Travel&Vacation

view from the ferry station

One Saturday morning I was feeling a little bored so me and my brother got on the ferry to Helsinki and walked the city the whole day.

This was my twenty-something trip to Helsinki for the last couple of years, so I wasn’t expecting to see a lot of things. I used to come here for a weekend, for a week, for a day or for just couple of hours on a work-trip. And I still love the city. It has something so calm about itself.

So we bought peas and ice-cream on the Kauppatori and went to the center without any specific plan. I knew that I wanted to go to H&M and buy some t-shirt. That’s a tradition more than a need. We didn’t make a stop near the Cathedral, heading straight to Aleksanterinkatu. We got through it just in time to see a big procession with air-baloons and flags in the color of rainbow. Aleksanterinkatu Apparently this was some Helsinki Pride gay parade. The thing that amused me was that it was very quiet for a parade, gay padare in particular.

I guess weekends in Helsinki are fun. I remember several years ago we arrived there in time for some Carnival. It was raining and poor girls had to dance almost naked with feathers in their heads under the rain. This time we just walked several  streets to Kluuvi - big park and botanical garden to see some hard-rock and metal festival. Rockers, goths all with make up and dressed in black were everywhere. We sat for some time in idyllic place with flowers all around and listening to the sounds of… hard-rock i suppose.

After that we made a long walk to Kallio Church, which I always thought to be a water-tower, then to the wharf, then back the center. Six hours passed very quickly…