The Birds! and other shenanigans in Helsinki

After a long week of script writing and too much film analysis, me, Daniel and Sean decided to take up Minna's offer for a weekend in Helsinki. I'd always wanted to visit the capital and took up what would probably be my last chance for major expeditions during my time in Finland. All I can say is I'm glad to have visited and will be forever thankful to Minna for all the wonerful food and hosting she gave us for those two days and nights.

Once again we took the train but this time rode all the way to Helsinki where we were met by Minna We got our travel cards and headed down to the subway before taking a bus to arrive at Minna's place. I was already impressed with the city for the pure reason of being bigger and more bustling than Tampere - at least ten fold! Minna had prepaired a fabulous risotto which we enjoyed before heading to Corona , a bar owned by the director/producer Aki Kaurismäki. We met with Tinke and enjoyed a drink before moving onto another bar.

Helsinki main church

The Saturday was spent sightseeing. We first took part in a very Helsinki tradition. Brunch! It was the most bizare place. A nightclub by night, cafe by day sort of deal with a very dark enterance-way lined with graffiti.  It cost ten euros and we could have as much food and drink as we liked. The most bizare tradition was the breakfast champaigne, which a table of women in front of us enjoyed.

After brunch, the first stop was a protest against wall street, which was more of an information gathering protest although there were cameras filming. Sean decided to make a banner from a napkin and proceeded to stick it to a balloon he'd aquired in the shopping center. Eventually this was left outside a designer store on our walk through the town. We stopped by the main church and took many pictures and Daniel became distracted by the bride and bridesmaids that were parrading around.

The gang at the fortress

Eventually we reached a harbour where out boat to the Fortress would leave. We hung around for a while to help Daniel find his boat for Sunday and had a little look around the market that was there. The boat was covered by the pass we'd bought for the train and bus and took about ten  minutes to reach the island. We sat on the top deck and took many pictures of the seagulls that were following.

Finnish Vodka!

The fortress was beautiful. It's building began in the 18th century to defend Helsinki harbour and now a popular tourist destination. We wandered the cobbled streets and little houses where people actually live. We ended up at the top end where the old cannons still sit and wandered down a little path to sit on the cliff drinking Finnish vodka and watching the boats come and go. It was freezing and very windy but the vodka helped! We spent the majority of our day chilling out and afterwards were so tired that we had to take the bus back, with a short detour to the market to get wine and groceries for dinner.

Minna made some Finnish dishes as I'd been on about them the previous night. We had meat pies, which are effectively burgers in a doughnut like bread, and some Finnish meat balls. Both of which were lovely! We chilled out at the house, recovering from out day of sightseeing, before heading out again. The original plan was to head to a concert, but we decided to go and meet Petra at a bar and move on to the concert later. It was a lovely evening where much beer was drank and many film conversations were had. We ended up in a rock-bar with lots of goths and metallers! The night-bus brought us back and we attempted to stay up talking till about 3am.

Chilling out on the island

The last day was very relaxed. We stayed in all morning and watched Finnish TV as Minna made us a lovely breakfast of bacon and eggs. We took a stroll from Minna's apartment which was only a stones throw from the sea. Finally we went for coffee in a trendy, traditional cafe.

It was a shame the weekend was over but we all had to get back to our writing assingments. I've now finished my thirty minute film, but have a sea of other assignments to try and get through before the week is out, before we take classes again with a new lecturer who will undoubtedly have a new set of assignments to dish out. Lovely! With only six weeks left till the course breaks for Christmas, it's time to start enjoying every last detail and thinking ahead to the second part of our adventure in Salford.