July 29, 2007

Helsinki in the sun



I went for a quick trip to Hanover and then Helsinki and Tampere.

Germany was interesting. Already on the train everyone started complaining about absolutely everything and I felt right at home. It was great to see friends and family and I finally got to enjoy some spaghetti ice again.

Then I got to wander around in Helsinki. I haven’t seen Helsinki for 1.5 years and I was really excited; I immediately went and bought a Karelian pie, which I tried eating by the market square. I just sat down peacefully with my pie trying to enjoy the view when a huge seagull landed on my head. It was quite painful and also quite embarrassing as people started to point and laugh at me. I shook the nasty bird off and hid my pie quickly in my handbag. Then I dived into the crowd to lose the gang of seagulls that still seemed to follow me, giving me dirty looks. Later in front of one of the market tents I felt safe enough to quickly take out my pie and try another bite. When I lifted the pie I just heard a squeak and then felt a sharp pain in my hand. The pie was gone ! A seagull had attacked me from behind. These birds have really gotten much worse during my absence.

It was amazing how big and empty the streets in Helsinki felt. The space was enormous. There were just a few tourists and middle-aged people clad in the latest marimekko floral patterns and despite the space still managing to bump into each other. The weather was hot and dry and actually very sunny, another big difference to Ireland. I got to wear sandals for a whole day and happily walked along the shore until I got blisters.

I miss a lot of good things about Finland such as the public transport, good quality streets and the reliability and sincerity of people, but I was also very happy to come back to Dublin and once again be part of a much more international, chaotic crowd with a lot more attractive shop windows (I forgot how bad Finnish shop windows used to look) and more smiling faces on the street.

July 15, 2007

Umbrella etiquette


You might have already guessed it, the sun continued to stay well hidden in this part of the world; that was until this weekend!
Finally we are able to spend several hours outside without getting wet (of course yesterday I did find the only water puddle left in this city and just had to step into it as to not lose the feeling of walking around in wet shoes completely). I however did this with a smile on my face, stretching myself against the gorgeous sunlight.

The last weeks were quite dreadful and did affect my creative blogging abilities in a bad way. When I woke up in the morning all I saw was grey clouds and rain. Sometimes it was just the slightest drizzle as if to make sure that we would not get too excited about starting the new day. On other days whole streams of rain would fall from the sky making you (or at least me) afraid that this whole island would finally drown completely.

On these rainy days it became more and more difficult to navigate my way through town. Have I mentioned that the footpaths here are not exactly spacious? Well you can imagine how it feels to run through town in the morning balancing my tiny umbrella (which is actually completely useless because most of the time its so windy that the umbrella is more of a hindrance than protection from the rain that seems to come from almost any direction).
I noticed on one of these mornings that most Irish men carry enormous umbrellas with them. I have to admit I can see the point, as these umbrellas won’t be destroyed by the wind, but they take up so much space that I feel continuously afraid that they will scratch off my face the moment I don’t pay attention (here I should probably mention that most Irish men are shorter than me and hold their umbrellas conveniently at my face level).

I wish someone would invent some kind of etiquette with regards to umbrellas (or would build bigger footpaths). People mostly walk around with their umbrellas as if they are the only people on the street completely ignoring oncoming pedestrians who jump out of the way, afraid of being scratched or being hit by the puddles of water pouring from one of these enormous umbrellas. It would be hilarious to watch if I would not be part of the crowd that does all the jumping.

Well these days are hopefully over for the moment as we are all hoping that the sunny spell will last and we will get to enjoy at least a few days of sun, and who knows, maybe I will even get to wear sandals for a whole day☺