Going to HEL (Handbasket Optional)

Sunday, November 29, 2015
Helsinki, Southern Finland, Finland
I had always known that the software industry uses a ton of acronyms. However, the travel industry's reliance on acronyms absolutely dwarfs the software industry's. And within the travel industry, the most widely-used set of acronyms is the three-letter ISO codes, known by their OWN acronym of "TLAs." "TLA," hilariously enough, stands for "Three Letter Acronym." And these infamous TLAs are the codes used to identify airports, but also the cities containing the airports themselves. When you book an air ticket, these are the three-letter codes in your "Departure" and "Destination" fields. Most people aren't aware of just how many airports there are in the world- there are HUNDREDS, and each must have its own TLA. There are so many, in fact, that travel industry people have a game where we try to make sentences using just TLAs. My personal favorite, because I'm a Seattle girl, is SEA YOO LTR (Seattle/Ontario, Canada/Letterkenny, Ireland).

So this little digression is to explain my blog title today . Last night we flew to Helsinki, Finland, which has the awesome TLA of HEL. Another side digression: A few years back, Finland's national carrier, FinnAir, made international news because they managed to schedule Flight 1313 to HEL...on Friday the 13th. And a not-insignificant number of passengers either cancelled their tickets, or tried desperately to change filghts. I don't know who in that anecdote looks stupider- the superstitious passengers, or FinnAir for not even bothering to notice that quite delicious scheduling mishap. Anyway.

Our flight departed London at 6pm Saturday evening, and with the two-hour time change, we arrived in Helsinki at 11pm. We took the light rail line from the airport into the city center "Copenhagen style" (note: see Copenhagen blog from 2013. My only defense is the Nordics' ticketing machines make life difficult for non-chip and pin cards. I'm just sayin'.). Our hotel was a little slice of Nordic paradise- that minimalist, yet cozy and snug design the north does so well . We didn't get to enjoy our hotel much, however, as we were up at 7:30am, and breakfasted and out to explore the city by 9:30am.

Helsinki surprised me. I realized that I had the same preconceived notions when we visited Malmo, Sweden back in 2013 (visited, ahem, "Copenhagen style," meaning we left Copenhagen and forgot to pay the train fare en route to Sweden). I arrived in the Nordics expecting to see IKEAs and Christmas trees. Like Malmo, Helsinki has its share of Christmas trees, but the architecture was completely unexpected. The city has an interesting mix of beautiful art noveau buildings lining its elegant pedestrianized shopping zone, plus classic Art Deco buildings, and a handful of leftover Soviet-style concrete ugly-boxes thrown in. The city also features a shocking amount of museums for a city its size, and all of this is prettily framed by the docks and ferry terminals leading out to the Gulf of Finland.

(Oh, and it's cold . Did I mention that Finland in late November is cold? With the Arctic wind, I think my ears are frozen to their earmuffs. However, note that there is WIND but no SNOW. I came here expecting Christmas snow, goddamit, and I am now adding Helsinki to my list of cities that promised me snow, then cruelly reneged on the agreement. This list includes: Denver, Colorado; Reykjavik, Iceland; Copenhagen, Denmark; and now Helsinki. Screw you, snow gods.)

We did the Jones thing and took a long walking tour of Helsinki. It was Sunday morning, so not a ton of places were open, but we did see their lovely twin cathedrals, the outdoor Christmas ice rink, window shopped their cute pastry shops, and stopped in at the Design Museum. The city's website proclaimed that its outdoor Christmas markets would be opening for the holiday season today, but someone apparently forgot to inform the Christmas market vendors, because there was nothing there but half-built stalls and unpacked Christmas decorations. Humbug.

We didn't have much time to see Helsinki, as we were catching a 3pm ferry to Estonia. But really, just a few hours are truly all that's required to see Helsinki. So after sightseeing, and a quick lunch at a doner kebab shop, we shouldered our backpacks and walked a few kilometers to the ferry docks at the edge of the city for our two-hour ferry ride across the Gulf of Finland to Tallinn, Estonia- the real destination of this trip.

I am quite proud of us; Helsinki is eye-wateringly expensive (however, since we've been to Switzerland recently, Helsinki felt just "gently overpriced" in comparison), so we may be the only visitors who managed to get out of Helsinki with a total tab of just $35.00. I rather feel that Helsinki owes us a congratulations. (Tale of the tape: Light rail to city, $0; breakfast, $0; hotel, $15; lunch, $20. Hotel cheapness brought to you by my employer, duh.)

Finland conquered. On to Estonia!

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