Friday, August 30
Part the First: Helsinki
I've made a mess of my locker over the last few days in this hostel, so i made sure to set an alarm for 7:00am, to ensure i had enough time to sort my shit and repack my bag before checkout.
I hadn't slept terribly well that night, maybe the first bad sleep i've had in Europe, actually. So i turned that alarm off, but fortunately had the cognizance to set one for 7:30 before i drifted back off.
I turned that one off too, but fortunately had the cognizance to set one for 8:00 before i drifted back off.
Then i was awoken by an alarm that i couldn't reset.
The fire alarm.
It took a moment to register that that was what i was hearing. I sat up and looked around to see if anyone else was responding, and slowly, they were. I grabbed my dirty shirt from the top of the locker, which, on the top bunk, was functionally my nightstand, and descended the ladder.
In my little cubby of the room, there are two bunk beds, four mattresses, and only the bottom bunk across from me was occupied last night. He had come in late and hadn't bothered with the locker at all, all of his stuff was strewn about the floor between our beds. He was also slowly rousing.
I opened the locker to grab my cargo shorts, because i was not walking out of this hostel and leaving my passport to burn. That seemed like it would end in a lot of legal hassle, and i am 30 or 40 years old and i do not need that. I pulled them on over top of the basketball shorts i've been sleeping in.
Since i was in the locker anyway, i grabbed my laptop and the R6m2. My SD card wallet is already in the cargo shorts, as well as my regular wallet. Put my shoes on, and followed the slow, confused herd of other backpackers out into the common area.
There was still no sign of an actual fire, so a lot of people were simply congregating there, discussing how to react. Someone said that he'd heard it was a false alarm, but as i looked around the room, none of the staff were there. It's 24 hour reception, i've been in that room at 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon, there's always at least two people behind the desk.
Did they all abandon us in our rooms when the alarms went off? They didn't make any effort to make sure people were awake and moving?
I guess they're all college-age and probably getting paid minimum wage, it's probably not really their job to do that. When the alarm sounded, they probably just fucked off immediately. I can't really blame them.
I didn't want to be caught waiting around in the bar like a dipshit if the building really was on fire, so i headed downstairs and out the door. Most of the hostel's tenants were gathered across the street, their attire showing a wide variety of levels of concern at what they thought was necessary before evacuation. Several of them had their phones out and were taking pictures or video of the building, but when i looked up, i couldn't see anything.
No sooner had i joined the throng than i heard the sirens of the approaching firetruck.
We waited outside for maybe twenty minutes, and then the fire department cleared us to go back inside. I never got any further information on what had happened.
Well, i'm up, so i guess i'll just wait for breakfast to be-
Hold up. The full breakfast buffet is already set up. There's dirty dishes on the tables.
Breakfast starts at 7, not 8.
Well. Okay then.
This explains how the hard-boiled egg basket was already empty at 8:10am yesterday.
I ate, i did morning things, i got my bag packed up, and i checked out of the hostel around 10. I needed to send some mail, which i wasn't entirely sure how to do, so i talked to the desk clerk about it. Unfortunately, since i did not already have stamps, i needed a full-service post office, and there wasn't one nearby. The closest one was in the opposite direction of where i needed to go. Since i was heading toward the docks, she ended up sending me to Helsinki's main post office, near the central train station.
As seems to have been my morning ritual the whole time i've been here, i stopped into the grocery store that's in the corner of the same building with the hostel and bought a Pepsi Max and a metro ticket for the day. Then i was off.
Walking over to the tram platform, i mused about how 20-year-old Trevor would have been appalled at the leisurely pace of my trip. Up at 7:30 but not out of the hostel until after 10?? Absurd! Wasting time abroad! He would have been trying to pack in as many sights and activities as possible, so as not to "waste time" and to "get the most value for his money." As if he was ticking boxes. As if he was trying to win at vacation. He also would have burned out by now, as evidenced by how high the stress levels between himself and his companions on previous trips had been.
I was definitely feeling the stress in Stockholm, but i seem to have relaxed and settled into a rhythm for this one in Helsinki. The slower pace is suiting me. I may not be seeing and doing as many things in each 24 hour period as i could, but i'm taking the time to absorb and enjoy them as i go, give things as much time as they need to sink in and permeate my mind. Giving my emotions time and space to breathe.
If i only have six hours of adventure per day, and i spend the rest relaxing, then this trip is a success. A true vacation. I'll take it.
