Night of Arts and more of Kamppi

Kamppi is a neighbourhood in the centre of Helsinki. Swedish is the second official language of Finland and Kamppi derives from the Swedish Kampen which means battle. I've visited Kamppi a few times and it's always full of hustle and bustle with people busy with their day in the mall and outside on the streets. 

I went to Night of Arts on Thursday night but I didn't end up seeing much (typical Rhonda) because I didn't want to stray too far from the bus terminal and people I wanted to meet up with were busy. I really only got to see two exhibits from the whole festival, a bit of a shame really cause I'm sure there must have been a lot organised. I'm sure I'll get to see more later when I get more familiar with my surroundings, but it was nice to be able to simply leave my flat and look at things to distract me from missing home too much. 

A tent-thing made out of plastic bags. I think it would have been more impressive from the inside but the exhibit was closed when I approached it. Ahh.. hahaha... yeah. 

A woolen police car.

I don't think this is an exhibit, but I thought it looked really cool.  A 3-D rendition of that famous impossible cube.

Close-up!

A stylish garbage can.

Mannerheim (1867-1951) was very involved with the Finnish military and also was the 6th president of Finland. There is also a street named after him: Mannerheimintie. (-intie is the suffix for streets, there is also another one, but I can't remember right now)

A giant fish sculpture by the Music Centre. I thought it looked really nice. 

So not all public washrooms here are free for use. The other day, I saw a washroom that costed 1 euro to use and so I was not at all surprised to see a man take a leak in the tunnel I was crossing, haha. And yeah, I didn't take a photo of that...

Then on Saturday we decided to return to Kamppi to get some supplies for home. And there we found a really cute store called Tiger (hailing from Denmark) that sells a variety of products that range from stationary to cookware (sort of like One's Better Living for those who know it). And of course, we had to get some stuff:

Cleaning with love <3

These are pens :D

Should have taken it next to a reference, but it's really big and heavy. I'm planning to use it on....

This mistake from dragging my luggage on the ground :(

Speaking of weird floor markings... I found this under my bed.

And back to what I got. Making the wearer feel like a sir!

Plastic bags here are VERY EXPENSIVE.. they're around 0.20 cents a piece so I got a reusable bag.

A Gru nose. For... Gru times, yes.

My beautiful trash basket made from recycled Chinese flyers.  

And I guess you can tell that I am still as disorganised in my room as always. Home, sweet home, indeed!

Names, months, toilets, and animals!

At work, we go for a coffee break in the mornings (and also once more in the afternoon) and my supervisor and coworkers love telling me about Finnish customs and culture. There is a name celebrated for every day of the calendar year here in Finland. It is customary for someone to bring candies and sweets to share with their peers on their name day. You can find the names in calendars sold in Finland (http://www.behindthename.com/namedays/country/finland is a link for the names celebrated on each day). My coworkers were actually quite astonished to learn that there is no such custom in Canada! It's really cute and a great way to get candy from people!!

Then in the same vein, they started telling me about the months of the year. Each month of the year has the suffix -kuu which means moon and the name of each month describes the period of time encompassed. Lokakuu (October) was interesting because loka was so difficult for them to translate. Apparently, loka is a mixture of snow and sand with a bit of water in it. I just found it pretty amazing that they have such a specialised word because I am not aware of any one English word for that type of... substance. I guess, we'd call it... slush or maybe muddy slush? Actually, I could probably use my handy-dandy Finnish-English dictionary to look up loka. Ugh, utter disappointment, it just translates loka as mud. But their explaining of the meaning behind each month was nice because it made me realise that I took my months for granted and never actually went looking for the meaning behind their names.

Also, all the washrooms here usually come with an extra showerhead and a tap. There is one in both washrooms of my flat and in every washroom of my workplace (even those for guests). I had a small feeling that it was for keeping oneself fresh downstairs, but I couldn't find the right time to ask my coworkers. But my room-mate asked his and confirmed my suspicions. So yeah, you are apparently supposed to use it over the toilet! Ooh, sort of like a handheld bidet.

And there is a drain under the sink. But I think you're still supposed to do your cleaning over the toilet.

And I've also seen different little animals around the city that I wouldn't see often back in Toronto. I have seen a hare poking around a construction site. I was really excited about it and mentioned it to my coworkers (cause, you know, first hare sighted in Finland and all) but they told me that they're pests and aren't really something they would get excited about! Haha, oh well, I hardly ever see hares in Toronto. I've only ever seen a small rabbit close to Yonge and Steeles. There are a lot of mourning doves and seagulls here but I don't think I've seen a pigeon yet. I have, however, seen a lot of crows. They're big and waddle around. Kinda cute.

The crow.

The seagull.

And the hare... it's there, I promise. See that stack of stuff in the middle of the picture? It's crouched near the right side by the bundle of strings closest to the right. 

Rhonda in.

I knew it, I neglected to update this. 

Randomosity from a quiet morning walk on Sunday morning.

Anyway, so I've been living in Espoo, Finland, for about 4-ish days now. As to be expected, I am still pretty unfamiliar with a lot of things and the Finns do things a bit differently here than back home: There are designated bike lanes on the sidewalk and I end up walking on the wrong side 50% of the time because I am used to walking on the right side.

The road is quite narrow while the sidewalk is so wide.

The roads here are not gridded, which makes travelling a slightly anxious ordeal for me. And, oh boy, there are some looooooong escalators! Especially the ones at the city centre in the metro. I can't even look down xD but those Finns just race up and down them like nothing. I'm just a wuss probably, lol.

The orange metro, I love bench seats because of all the bums you can fit onto them.

Actually, I think this one is at Kampii and isn't as long as the escalator in the city centre station.

Onto the more pleasant discoveries:

A paper cup with collapsible ears.

This is sort of small, but I really do like how the paper cups are designed here. Little paper coffee cups all come with little flaps that can be folded out to form ears and a mug is born! It's super cute and effective especially when you have a hot drink.Collapsible ears instead of styrofoam and coffee sleeves also seems more environmentally friendly~

Kind of sparse right now!

Another thing I like are the dish drying cabinets used in Finnish households. Instead of shelves, these cabinets have drying racks so that you can immediately put your wet dishes to dry in your rack. You get to save counter-top space and time for putting your dishes away.

How devilish. 

But yeah, one thing I'll never get used to is living so close to construction. The sidewalks are all taken up and the dust is everywhere. Luckily I work during the day so I only open my windows and balcony door at night to get some fresh air without the dust billowing in. But still, walking home is pretty bad when a car rolls by and blows particulate matter at me.

Of course, I do miss home a lot. Right now, I'm happiest when I'm at work because it gives me something to think about other than home. I still catch myself subtracting 7 to figure out what time it is in Toronto. Not a good habit :( 

But that is only all the more reason for me to go out and have fun!!! Tomorrow (the 24th) is Night of Arts in Helsinki and I will definitely try to go and have my mind blown.

... and out. 

Yeah... no.

Ugh, I noticed that I have this penchant for ruining perfectly fine, what do you call them, quotes? excerpts? lines?

I'm not really sorry though.

Storm before the...?

Before the calm, hopefully. I am still in Toronto and I am still packing. Actually no, my packing has been interrupted by the fact that I still have a good amount of clothes to launder so I am left hanging until the washing machine is available again for me.

Actually, it hasn't been too much of a storm... more of just cloudy unrest, a bit of rainfall accompanied with a good amount of gloom. Now I'm probably being over-dramatic... Despite all that, I think I'll be 100% again when I'm on that airplane to Helsinki (with a stopover at Brussels!).

Okay, carry on.