April in Paris

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:53:17 GMT

The sea lies solid under ice,
The blizzard seldom stops;
The glögi's running freely
In friendly coffee-shops;
The trams still run and life goes on
And still I can't remember
Why no-one ever calls a song
"Helsinki in November".

(it's actually far more like this in December, so maybe I should make that the month; but then you'd all know that I was employing poetic licence. February even more, but then it wouldn't rhyme.)

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My last night in Helsinki

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:57:04 GMT

It's my last night in Helsinki, at least this time around, so I thought I'd do a bit more exploring. Helsinki on the ground never seems to bear much resemblance to the map. Streets seem to vanish and re-materialise again later. Daf had recommended a place called Dong Bei Hu for dinner. After some wandering, I found it, and asked for a table for one. The staff looked me up and down and said they were full; I don't know whether I was too scruffy to eat there or whether they were actually full, or both. So I was a bit hungry, and wishing someone would hurry up and port Urbanspoon to the N900. (Yes, I know I could have used the website, but I would also have been wishing Urbanspoon covered Finland in the first place. And I had forgotten eat.fi. More fool me.)

But very soon, I found the cathedral, which made up for being hungry:

It's rather large and very beautiful. I went inside, but it seemed rude to take pictures of that. There was a café in the crypt, but they close at 17:00, for some reason, just when people might be wanting to have dinner there.

On the way back, I went into an Indian restaurant but nobody came to help me and I left after a minute or so. Then I found a Chinese place called Tang Dynasty who were helpful, and I ate there.

After that I came back to the hotel and started coding. I have to be at the airport at five, so I'm planning to stay up. Unfortunately, the fire alarm went off: it wasn't an actual fire, but I'm on the ninth floor and I'm too sensible to use the lifts, so it was a long walk. The fire brigade came and walked around: they wear black uniforms with the city arms on the back (a crowned boat).

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Doppelganger

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:23:54 GMT

There is this Finnish priest who looks surprisingly like me.

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Monument

April in Paris

My last night in Helsinki

Doppelganger