Even though i'm literally building the tracks right in front of the train, as it's about to roll over them, scheduling-wise. It's fine. It's fine!
Exiting the tram at the Helsinki Central Train Station, i was immediately confronted with the four statues that make up The Lantern Bearers - an Atlas Obscura point that i had not bothered with. I didn't realize they were attached to the facade of the Central Train Station, i just hadn't thought they were worth my time to track down. But i had literally taken a picture of this building from the tram yesterday after i left that confusing mall - i literally had already seen and photographed these assholes and not even realized it.
The post office was close. I could see both Central Station and the transit mall/shopping square i'd eaten that "burger" and gotten lost at yesterday.
My business there completed, i took a moment to sit and figure out what my next move was. I only had one real plan today, which was to order the Finnish spite pizza, and it felt like it was still too close to breakfast for me to eat again. But also, i was concerned that if i went later, i might not have enough time before i had to be on the boat. So i decided to just do it.
I jumped back on the tram and headed for Kotipizza.
From Gastro Obscura, the Atlas's food division, the story behind the Pizza Berlusconi is that, in 2005, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi visited Finland, and later loudly complained about how bad the food was, saying it was something he "endured" during his visit, that the Finns eat "only marinated reindeer." In response, the owner of Kotipizza created an Italian dish as an homage to Berlusconi - a pizza, made only from Finnish ingredients.
The Pizza Berlusconi is made with a rye crust, cheese, smoked reindeer, red onion, and chanterelle mushrooms. Three years later, Kotipizza entered their creation in an international pizza competition in New York City and won - beating even the Italian entrants. With this validation, they made the Berlusconi a staple item on their regular menu.
The Italian embassy was outraged, and demanded that Kotipizza remove the former Prime Minister's name from the dish. In response, Kotipizza's CEO suggested that Berlusconi himself come to Finland to discuss it with him. He never did.
When i walked into Kotipizza, i spent a while staring at the menu, but could not find the Berlusconi. The large menus on display both on the wall and on the monitors above the counter are only in Finnish, so i couldn't understand anything, i was just expecting to see Berlusconi's name somewhere. After letting a few people go ahead of me in line, i finally approached the counter and asked the clerk if they still served the Berlusconi, showing him the article on my phone. He said no, but handed me a small paper menu in English. He said a lot more, but i didn't understand much of it. I think he only spoke Finnish.
But scanning through the menu, being able to read the ingredients now, i found it. Rye crust, cheese, chanterelle mushrooms, red onion, smoked reindeer. They still have it, it's just not called the Berlusconi anymore. He must have finally made his trek to Helsinki. It's just the Reindeer Pizza now.
I ordered the smallest one, thinking that it was going to be one of those long, rectangular pizzas, like i had in Oslo, because i saw that picture up on the board. It was not. It was a full circle, probably a 14 inch pizza.
I certainly wasn't going to be able to travel with the leftovers, so it was up to me to eat this entire thing in one sitting. I didn't think i could do it.
After four slices, half the pizza, i felt like i was full.
After eight slices, the whole pizza, i felt like i was hungry again.
A delicious paradox. I still probably shouldn't have eaten the whole thing. That definitely could have been at least 2 meals, under different circumstances.
It was phenomenal, though. I do think the chanterelles drowned out the other flavors on the pie, but fortunately, i'm into that. I couldn't really tell you what smoked reindeer tastes like, now, though.
I thought maybe i'd still have time to go see another statue of a person peeing, since i'd already walked so far out of my way in Copenhagen to see The Pee-er. Bad Bad Boy is an 8.5 meter tall statue of a young boy with a somewhat embarrassed look on his face, peeing into the harbor. Unlike The Pee-er, this statue is a functional fountain, although many visitors report that it isn't always running when they go see it.
This one is a bit far away, on a peninsula opposite of the docks, so afterward i'd need to make a big arc to get back where i needed to be. I had to walk almost a kilometer to get to the tram station that would take me to Bad Bad Boy, but i did it, because i'm dedicated. To peeing statues. We all have our hobbies, i guess.
I was expecting to wait a bit for the tram once i got there, but as i approached, i saw the route that i needed pulling in. Must be the previous run, a little behind schedule, but that would have worked out well for me...except two other trams were pulling in on the opposite track at the same moment, blocking me from getting to the one i needed. As they finally cleared, i was able to cross the street...just in time for the tram to Bad Bad Boy to pull away.
