Day 14: Helsinki

Tuesday, August 27

I had a dream that i had joined Space Force and was being sent on a mission on a starship with no training and no experience. I was pretty sure it was a suicide mission and they just needed bodies in the ship.
    I woke up on the lowest level of a cruise ship, exactly where i had fallen asleep. Something about the gentle rocking of the world around me must have made me feel like i was in space. It's barely perceptible on a ship that size, until the moment you start walking and have to readjust your balance again.
    After i'd finished my log last night and retired below decks, i decided to take advantage of single occupancy and do my laundry. Also, i was out of shirts, so it was about that time.
    I've got a Scrubba bag, which is essentially a heavy plastic sack with ribbed sides, so it functions as a washboard. I can get one shirt, one pair of underwear, and two socks in it at a time; essentially one outfit. I haven't washed my pants in the bag yet, but i assume they'll be a load on their own. I only have one pair of pants, so i might need to wait until i have an actual washing machine to get them done.
    I hung everything out on the racks in the closet overnight, hoping ten hours would be enough time for something as thin as a t-shirt or socks to dry in a small windowless cabin with no airflow. I'd already wrung them as hard as i could, there was no dripping, so it seemed possible.
    Nope. Still damp.
    I took a shower, packed up the rest of my stuff, and puttered around until almost 9:30, hoping the extra time would get them there. It did not. In the end, i neatly folded all of my damp clothes, wrapped them carefully in the plastic bag i stole out of the garbage can, and shoved them in my backpack as-is.
    I climbed all the way to the top of the ship to watch us pull into port and dock in Helsinki at 10:10. Helsinki is an interesting city to approach from the water. Just like Stockholm, there are several small islands you pass by on approach; here, many of them form an old naval base with interesting geography and brick walls. You can go tour them; they're on Atlas Obscura. I might do that later.
    I joined the writhing mass of humanity shuffling off the boat all at once. I had tried hanging back to let most of the crowd clear out, but once i was beyond what i could see from the boat, the whole twisted, winding gangway was just moseying. At one point i got stuck getting onto a moving sidewalk, which was definitely slower than the crowd that was still walking off to our right. That bit of corridor slowly but surely cleared out, while i on the conveyor belt just kept plugging along. There was nothing to be done about it. I couldn't move forward, and this was the longest moving sidewalk i've ever seen in my life.
    Outside the building, most of the throng was turning left and heading down a pedestrian path away from the roads. With no specific destination or timetable, i chose the road less traveled, and went forward. I came to the street and i stopped to wait for traffic, which was just one car that was still a good distance away.
    Two old ladies came up behind me and just charged straight into the road, right as that car was reaching the intersection. It came to a stop effectively, as though it had expected them to do that.
    Here's the thing. Cyndi had told me back in Copenhagen that traffic in Denmark is much more conscious of pedestrians than she's ever experienced. They will always stop to wait for you, even before you get to the street. I said that i felt that way about LA, drivers in Los Angeles will wait for you if you're still 10 feet from the crosswalk. Meanwhile, where we're from, in Wisconsin, drivers will alway cruise through that intersection if they think they can beat you through the lane. I've been running with Zuul, start into a crosswalk when i clearly have the right of way, and had THREE CARS slip through the far lane while i'm already in the road, and a fourth one consider it. You motherfuckers are too close to my dog!
    Coming back to Madison from LA has been fucking frustrating. I'm sure people are getting sick of hearing me say this but here it is one more time: Madison traffic is worse than LA. LA traffic is heavy, yes; but Midwest drivers are rude, arrogant, angry, and competitive.
    I've been experiencing this with the traffic all across Scandinavia so far, but Finland is really something else. They take this to the extreme. If i even so much as look like i'm thinking about crossing the street, they stop. I've been walking around all day and it has been really difficult for me to signal to these drivers with body language alone that i am waiting for them to just go through the intersection. I literally have to pretend i am going in a different direction and turn my back on them to get them to go.
    So that was the first few minutes off the boat. I walked a couple blocks before i saw a park bench, and i decided to sit down and plan out some moves. I hadn't had breakfast and it was getting on 11, so i figured brunch would be first priority.
