I’ve mentioned previously about the bedding situation here in Europe. In France, our observation is that you get a double doona on a double bed, but in Norway and Finland, you get two doonas – a single one on each side of the bed.
And that’s a double edged sword.
On the upside, you can’t be accused of stealing your sleeping partner’s share of the doona during the night, but the downside is that if you lose your own doona, you are on your own.
Last night, it seems that I lost my doona. I woke in the middle of the night cold (we had turned the room temperature down low before hitting the sack), and MBW was still sleeping loudly, and quite unaffected by my situation.
I finally found a few working braincells and figured out what was going on. But I didn’t sleep so well.
We only have one thing planned for today – a walking tour of Helsinki. We needed to be at the Alexander II statue at 9.45, so we had plenty of time for a lazy breakfast.
It was a cracker of a day. Perfect blue skies. The forecast for today was sunny, with a high of about 8 or 9 degrees.
While I wasn’t quite ready to go shopping for coconut oil, I certainly wasn’t going to waste time with thermals. Wearing thermals when the temperature is above 0 degrees is a sign of weakness.
Short sleeved tee, flanny, jeans, jacket, and a beanie and gloves just in case, and we were ready to hit the breakfast bar.
Breakfast was … interesting. Any kind of juice you want so long as it is coloured green (spinach smoothy), blue (berries), or orange (carrot).
We found some things we recognised and filled our tanks. They had a coffee machine so we helped ourselves – not the best coffee I’ve ever had, but not the worst either.
We decided to use the bathrooms at the hotel after breakfast before setting out, but we couldn’t find them. Eventually we did though, but it’s a shame they can’t use common and consistent signs to identify toilets.
We were a bit early for the walking tour, but we headed up towards the meeting point which was about 10 minutes walk away.
We hadn’t gone far and I was already having buyers remorse about not wearing thermals. It was already 7 degrees, but the wind was pretty nasty.
Funny the shops you see in other countries – Bastard Burgers. I’m not sure if that is a good thing, or a bad thing.
We got to the meeting point about 30 minutes early so had a bit of a poke around. There seemed to be several bus loads of tourists nearby, although they turned out to be army personnel, not tourists. And they were spreading out and lining the streets.
And there was an unusual number of police cars – marked and unmarked – circling.
And an army armoured vehicle … and helicopters circling overhead.
We learned that President Zelensky from Ukraine is in town on an unscheduled visit.
We were standing around in front of the statue of Alexander II – still waiting for our walking tour to start in 15 minutes – but also enjoying watching the quickly increasing Poliisi (Police) presence when a Ukrainian guy wearing a funny hat, but holding a sword, suggested that it would be better if we waited over there (he pointed to a spot about 30m away).
Now I did note that it was only a suggestion, but the guy was holding a sword, so we took it as an instruction.
As my mate Jack Reacher says, “if a guy in a funny hat and carrying a sword …” Nope, that wasn’t something Jack would say, sorry.
And then out they came. Row after row of Ukrainian soldiers in silly hats, but carrying machine guns, and they all lined up. Then came the marching band and the bugler … and they all marched off around the streets while the Poliisi stopped traffic.
It was all very exciting. Probably the most fun you can have with your clothes on.
At around the same time – when our walking tour was due to start, our guide sent us a message to say it was all too hard with all of the Poliisi in the city today, so the tour was cancelled.
Thanks. Very. Much.
So we decided to hang around and see what happened next.
At 10.00am, Mr Zelensky’s motorcade came rolling through. About 6-8 cars in the motorcade with Poliisi escorts. Lots of sirens and flashing lights.
Very exciting … but it set the tone for the rest of the day. Poliisi everywhere, army everywhere, Poliisi on roofs watching, roads closed. Helicopters circling.
We decided to do a “create your own adventure”. We asked ChatGPT what are the 5 best things to see if you are staying at the Grand Central Hotel in Helsinki. And that’s what we did.
There are many beautiful, architectural buildings in Helsinki. Some stunning buildings that must be hundreds of years old.
For the last few days we have put on our snow shoes before we leave home, so it seemed a bit funny to have no snow lying on the ground here. And no need to walk carefully in case you slip on the ice and land on your back. It almost happened to me once in Rovaniemi.
The other interesting thing about different cities and cultures is what you can buy for lunch. It has been quite cold here and there are lots of bakeries, and all I want is a hot sausage roll or pie … but you can’t seem to buy hot food like that for lunch.
Sure, you can get a sit down meal in a restaurant, and you can get something greasy from Burger King, but not a hot sausage roll 🙁
What is wrong with these people?
There is a store here called Tokmanni, and it appears to be similar to Target with a similar range of similar quality items.
There is one across the road from our hotel so we popped in to buy stuff we don’t need, and will have to carry for the next 5 weeks or more.
But I learned that MBW has a superpower i didn’t know about … she can spot a “clearance” sign at 20 paces, even when it is written in another language!
We visited a Lutheran church called “The Rock Church” because it is built into a rock. Pretty amazing, really.
Late in the afternoon the city was gridlocked again because Mr Zelensky must have been getting ready to go somewhere, and the Poliisi had many city streets closed off again.
We hung around for a while but got bored with the cold and the wait, so we headed to the food market to get some dinner.
MBW had salmon soup, while I had tempura prawns and chips.
By the time we got back to the hotel around 6.00pm it was getting really cold and I just wanted my thermals.
Home for a coffee, hot shower, and to pack up our stuff to fly to CDG airport tomorrow and pick up our car.
That will be tomorrow’s news, though.
Ciao
#Europe2025