It's fine, i was expecting to catch the next one anyway.
Except it was not fine.
I was starting to become concerned about time. It was about 12:15, and i was supposed to be on board the ferry no later than 1:45, for a 2:15 departure. I checked the tram schedule from Bad Bad Boy to the Viking Lines boarding facility, and it did not look good. I wanted to be at the facility absolutely no later than 1:30, and in order for that to work out...every tram from here would need to be on time, and i would still only have a couple of minutes at the statue. Which also means, i can't get lost walking to it from the tram station, which is not something i can guarantee here.
I decided to cut my losses and just go to the Viking Lines building from here.
The tram i expected to take...did not show up? I was watching Maps, and it said it was on time...said it departed five minutes ago, in fact, but i've been sitting here for over ten?
I zoomed way in on the map.
The instructions were missing a step. I wasn't at the right tram station. There was another one just around the corner. I must be close enough that the GPS just assumed it was a little off, and i was actually on that platform.
Damn it.
So i moved over to the other station, and caught a different tram over to the docks. I needed to make a transfer in the middle, but that went smoothly, and i made it, walking up to the building at 1:15.
Yeah, it definitely seemed like the right call to skip Bad Bad Boy.
I got checked in, no problem, found the gate for my ferry, and headed up to it, pulling out my passport and bringing up my ticket confirmation and the QR code and everything they had asked for when i boarded the last Viking Ferry in Stockholm.
Gate 3 was locked. There were dozens of people standing around it, spilling out into Gate 2 territory, which was not scheduled for any boats today.
I waited. It became 1:35. Suddenly i was concerned that i was at the wrong gate. The monitor with the gate information was on the other side of the turnstiles that i'd already scanned my boarding pass to get through, so i didn't think i could go all the way back there to verify. I wandered around the bars and waiting areas between the four gates. No other monitors. I finally realized i could see one through the glass back down to the main level, but all it said was "Tallinn" with an arrow pointing the way i had come. Which would be validating, except that there's a second, later ferry to Tallin yet today.
I returned to the growing crowd, now hundreds of people filling the entire Gate 3 and Gate 2 areas and spilling out into the general waiting room and the bars. Finally i just asked a random guy, "This is for Tallinn at 2:15, right?"
"Yeah," he said.
"Oh, good. I thought the door would be open by now, i was afraid i was in the wrong place."
"Yeah," he laughed.
I found a place to lean my backpack up against a cement pillar, to help take some of the weight off my shoulders for a bit.
They wanted everyone on board by 1:45. It seemed there was no way we were actually leaving at 2:15.
At 1:50, the crowd started moving, and we all flooded through the gate, up the stairs, and across the gangway, into the boat.
No one checked my passport, or my ticket, or any of my documents.
Huh.
This is only a two and a half hour boat ride, so i hadn't bothered booking a cabin. I headed straight up to the highest outside deck i could, and watched as Helsinki peeled away, at exactly 2:15.
I stood at the railing for a long time, watching as Helsinki faded from view. We passed by the Fortress of Suomenlinna. Eventually even that faded away. Once i could no longer see Finland, i headed downstairs, to the lowest of the outside observation decks, and ordered an Aperol Spritz and a bag of chips from the bar, then sat down to get a head start on my log for the day.
We entered Estonian waters half an hour ago, according to the text i got from T-Mobile about my data roaming. From here, i can see land. It's currently 4:25pm, we're supposed to dock at 4:45. This must be my first look at Estonia. I'll be in Tallinn soon.
First things first, i'm gonna go drop my bag at the hostel, and then i'm meeting a new friend in Old Town right away!
Wish my shy, introverted ass good luck.
---
Part the Second: Tallinn
I sent Triin a message as soon as the boat docked to let her know i'd arrived in Tallinn. It would be about a 35 minute walk to the hostel, The Monk's Bunk, in Old Town. Triin had asked me if i was interested in seeing Old Town anyway, so i let her know that that's where the hostel is, so it seemed like a good place to start.
GPS tried to lead me straight through a construction zone again. I had to detour around it, making it mad every step of the way, getting to the point where i was getting the little "you fucked up" ding about every two seconds. I kept pressing on. I knew i was going to reconnect to the route eventually. Once i got around this entire city block's worth of white construction fencing.