    I located my hostel on the map, and picked out a place for food, which was not necessarily in the same direction. I still had over three hours before i could check in anyway, and it was an hour's walk to get there, so i figured i could take my time, get food, see some shit, and still end up there right at 2. I also looked up a few points of interest that would be on my path either from the bench to food, or food to the hostel.
    I started heading toward food. I walked past a gym called Beast Factory, which is a pretty good name for a gym. Then i walked past a building with a huge sign that said "Jungmann." And i knew i should've taken a picture, but for some reason i didn't. But all afternoon, that damn Village People song was stuck in my head.
    I came to a bridge, and took out my camera to get a shot down the canal, as i've been doing with rivers and other miscellaneous bodies of water this whole trip. And what i saw not far down the canal was a bridge covered in locks.
    So i diverted course and walked over to that bridge. This is the second one i've found on this trip; the first was in Oslo. I spent a few minutes walking back and forth, looking at the locks and appreciating what they represent. Someone put a whole damn U-shaped bike lock on there. There were also several padlocks that were themselves heart-shaped.
    I thought i had written about the locks in the Day 0 entry, but i just looked back and it's not there. In Paris, the Pond d'Arts bridge across the Seine, just outside the Louvre, used to be covered in padlocks, each bearing a declaration of love. It was famous worldwide as the "Love Lock Bridge." We'd seen locks on fences and gates near bodies of water in other European cities also, but Pont d'Arts was the main one. A street vendor sold us a lock, and i wrote on it "Amanda + Trevor, 9/13/03 - Forever and Ever" and locked it to the bridge. I remember exactly where we put it, too; with your back to the Louvre, it was the second chain link panel on the left, two links up and three links left from the bottom rightmost corner. The lock came with three keys, each of you is supposed to take one, and you throw the third one in the river.
    The panels were been removed from Pont d'Arts in 2015 after concerns were raised about the structural integrity of the bridge under all the excess weight. Most of the locks ended up getting sold off, and the ones that didn't were melted down for scrap. Some of the panels that sold have since been turned into an art exhibit, but it hasn't been shown publicly since the pandemic started.
    I didn't know that until shortly before i left. I thought i had read that all of the panels went to a museum, maybe even the Louvre itself, and all these years i've held that in my mind. I thought when i came back to Paris, i would find our lock again. My heart broke when i learned that i will never see it again, and it probably doesn't even exist anymore.
    So when i see one of these bridges, it helps to fill that hole in my heart. To know the tradition is still alive somewhere.
    This one, here in Helsinki, even has a dedication plaque in the center panel of the bridge: "Rakkauden Silka Kärlekens Bro Bridge of Love." This bridge was meant to have love locks put on it.

    As i walked away from the bridge, the thought occurred to me that i kind of wish i had just a whole bunch of small locks that i could put her name on and leave all across Europe, every time i see one of these bridges. I've already missed two, so that's unfortunate, but maybe there's still time. I should definitely leave one somewhere in Paris, at least.
    Suddenly, i saw a sculpture that had been on my list of maybe destinations: Peter's Draught of Fish. It's hanging on the side of a building, an otherwise empty wall, and its placement is a little weird. But it's a thing i saw. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a Bible thing or what.
    Very soon after, i accidentally found the Finnish House of Nobility. There was some kind of a gathering happening in the garden in front of it, which i didn't see until i had already entered the garden, because of all the trees, so i just slipped through, got some shots, and slipped out. Not a gathering of nobility; i think they were goth kids. But like. Cheerful goths.
    And then suddenly i accidentally stumbled into Senate Square, a huge open cobblestone square that leads to the fifty-two stairs up to Helsinki Cathedral. There's also a statue of Alexander II erected in the square.
    I figured, what the hell, i'm here. Maybe i don't need to eat right away, i don't know if i'm going to get back in this area later. Might as well tour the cathedral. So i climbed those 52 stairs, which are shallow and steep, with my backpack that keeps getting heavier, i swear it's up to 35-40 pounds at this point. It was difficult to keep my balance and i may have experienced some light vertigo, is what i'm saying.
    I got up there only to find that entering the cathedral costs 10 euros, a fee which includes entry to a second church. I decided that was too much of a commitment for my depleted state, and i'd have to come back after i ate something. And probably after i ditched my bag at the hostel. Which was still a 45 minute, 3 km walk away, if i headed straight there.
