Two Days in Finland (Part I)

For those of you clamoring for pictures, read on. My brave travel companion and I have had a weekend full of Suomi fun and adventure. The weather is unseasonably warm right now, to the dismay of nearly everyone I encounter. This has made sight-seeing more easy and enjoyable, however. Not having been outside in the daylight in four days, I needed to take advantage.

Yesterday we began by walking through the city center.




There's a lot of interesting architecture in Helsinki -- part Baltic, part Scandinavian, part Soviet. More on that in some future post. Our destination was Temppeliaukio Church (hewn out of rock, as we know) built in 1969.


I was skeptical about what we would find inside when we approached the church and encountered a half-dozen tour buses (from across the border in Russia, it appeared). But the inside was quite stunning, if difficult to capture in photos.


All of this architecture viewing can make a person tired. So we headed back to the Korkeavuorenkatu homestead for a nap and our first real Finnish sauna. Although the sun had set, the day was not yet over!

For dinner, we partook of some famous Finnish Tex-Mex food at Cantina West. The fare included antelope and sausage (both on Jeevan's plate). He liked it, despite the expression on his face.

Next destination: the Arctic Ice Bar. We were looking forward to a real experience -- something very blog-worthy. All we knew was that we were to get to the bar through a Spanish restaurant, pay 10 euro (which would include one drink), don a special warm cape and gloves and enter the bar made entirely of ice. What Lonely Planet did not prepare us for the fact that it would be, well, kind of lame.


Upon entering the club that houses the ice bar, we were required to relinquish our much-needed coats (at 2 euro a pop). Once inside, we paid our 10 euro for the privilege of entering the "Arctic." A totally unenthusiastic hostess gave us our new outwear and ushered us into the small cube of ice. I was disappointed to see that neither the floor nor the ceiling was made of ice. The bartender gave us our Finlandia cocktails and watched while we shivered away. Only about ten people could fit in the place -- this wasn't a problem because people tended to leave pretty quickly. The lesson for future travelers to Helsinki: skip the Ice Bar.

No matter! What night could not be salvaged by a little dessert? We walked back towards home and stopped at the Finnish fast food chain, Hesburger.

Hesburger, unlike almost every other restaurant in this city, includes no English on its menu. But this would not deter us. A handy poster advertising McFlurry-like frozen treats was our guide. More information on strange Finnish confections in my next blog, but suffice it to say that our ice cream treats -- which included chocolate-covered raisins and Annis-flavored Turkish pepper candy -- were not your average McFlurries.

So, eight hours after sunset, it was the end of another full day in Finland. Stay tuned for Part II, which has this pair traveling north and sampling more licorice-flavored desserts.