Finally back on the path, i crossed a street, and immediately saw what looked like part of a castle. Like, the rounded tower, leading up to the turret. Like a rook in chess. There was a matching stone archway protruding from one side, but what it was connected to, i couldn't tell. If anything.
Maps had me turning away from this, but i really wanted to investigate. I noticed that i was being offered an alternative route straight under that arch which was only one minute slower, so i went for it.
Welcome to Old Town.
Lots of cities have a part that they call "Old Town," but this is conceivably the oldest Old Town i have ever been in. Many of these buildings date back to the 1300s. The cobblestone streets and sidewalks throughout are wildly uneven, to the point where in many spots the road is completely convex.
I went past a museum of KGB prison cells. The entrance was down a staircase into the ground, like the shops in Copenhagen. This may be the only place i've seen that since leaving Denmark. The little bits of the inside of the building that i could see already looked unsettling.
But like. I have to go into that museum at some point, right? I have to check that out.
I passed graffiti reading "Smile now, eatne later," or "ehtne later," i'm not sure, but multiple search engines have turned up nothing.
And then there was a little clothing boutique with the sign outside reading, "There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours." I appreciate the sentiment.
The Monk's Bunk is a fascinating building. It's clearly quite old, centuries maybe, renovated irregularly so that there's neat, modern-looking hardwood floors next to late-1800s windows with wide sills you can sit in that look like they've been beaten up for over a century, maybe last repainted sometime before i was born, over radiator pipes that are four inches in diameter from who knows what era. I'm sitting in one of those windows right now.
The layout of the building is also entire nonsense. From the reception desk, the common room is on a level about three feet higher, so there's a small staircase. Then when you leave the common room, you go down about half a flight of stairs, so maybe five feet, which brings you to a fork where if you go right, it's another short staircase down to the kitchen, and if you go left it's a floor and a half up to the dorms, on a square staircase that winds around 180 degrees. Once you get to that floor, there's another mini-staircase up to the level where my room is. Every inch of this hostel belongs in the "Stairs that can kill you, stairs that will kill you" tag on Tumblr.
It's got a lot of personality. It's charming, actually. But only the common room represents anything even vaguely "modern."
I did have to make my own bed here, but at least i wasn't expected to slip an entire mattress into a large pillowcase in the dead of night this time. The sheets provided don't seem to have a fitted sheet at all? There's three top sheets, and none of them are quite as long as the bed. There's a sign on the wall that says, "IF YOU DON'T USE THE SHEETS WE WILL FINE YOU." So i just took two of them and tucked them into the corners as well as i could.
My bag just barely fits in my locker, it's only slightly bigger than the one at Rosenborg Castle was. Hopefully less squishing has occurred, but it did catch on the sides of the door a lot and needed some coaxing.
Triin met me outside the hostel at 6:15. She's nice! There wasn't much in the way of pleasantries, she launched into the tour pretty much right away. I didn't record very much, i was trying to keep up with her through all the sights, and i don't know what i still remember.
We visited multiple historical sites around Old Town, including government buildings and architecture left over from the Soviet era. For example, there's a Russian Orthodox Church directly across the street from the main government building, which is still controversial to many. The church has an unmistakably Russian design.
Triin was 9 when Estonia declared independence, 11 when they got it and the USSR dissolved, so she offered quite a bit of perspective on that time period and how things have changed. She casually mentioned several historical events that she participated in during the fall of the Soviet Union, such as the raising of the Estonian flag over the tallest tower in the city, and the Baltic Way, an event where millions of people joined hands, forming a continuous human chain from Tallinn, Estonia, through Riga, Latvia, and ending in Vilnius, Lithuania - the three capitols of the Baltic states which would gain independence from Russia two years later. The 35th anniversary of the Baltic Way was one week ago today, actually.
The whole city is fascinating in the same way that my hostel is. Old brick buildings from the 1300s next to the same wooden houses i saw in Helsinki from the early 1900s next to the same ugly-ass prefab modern apartment buildings we seem to be constructing across America in the last decade. Not necessarily in districts, just all mixed together in a spicy melange of architecture. Every style of building for the last millennia seems to be on display around here somewhere.
My bio on BeWelcome, the web site that Triin and i met through, starts with "Aging punk rocker," so she showed me the spots around town where the punk kids, including her, used to congregate in the 90s. Most of it's been gentrified now, but it sounds like it was a scene i would have liked, about 10 years before i was old enough for that.
