Every winter this tug moors outside our Nokia Headquarters building.. My colleagues joke that it is the Sony Ericsson spy boat.
Today (December 21st) is the shortest day of the year! Christen and I are are really excited about this, as it means we will now be getting more light, at least a little more everyday. The past couple months have been dark. While it’s been fun to experience the little light we do get between 10 am and 3 pm – we have had enough now and want our sunlight back.
The Finns have a saying that translates into something like “the rooster gets one steep closer everyday”.. We welcome him with open arms.
Last stop on our three city Christmas market tour.. Turku. About two hours drive from Helsinki, Turku used to be Finland’s capital city until the Ruskies decided to move it eastwards and closer to mother Russia. Turku today, is a nice little university town with a great Christmas market..
We didn’t have to travel too far for this one, stop two on our three city tour -Helsinki and our own local Christmas market. Nice cold day, and we even had a little sun! The market wasn’t too great, but it was fun to be in down town. Hans even got to meet Santa (apparently he asked for doggy bones).
Only an hour and a half by ferry ride form Helsinki, Tallinn is right around the corner. Renowned for it’s medieval town center… what better place to have a Christmas market. This is the first stop on our three city Christmas tour 2008. Next stop, Helsinki.
There’s no denying that Helsinki in November is a dismal place weather-wise, but it’s hard to argue with the beauty of it’s architecture and atmosphere. The countries closeness to Russia is truly apparent in it’s ornate buildings, wide streets and exotic feel. The orange roofs and domes can fool you into thinking that you’re in St.Petersburg. I remarked to several people that Helsinki reminds me of the film Dr. Zhivago and so it does because it was filmed here.
Where are all the people you ask? They are all inside the cafes drinking gloggi and eating pastries with the heat turned up to max. After we took these photos we visited the beautiful little place on the esplanadi in the photos and video. It’s lovely to open a door and have a blast of hot air hit you in the face, smell cinnamon buns cooking and order a mug of steaming hot red wine with a lit candle at the table. It instantly cheered me up.
I know all you guys really want to see if photos of Helsinki.. ad to tell you the truth we haven’t really gotten our photo gear setup enough to get good photos yet.. I could just blame it all on my new Nokia E71 and the pile of garbage camera it has (which will be the topic of another post). Now, though, we have a proper digital camera and Christen’s iPhone (wow, a camera phone that actually takes pictures good enough to keep) as back up, so we are good to go.. until we get back to Helsinki for a little photo shoot, here are a couple photos we have already managed to take.
The Finns love fast food. You can’t go too far with out seeing a McDonalds or local equivalent, Hess Burger.
The Chicago Star is not quite as good as my personal favorite the Texas Grande.
