This log entry is going to be in plaintext. Because fuck HTML, really. Whoever said I had to use index.html? index.txt's time has come! log entry ID: ...a..... 2023-10-14 16:51:00 EEST Welcome to Helsinki. Clothing optional. Doorknobs are strictly forbidden. ======================================================================== I've been in Finland for about two weeks now. Though I have only seen Helsinki so far, I've really started to like the place. There is an air of calm persistence and unity about the place. I only wish there were a single word to capture this mood... There are 24-hour free public co-ed wood-fired saunas. Half of the attendees are naked, but in a markedly non-sexual way. It is a practical matter. Any clothing you wear will get drenched in a mixture of about 90% humidity from the air and 10% sweat. Dealing with such clothing is inconvenient. However, if sexual saunas are your thing, there are those too. In fact, there is a gay sauna on the top floor of the hostel I'm staying at. Though I have not personally been inside, I have it on good authority that it is deeply sexual. The hostel I am staying at is filled mostly with transient non-Finnish tourists, and its culture is not at all an accurate representation of Finnish culture. It is actually quite terrible, and I am not going to write about it any further. Next time, I am booking couches via AirBNB. Hm. Actuellement, je note que le mot français pour «sleep» est «coucher»... En tous cas... I have been getting around using Helsinki's bike share. It is awesome. It costs 10 euros a week, and parking stations blanket the entire city. And no app is required! There is the option to authenticate with a numerical code. Every bike comes with an adorable little keypad. Getting a bike can be a little hit and miss, though. People commute on them, so every day, there is a migration of bikes from the residential areas to the commercial areas and back again. If you don't get to the station early enough in the day, you could miss your ride. It's OK, though, really. It's never far to the next station. Throughout the city, there is a pleasant and very specific smell——the Helsinki smell. I don't know what it comes from, but it reminds me of . . . coffee? a little? maybe mixed with wood smoke and unsmoked cigars? Elusive... Finns do drink gratuitous amounts of coffee, so that really might be it. I just thought that they'd be drinking it—— not scrubbing the streets with it. The non-single-user-car infrastructure is very good. All forms of transportation are fully exploited to maximum effect—— trains, trams, subways, buses, cars, feet, electric scooters, and of course, bikes. There are enormous foot bridges connecting pockets of forest together, forming a vast network of trails. This vast network of trails and bridges was designed for the purpose; it is not just the lazy smattering of repurposed old railways one sees so often in Onterrible. Rentable electric scooters litter the streets and trails like garbage and homeless people in Detroit; well, I guess nowhere is perfect. Incidentally, there is very little garbage or homeless people in Helsinki. There is even an enormous foot bridge connecting mainland Helsinki to Blueberry Land. This land may sound fictional, like a level of Super Mario, but it is a real place. It is an island covered in trees, trails, and no small amount of wild blueberry bushes. It is a wonderful place to explore by bike or on foot. Blueberry Land is a literal translation of its local name, Mustikkamaa. Pedestrians in Helsinki do not have to spend every moment in fear of their lives. They have the right of way in Helsinki. This is true on paper in Onterrible, but unlike in Onterrible, cars won't honk at you or run you over if you walk out in front of them. They just stop and wait, like good little cars. A pedestrian barely needs to pay any attention at all while crossing the street. There are no stop signs in Helsinki! Travellers just kind of, you know, think. High volume arteries like Teollisuuskatu and Mäkelänkatu of course still have stop lights. The libraries here are awesome. The architecture is beautiful and some of them contain public sewing machines. Along with the usual library fare, like books, movies, and music, one can borrow board games! They're a great place to chill with a coffee and a pulla, meet people, and fix one's trousers. They truly are the primary government-sponsored community centres of Helsinki. One can even borrow books from them! The malls here are awesome. They are literally just a piece of a typical downtown commercial area, only indoors. There are clothing stores (unsurprisingly); *used* clothing stores (quite surprisingly); and regular-ass stores for groceries, hardware, gadgets, etc.. One of them has a public piano and indoor skydiving. That one also has a very large quiet multipurpose hanging-out area with desks, dining tables, couches, and of course, public sewing machines. They are *excessively* well-connected to the transportation infrastructure. Grocery stores and other stores selling heavy items are on the lowest floor. From this floor, there are these shallow flat escalators down to the parking area. One can use these shallow escalators to carry a whole shopping cart of groceries to one's car! Regular grocery stores stock a much wider selection of berries than those of Onterrible. You can just buy frozen blackcurrants and redcurrants. It is awesome. There is also cloudberry jam. Cloudberries are unaccountably popular in Finland. Here, they are called lakka, lakkaa, or lakat, depending on whether you mean a cloudberry, some cloudberry, or cloudberries. aside: In Finnish, to say one is picking berries, one says "Olen marjassa.", which literally translates to "I am inside a berry.". > OK, but what about the doorknobs? Oh, right. There are no doorknobs in Helsinki. Only door levers. They are the same basic design of the door levers that can be found in Canada, but they are not the same model. These door levers are beautiful. They often have a perfectly circular cross section. Occasionally, the levers are comically short——like, 30mm short. Olfactory memory being what it is, I will probably never forget the Helsinki smell. * * * Future directions ----------------- Up next is Oulu. My train arrives there on Sunday night, and I'll be staying there for two weeks as well.