and yogurt sauce, were very tasty, although mine was, and this was a surprise to me, too spicy to enjoy full. I'm usually pretty good about being able to take the heat, but I needed help from the yogurt quite often.

A couple of hours later, we had sauna at the hotel and then settled in for some Finnish television. One show was a three-hour accordion talent show. An intense girl of nine or so played a creditable version of Take Five.
On Thursday, we were scheduled for an early-afternoon narrated bus tour of the city, giving us time for a leisurely breakfast and a walk to the Olympic Stadium.

Our hotel offered a couple of English-language newspapers, the International Herald Tribune and the Financial Times. At home, I get nearly all of my news online and generally read the newspaper only on Sunday. Here, with time and a hunger for words I could recognize, I savored the experience, particularly the IHT.
The Olympic facilities were a couple kilometers from our hotel. Finland had been given the rights to the 1940 Olympics and had built the stadium and related complex through the 30s. Those Olympics were, um, overcome by events. As a result, the Helsinki hosted the 1952 games.
We took the elevator to the top of the Olympic tower and had a magnificent view of the city and beyond. We were told that, on a clear day, we could see Tallin, the Estonian capital across the Baltic. The day was clear so we believed that we saw it.

The afternoon went quickly. We had our dessert first at a small ice cream stand, under an umbrella because we were told that the seagulls would attack us, toured the city by bus, and had lunch at a nice restaurant on the Esplanade. As I've mentioned, businesses often play American jazz as background music. This nice restaurant, however, wasn't paying close attention to the lyrics, I guess. Nina Simone's Mississippi Goddam is not your typical lunchtime tune
After lunch, we went shopping, finding some nifty things at the Iittala and Marimekko stores. We were delighted with our purchases, but we now had to travel with a bag of fragile glasses. It was agreed that Sandra would carry the Iittala bag and I'd tote the other stuff for the rest of the trip.

We were tired. We'd walked a lot, seen a lot, but decided to take one last tour around the big plaza between the train station and our hotel. We saw people enjoying the fine weather with a late-afternoon beer (not to be confused with the mid-morning, lunch-time, mid-afternoon, after-dinner, or late-night beer). Kids were on skateboards. Bicyclists zipped through the crowds of people. It was a fine place to be and also time to get ready to move on.
I picked up a few things at a corner grocery store for our supper. I neglected to get a spoon for our yogurt, so we ate using the coffee stirrers in the room. (In our visit to Iceland, we saw a clever feature, a folding plastic spoon that fits inside of the cover of the yogurt container. I saved a couple of them for future travels.)
The next morning, we walked around a bit, had mid-morning coffee and a Napoleon at Cafe Ekberg. Our taxi-driver friend picked us up again and so we had another chance to talk about his trip. He'd heard that the Statue of Liberty crown was reopening, but we agreed that the crowds would be massive. He'd take a boat ride around Lady Liberty and visit the Empire State Building and the Guggenheim in New York. His plans for Washington were still open.
Finnair flew us to Iceland. With the time difference, the four-and-a-half hour flight only took a half-hour. We landed in Keflavik Airport, got some strange money from the ATM, and took a bus to the strangest place on the planet.