The last leg of Spring Break 2018 was in Helsinki, Finland. There’s no way around it- it was cold there. I feel asleep on the plane when we left Denmark and when I woke up we were getting ready to land and the entire world was covered in snow. The Finnish people were very self-aware about it. One woman told me that if they "are very lucky, [they] get spring in May.” I did not tell her that she could move almost anywhere else in the world, though that was my only thought and that has been my solution to this problem in the past.**
Due to extreme conditions, I spent as much time indoors at museums as possible. There were a few exceptions, however. I took a ferry to Suomenlinna, a fort from the 1700s that is stretched across several different islands. The ferry ride was the coolest*** part. The ferry went through not-quite-frozen-over ocean to get there. The water had huge chunks of ice that the boat plowed on through with all kinds of crunching sounds. It was about a 20-minute ride and all but 5 minutes was through icebergs.
Once I got to Suomenlinna, I walked the islands and the fort. I know I’ve said this before but I’ve got to quit going to forts.**** Guide books keep on talking them up so I keep going but really, truly, unless they promise me an incredible view or are somehow radically different from every other fort in this world, I simply can not go anymore. This particular fort had all of your fort things: walls, cannons, courtyards. I can acknowledge that on that one beautiful summer day in Finland, it is a lovely place for a family to picnic. On this day, however, it was very . . . gray.
The guidebook highlight of the fort was the great gate. Every sign on every island pointed you to it and it was the farthest point to walk to. It looked like this:
I felt like this:
I felt like some variation of that most of the time, to be honest.
Back on the mainland, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and there were more sights to behold. Churches, squares, and another church that I got to see in real time and in picture form.
I tried to spend an evening with the symphony but it was sold out.***** I did get to spend an evening at the opera, however!****** I also paid my respects to Jean Sibelius, everyone’s favorite great Finnish composer.******* You know you’ve hit it big when you have your own park and monument.
As already mentioned, the majority of the time was in museums looking at art and piecing together Finnish history. My favorite things included the Finnish Design museum where I matched and learned that the Finns designed everything worth having in this world. It was basically a design hall of fame and while many things were mentioned, the fact that the perfect scissor was designed by a Finn really put me on notice.
And a special shout out to the Helsinki Art Museum that had a big Guerrilla Girls display******** and walked the walk with multiple solo galleries devoted to female artists. They also had a display in the women’s bathroom saying “you don’t know how beautiful you are”********* and I desperately hope they had the same thing in the men’s room.
When it started snowing, I knew it was time to get back to some Atlanta heat. Thank you, Nordic Spring Break! I hope you do get some springtime in May!!
-KT
*This will also be the title of my as-yet-to-be-written romance novel in which a modern American woman, Mary Anne Sorenson, time travels to the 10th century and falls in love with a Viking, Erik Svenson. She is torn between staying with him and enduring a lifetime of seasickness or returning to her rightful time period where she lives in a house on land with plumbing. In the penultimate scene, her best friend from modern times, Judy Greer, time travels back with an entire package of motion sickness bracelets. While there, Judy falls in love with the aforementioned Viking’s brother, Allen Svenson. They celebrate in a dual wedding and sail off into the bitterly cold Nordic sunset together.**********
**Love you, Boston!
***LITERALLY
*****Good on you, Finland!
******I promise there were other people there but I took the picture before they arrived.
*******Possibly our only great Finnish composer? For grins, I did look up other Finnish composers and I found you this guy:
********Thought of you, LaQ!
*********But not in that One Direction kind of way.
**********In the sequel, “Swede Surrender,” the Svensons have settled in 10th-century Stockholm following a boating accident that left Erik unable to sail (though still a remarkably wonderful lover). Now forced to support their families, Mary Anne and Judy begin to sell their nausea bracelets, which they have since learned how to make using locally-sourced wood. Their business becomes so successful that, within a few years, both families are able to live comfortably. Eventually, Judy discovers this same wood can also be used to create fiscally-responsible, clean, modern furniture. Over the next millennium, generations of Svensons develop what we now know as Ikea.