She talked about how the punk lifestyle was illegal in the Soviet era, so many of the buildings she showed me have a history of being raided by Russian police and the kids getting detained.
We walked through an old industrial district which has been almost completely renovated into a hipster's paradise. "Lots of hipsters and craft beer here," she said. It's exactly like what we're seeing in America now; literally, industrial buildings standing from the 1800s suddenly full of fake Edison bulbs, those shitty metal stools everyone hates, and $30 burgers that don't come with a side.
Lots of cool art throughout, though. I was admiring the murals and graffiti and street installations all through the district, and then we came to an honest-to-god Banksy museum. We didn't go in. I probably won't later.
She took me through a public park which used to be a cemetery, but the Russians destroyed it when they occupied Estonia after World War II. You can definitely tell the park is laid out like a cemetery, but no bodies are buried there anymore. That we know of.
My memory of everywhere that we went and everything that we saw is hazy already, because it was a lot, and i shot footage on the R6m2, but i'm gonna have to take a lot of time later to analyze the map and figure out what the hell i'm even looking at. It might have helped if i had been taking selfies with my phone like i've been doing for the 'Gram in other cities, i don't know. I did record the walk on my Garmin, so at least i do have an accurate map of the route we took. I'm just listing things that left an impression right now, they may be out of order.
Like this one i know happened earlier in the walk: she took me up to an observation deck high above most of the city, near the government buildings, where you can see most of Tallinn below. It's a gorgeous view. She pointed out several landmarks, such as Saint Olaf's Church, which at the time of its construction in the 14th century, was the tallest building in Europe, at 124 meters. It is known for having survived many lightning strikes.
Toward the end of the walk, we passed a former Soviet prison/torture facility, which a wealthy businessman is currently trying to get grants from the government to convert into a combination apartments/hotel/airbnb/museum/banquet hall/multiple restaurant space, which is...a choice. Triin says the building is "very haunted." I kind of feel like "museum" is the only one of those options that's respectful. Who the hell wants to move into an apartment that used to be a Soviet torture chamber??
There's already a bougie neon sign above the door that says, "Let's collect memories."
Coincidentally, we were ending the tour very close to Old Town, so she walked me back to the hostel. On the way, she took me down a narrow alley which is currently undergoing renovation that has been used as a set for many movies, including Tenet. Lots of movies like to shoot in Old Town, she says, and i can totally see why. It has a perfect aesthetic that filmmakers are always craving. Much production value, and i'm sure shooting in Estonia is inexpensive compared to, say, Los Angeles.
Having walked nearly five miles, Triin headed home, and i went back into the hostel. What a difference a few hours made at this hostel. The common areas were packed, the music was louder, as were the people. If i remember correctly, tonight's community activity was "bar crawl," and the hostel has a full bar at reception, sooooo. Lots of drunk twentysomethings down there.
I laid down on my bed for a bit, thinking i was just going to reply to a few messages, and then i'd rally and either go out and explore this corner of Old Town a little deeper, or maybe get some food, but i ended up just puttering around on my phone for an inordinate amount of time. Finally, i rallied hard enough to stand up, lock up all of my cameras, and grab my laptop and power cable. I thought i'd head down to the common area, plug in, and just sit and write my log amidst the fray. This is kind of what i've been doing the last few days in Helsinki. The big couch was empty when i'd last passed through, so that might work.
It had gotten still louder while i'd been upstairs. The big couch was now inaccessible, a beer pong table had been set up practically across it. I didn't even enter the common room, it was swarmed. I looked around the dining room, up a partial staircase from the common room. One table was completely taken, the other had just a single guy at it, but i couldn't see power outlets anywhere.
I went downstairs to the kitchen to refill my water bottles, then back up to the dorms. I didn't really want to sit on my bunk and write, so i ended up in the hallway, sitting in one of the big bay windows, right outside the co-ed shower room with the sign on the open door that says "PLEASE DO NOT CLOSE THIS DOOR." People kept coming in and out, doing makeup, getting dressed to the nines, ready to go out and hit the town, it seems. Or just go downstairs and play beer pong, i don't know.
The only power outlets in the hallway were on the other side from the windows, so plugging in would have been a tripping hazard. I started at 13%, and wrote in my log until i got down to 3%, then admitted defeat and went back to my bunk to finish it out.
And so i have. Good night!
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