theatre of the absurd: Helsinki, part I

I woke up at 8, which was fairly early, or so I thought, but what I'd neglected to bear in mind was that Helsinki was one hour ahead of Stockholm, with the result that when I rose and went down lazily, I found chaos - namely, all the passengers with their luggage, queued up and ready to disembark. I jumped a bit and found an officer and asked how long I could stay on the ship for. He said I was allowed to stay till 3pm, which was much better, but that I had to vacate my cabin by 10am, so I went back to my cabin, collected my few belongings and strolled onto the sundeck. I Facetimed my family and stood there at length, enjoying the cold (Finnish!) breeze. I was inordinately excited; I'd never been to Finland before and genuinely had no idea what it would be like One jaded traveller referred to Helsinki as a 'an overpriced concrete jungle that cost twice as much as Tallinn.' In retrospect, after having visited both cities - I can safely say that there's a bit too much of a difference in both cities to compare. I never really got to explore Helsinki very thoroughly, or even stay there for a full day at a time, whereas Tallinn I stayed for 4 days and 3 nights and, sorry to say it, by the second day I was bored stiff and longed to leave. During this trip there were a few instances in which I rued the fact that I had a rigid itinerary to adhere to, and that I should have decided to just go along with the flow, as it were, and Tallinn was one of those instances. Helsinki on the other hand had a diffident charm. It was a very idyllic place to be, another of those Baltic sea port cities which had a remarkable air of self assurance, neverending speedwell-blue skies and calm turquoise seas, and leggy blonde joggers slaloming along the promenades.

Of course, I'd downloaded an offline Google map of Helsinki to help me navigate my way from Olympiaterminalen to West Terminal Länsiterminaali, where the Russian ferries were. I had about half a day to saunter through Katajanokka, so that is exactly what I did. More to come later.