Day 2 Helsinki

Day two in Helsinki was actuall half a day as I had to fly back home late in the afternoon. So after having had a nice breakfast, packing my back and checking out of the hostel (leaving my bags) I was ready for another looooong walk. Today I had less of a plan but wanted to see the Sibelius monument. I didn't really wanne go there because the monument was so special or anything or that I am such a huge fan of his music, but I thought the walk itself to get there would be nice. Indeed it was a very nice walk, and long as I of course took a wrong turn :D After crossing many resident areas and local shopping streets (btw who knows what those tubes from the ground are?? I see them everywhere but have no idea what purpose they have) I finally reached the coast, there I took a nice long walk along the water, a beach, park, etc before I got to the monument.


After having seen that I was doubting to continue walking to the open air museum as it was supposed to be authentic Finnish, just a small settlement on a small island that was frozen in time....however I also wanted to do some shopping for souvenirs so I choose for the second one.
I walked back all the way along the coastline, passing a HUGE cemetery. The cemetery was on a peninsula and cosisted an orthodox, muslim, christian, war etc. cemetery. You had great views over the cold windy sea, and the city on the other side. Although it was very cold and windy it was a beautiful walk. After a short stop in the library again to get heated again and use the internet it was time for a short stop at MacDonalds as I didn't want to loose more time. I crossed the centre in all directions again and then got back to my hostel. After a short tram and busride I was back again on the airport ready to fly back home. After spending 30min at home it was time for me to head to a graduation party of my ex-roommate with a nice Finnish design present for her freshly flewn in from Helsinki :D

So that was a perfect end to a great trip to Finland. Next time I will be sure to come back in summer to see it all green and more warm, as I believe that it must look extremely nice in summer with aaaaaaaaaaalll the parks they have overthere.

Jody

First day in Helsinki

The first night in the hostel was excellent, had a good night of sleep with a busy day ahead, but a very different busy than the days before. busy with myself, siteseeing. I had a small guidebook from Holland which gave 5 interesting walking routes, and I did 3 of them on my first day....well more or less as every once in a while I got a bit lost, but I crossed Helsinki from north to south and west to east :D I have started with walking to the olympic stadium of 1952, from there on I walked passed the lake (opera, theatre, parliament, etc) to the trainstation after which I crossed the centre of town (senate square (massive Lutheran church), market square, shopping streets, etc.) to the Russian neighbourhood with the biggest orthodox church of Europe. Crossing that area, staring at the big boats, old warehouses that were transferred into nice hip conference centres etc, was very nice.



I Then had an internet break in the extremely beautiful university library also to get warm again. I bought some nice vanilla bread on the market square to also get some fuel again to get me warm inside again. Then it was time to head to the southern point of the Helsinki centre Peninsula and the Eira jugenstill neighbourhood and a beautiful park from where you had a very nice view over all the islands and the coast. Walking back through the nice Eira neighbourhood it was time to meet up with 2 Chilean friends with which I had a nice evening making a great end to a fascinating day. Damn I love traveling!!





:D

Day 2 of the conference

So what happened on day 2? On the second day I had to check out of the hotel early in the morning, as during the day I was busy with the conference. From then on I was too busy to really keep my blog going but let's continue. Well it of course started with scrambled eggs with bacon, and more ;) After that the second day of the conference was all plenary, presenting the result of the workshops that took place the day before....The representative of our sessions managed to summarize the workshop pretty well by using keywords etc. , however I heard many people complain that this summerizing and presenting of workshop results should not be done anymore in the future, as it is almost impossible.....After This session it was time to reflect on the lessons learned in ESPON I (2000-2006) and look ahead to ESPON II (2007-2013). This was a very interesting part untill the was a discussion with some high people....that were obviously not researchers but politicians and did not share our vision at all....It was all pretty frustrating, as I of course can see that there are differences between politicians and researchers, but this can be a good thing. However in this case, there was no consensus to be found.....so that was a rather frustrating end of such a nice seminar which was characterized by optimism, proud, sadness, happiness, enthousiasm and all feelings that go with the end of a very succesful programme. Later this week I will write a post on what ESPON actually is besides it being the European Spatial Observation Network.

After a not very smooth transfer from the hotel to the hostel (bus, metro, wrong tram, right tram, etc) I went to meet a group of 10 to have a final dinner together and share this 'victorious' feeling. Going out for dinner is an expensive luxury in Finland I noticed. Afterwards we also tried some disgusting Finnish liquirs (one tasted like smoke and the other one like Colgate toothpaste).....

Around 2.00 I got back to the hotel, after having had a nice conversation with a friendly girl in the tram (I asked her if I was on the correct tram this time) and after some emailing it was time to go for a nice sleep.......

Day 1 of conference

So what did today bring?? For sure meeting loads of interesting people, having great laughs, lectures, discussions, food, drinks, etc. all the things you would expect of a conference I guess, but great nonetheless. Today my professor had to give a lecture as part of a seminar of 3 presentations that were pretty closely related (I included a picture of one of the maps that I have made).

In the evening we had a tour in the bus through Espoo, but as it was already dark it was a bit weird to be shown architectural highlights that were more or less hardly visible......Anyway I could see that Finnish people are very proud of their country, everything is nice and special, they are very clear on that Santaclaus lives in Finland and nowhere else and that hej is hi, and hej hej is bye and kitos y thank you. When we arrived at our dinner place, which was in the biggest museum of modern art that was just opened (it used to be a press centre), we were warmly welcomed and then the buffet opened with live jazzmusic and excellent salmon pastrami!! the rest consisted of loads of cold dishes again, wine, and I had my first raindeer meat with a fruity sauce (there is a picture of the dinner place before we all started).

Well well that was tiring, time to go to bed and get ready for another day of conference before moving to Helsinki city centre (Espoo is really rather dead, besides an impressive amount of high tech companies and institutions there is no real nightlife or life in general to explore).

See you again next time!!
Jody

Espoo, Helsinki, ESPON seminar

Hi there!!!!!!!

So after being in Holland already for 2 months in a row ;) it was time to travel again. So what better way to do so than going to a seminar payed by my ex-employee to close the project I have been working on?? So here I am in Espoo (the second city of Finland, very close to Helsinki). Espoo is mainly known as the sillicon valley of Finland, with Nokia etc......The hotel seems to be excellent....nice warm atmosphere

I have not seen much of Finland yet, besides snowy landscapes, the sea (hotel has seaview), pinetrees....Just saw a little bit of a quiet Helsinki because the opening reception was in the Ministry of Environment. It is weird to eat cold fish dishes in an already cold country, but nice anyway. It was also weird to realize once more that I knew quit a lot of people overthere only through email.....I had no idea how they looked, but now I have some more faces with
names and email adresses.

Okay time to go to bed after a loooong day (traveling, delays with trains, running over airports (delaying a flight myself).....Oh what was very cool btw, is that the Finair has cameras under the airplane, of which the images are broadcasted on a videochannel.....first it was aimed straight down to the ground, and when we were about to land they were aimed at the landing track which looked like a christmas tree from far away (as all the landing lights seem to be vertical instead of horizontal when landing....not sure if this is a clear explanation...)

See you!!