    I proceeded to Day to Day Pizza & Kebab. I guess i was expecting it to have a kebab pizza, which was a thing i saw advertised in Copenhagen, but did not get an opportunity to try. And it might have had that! I'm not sure. The entire menu was in Finnish only, and the staff did not speak very much English.
    I had no idea what anything was. But, my philosophy on ordering food is the opposite of what so-called "normal" people do. If i don't know what a menu item or an ingredient is, i order that. Fuck it. Waco. Let's go. So i just ordered the topmost item under the Kebab section.
    "Kanakebab Riisilla" turned out to be a pretty standard chicken kebab. But holy shit. The portion size. It was a truly massive amount of food. Which was just what i needed at that moment. It tasted incredible, and the sauces! The sauces!!
    After food, it was 12:30 and still a 45 minute walk to the hostel. I really wanted to get rid of my backpack, so i decided to just hoof it straight there and see if i could check in a little early. If not, the web site does say that they'll let you drop your luggage off in the luggage room before check in, and they'll hold it after check out, if needed. Which is nice. I figured i could find things to do near the hostel after that.
    Luckily, they did let me check in early.
    The hostel is nice! This one definitely has a more modern vibe, like Bunks at Rode in Oslo did. There's common areas with activities, it's set up for a more social atmosphere, and the beds have a modicum of privacy. Bunks at Rode had curtains you could pull around your bunk, so you could be enclosed and invisible to others; this does not have that, but my bunk is in a bit of a cubby, so there's only 3 other people that will have ready access to watching me sleep. Not like the Stockholm hostel, where i was stuffed in an attic with 26 beds that were full open air to all the others, with a weird table in the middle that had no practical use.
    Yes, i know this is what i signed up for when i chose to do hostels. I'm just praising the more modern sensibilities of some of these hostels over other, more old-school choices that some have made.
    This hostel is called Cheap Sleep. This one, as well as Bunks at Rode in Oslo, the two i'm very happy with, cost significantly less than the weird one in Stockholm. So there's that, too.
    Anyway.
    I chilled in the common area at the hostel for a bit, letting my shoulders relax now that the bag was stowed. I enjoyed a Coke and a bottle of water, and looked up a few things to do in the area. They were playing a mix of hits from the last quarter of the 20th century, but not necessarily the ones you'd expect. And then, after an Iron Maiden song, they played The YMCA. I was utterly dumbfounded. What were the odds.
    Jungmann. There's no need to feel down, i said...
    I picked out three destinations, and went back to my locker to get my camera.
    This is when it occurred to me that i really needed to get those damp clothes out and hung to finish drying.
    There was not a good way to go about this. All i've got is my bunk itself. It is an upper bunk, but i didn't really want to drape my stuff over the edge too much, so as not to interfere with whoever's below me tonight. I spread everything out across my bed, using the rails to elevate as much of it as i could, and hoped for the best while i was out adventuring.
    The Atlas Obscura offerings are pretty slim for Helsinki. There's 27 items, and most of them are kind of meh. And i'm feeling great today, so this is a fair and objective assessment.
    I started out with the Wooden House District, a thing i found on Google Maps, because it is literally right behind the hostel. It's a neighborhood of houses made mostly from wood which were built in the 1910s. I can see why it's on the map, it's historically and aesthetically significant, but after a few minutes i started to feel creepy and voyeuristic, walking through an inhabited neighborhood, filming people's houses, so i decided just to move on.
    In the middle of the neighborhood, though, there was a dirt path that led through some trees and up to a rock formation. It didn't look like it was supposed to be there, so naturally i followed it. It's a wonder the fae haven't gotten me yet.
    It looks like it's supposed to be a park, but it's dominated by a huge rock hill in the middle. This rock formation is bigger around than, like, four of those wooden houses put together, and it's maybe a half a story tall. There's dirt paths leading all around it. I climbed on top of it. There was somebody up there, listening to music on huge headphones, so i just walked around behind him and tried not to bother him.
    It's an interesting space. I can see it being a nice, quiet area to chill.
    I took a different path leading out of the park, if it is a park, and there was a well-cobbled stone staircase leading down the hill, which kind of made me feel like this area used to be something else. I have no idea.
    Leaving the Wooden House District behind, i set out to find a Brutalist concrete building. These are evidently rare in Finland, so the Asemapäällikönhovi Building really stands out. It was built in 1976 to house a TV studio, which is still there, as well as a grocery store, some restaurants, and apartments. This building was used to start the first subscription cable channel in Europe, and was also the first in Europe to relay satellite broadcasts to a cable network. It's been used as a setting for movies, TV shows, music videos, and more for decades. So it leaves a pretty big footprint on the Finnish media landscape.
    According to Atlas Obscura, a lesser-known feature of the building is the "concrete cathedral" in its lower level, which can be found below the K-Market's loading dock. It took me a minute to find my way down there, but i did it. The "concrete cathedral" is visually interesting, so it's been used for many photo shoots and music videos over the years, and i could not test this, but supposedly it has "interesting acoustics." Plus there's monkey graffiti on the back wall. Cool spot. Wish i could shoot a music video there.
    I also noticed that the Outrun Café is in this building; i'd noticed that on Maps earlier and thought it might be relevant to my interests. I wasn't hungry yet, but i thought maybe when i was ready to double back toward the hostel i could stop in.
    The third and final destination i had picked out was the Pasila Street Arts District, which i knew was close to Asemapäällikönhovi, but i didn't realize that the building was actually in it. I put the new destination into my GPS, and it just led me to the roundabout at the end of the block. I looked around, and didn't see much art.
    The neighborhood is connected by a lot of concrete skywalks over the roads. In the stairwells to each, there are huge murals. I think this is what the "Pasila Street Arts District" refers to. And they're great! I walked through several of them and appreciated what they had. I guess it's just not what i was expecting is all. I think i only found half a dozen or so stairwells with art in them.
    I'd walked around for probably another hour, appreciating these stairwells, so i thought it was probably time to hit up the Outrun Café. With a name like "Outrun," i had expected it to be kind of a synthwave joint. It did have that 80s nostalgia decoration to it, but when i walked in, they were playing All-American Rejects. The rest of their mix seemed to just be Yellowcard.
    The place was also much smaller than i thought it would be from the pics, and they don't have food. It's more of a coffee shop. I got a chai latte and a red velvet cookie. And holy shit. That red velvet cookie was incredible. Maybe the best cookie i've ever eaten, no hyperbole. Just. God damn.
    The latte was good, too, and was served with a cute bear drawn on top, with protruding foam paws.
    As i sipped my latte and nibbled on my cookie, savoring both experiences, i tried planning my next move. It was 4:30, much too early to head back for the night, but most of the other things to do in the city were far away. It seemed too late to do that kind of distance. So i picked out one more public sculpture to head towards, which coincidentally, was close to a movie theater. It was time. I was just gonna go see Alien: Romulus.
    On the way to the sculpture, i passed what looked like a shoddy yellow wooden shack obscured by some trees in a park. This was the second one of these that i'd seen; the first was off of a dirt path i took on the way to Asemapäällikönhovi, and i thought it was weird the door was open, but i assumed it was some kind of storage shed for the parks department and ignored it. This second one, though, i noticed had a sign on the outside clearly denoting it as "Helsinki Urban Art". So i stepped inside.
    I think i found a yonic temple. There was a strange mobile hanging from the ceiling, with yarn going all the way to the ground beneath, and paper cutouts of fish tied to the end of each strand. Three old black-and-white photos, printed on wood, hung on the back wall, each with a colorful wooden cutout vagina affixed in the middle. Two walls had wallpaper with a repeating pattern featuring a drawing of a vagina and an anatomical drawing of the female reproductive system.
    Fascinating.
    I love it.
    I don't understand it, but i love it.
    I soon came to the sculpture Konstructio 2000 / Himmeli, or Construction 2000 / Ornament. It is a bunch of metal pipes forming a mesh of squares, in parallel planes as if they were part of an unfinished cube, suspended ten feet above the ground by cables.
    I don't understand this one, either.
    I walked over to the theater. My GPS seemed very confused about how to get there, and i realized that it was inside a mall. GPS wanted me to walk all the way around the mall for some reason, instead of going through it. I got myself there.
    I was concerned they wouldn't let me into a movie theater with a professional-grade camera around my neck, so i asked the first employee i saw if there was a locker or something i could stash it in. He directed me to another employee at the concessions and ticketing counter and said perhaps she would hold onto it for me. She didn't want to, though, she told me to just take it in, and sold me the ticket.
    It felt weird sitting in a movie theater with a big camera in my lap, plus two others in my pocket, but i wasn't here to bootleg anything, much less Alien: Romulus. I just sat back and let myself get carried away, back to the shifting deckplates of a spaceship, like in my dream.
    The movie was presented in the original English, which is good for me, with both Finnish and Swedish subtitles. They were a little distracting in a few moments, particularly when they were translating words on screen instead of dialog, because you see those subtitles pop up when no one's speaking and your brain is trained to immediately glance down, expecting important information. But usually it was literally just translating "Weyland-Yutani: Building Better Worlds," because that phrase shows up on a lot of set pieces. I've also never seen two sets of subtitles on screen at once before, it was interesting that they do it that way, but it's efficient and kinda makes sense.
    The movie's been controversial among fans, and i can see why, but i thought it was good! Not great, but it certainly met expectations. Probably one of the better Alien sequels, but when you look at the wildly inconsistent mess you have to choose from, that's not saying a lot. Anyway i'd probably give it about a 7/10. I think it gets a lot of things right, there was definitely a lot of stuff in there, particularly in the first act, that i really want to see out of an Alien film. But there's also a few things i think it gets very wrong. I can tell you the exact moment that my suspension of disbelief ran out.
    Director Fede Alvarez has said that he'd love to do an Alien vs Predator film after this, but only if he can co-direct it with Dan Trachtenberg, who did the most recent Predator film, Prey. Prey was fucking phenomenal, absolutely shattered all expectations of what a Predator film would be, and, in my book, actually outdoes the original.
    I think Fede Alvarez thinks he has made a better movie than he has.
    I ended up walking back essentially the same way i had come, so i passed Asemapäällikönhovi yet again. When i came to that first yellow shack off the path in the park, this time, i stopped in. It was...almost the same. The details were different, but it still had the vagina/reproductive anatomy wallpaper, the mobile with the fish, and the overall strong yonic motif. Outside, hanging over the door, was a piece of art of a paratrooper whose parachute was a vagina.
    I stopped at the hostel to drop off all of the cameras and some other things that were weighing my vest down. My laundry was still a bit damp, so i flipped everything over, but i'm betting that it still hasn't improved.
    I learned that there's actually a laundry room at this hostel, on the fourth floor, so i headed up there to check it out. However, my key card won't open the door for some reason, and it appears to be €8 per load for both washing and drying. I was really hoping i could just drop a couple coins into the dryer and do a short, light cycle to finish these things off. €8 doesn't seem worth it, especially since i don't need to wash.
    However, i am currently in danger of not having dry clothes for tomorrow...
    I headed out for dinner. I didn't know what i wanted, but there's a Mexican place right on the corner by the hostel, so i thought that would be quick and easy. As i walked in, the clerk behind the counter was very gruff about how he was closing in 10 minutes, so i left. It was just about 9:00, and when i searched for restaurants near me, almost all of them were closing at 9.
    I found a vegetarian/vegan place called Just Vege about a kilometer away, so i went for it. I had a falafel, eggplant, and feta pita which was perfect, absolutely incredible, so many of my favorite things all tightly stuffed into one woefully tiny shell. Seriously, the thing was bursting with fillings, i was not sure how the hell to get my mouth around it. I took bites out of the protruding falafel balls until i was able to squish it together.
    My clothes are still damp, and i'm not sure how i'm gonna leave them out overnight. I'll figure something out.
    It was a pretty good day! I woke up feeling refreshed, happy, and excited for the coming adventure, and even though i didn't do anything big today, i feel good about what i saw. I don't regret using my overseas time to go see Alien: Romulus, there's no way it'll still be in the theater by the time i get back to America, and spoilers were already hunting me on social media. I'm happy i saw it.
    And i'm happy i like this hostel.
    Here's hoping tomorrow brings dry clothes.