FINLAND 2009: Americans in Finland – Three Days in August 2009

Paiva — or Hei Hei

Hope you are all doing well. I’m writing this from Helsinki… Arrived last night at about 11:30 pm… more about that in a minute.

I did forget to mention that in Besancon we visited an amazing little museum, called the Musee du Temps… Museum of Time.

Anyway, we left Basel on Wednesday at about 1:00 after walking around the absolutely charming quintessential Swiss town — with its incredible red city hall complete with hand paintings on the walls outside (lots of photos)… The drive to Frankfurt where we were to get a plane to Helsinki was noted as 3 hours (although given the speeds on the autobahn, we actually assumed would go faster)… In any case we had 6.5 hours to get to the airport once we got on the road.

All went well for about 1.5 hours and then (while I was behind the wheel) all traffic stopped.. went from going about 80mph to a dead stop.. and we were literally stopped for a total of 90 minutes due to some horrific traffic accident — no wonder, since people were literally speeding past me as I drove 80mph.. and motorcycles were going faster than anyone. We never saw the accident. .. just the emergency vehicles that sped past us… By the time we got to the spot we only saw police and clean up crews.

But that meant that we were 90 minutes behind schedule and worried about getting to the airport, finding the rental car return, checking in for the flight… and actually making the flight… We did OK (thanks to Fidel’s phenomenal directions which actually took us on some back roads – avoiding rush hour traffic – and arriving at the gate with at least 10 minutes to spare). The Finn Air flight was easy — and we arrived in Helsinki just fine, although tired… caught a taxi and got to the Hotel Linna — a recently renovated hotel in the part of Helsinki where we had lived many years ago… But here is where it all started to go bad — making the day not just stressful, but downright awful.

As we approached the reception desk (almost midnight by now) we could almost sense that something was wrong. I stated my name and the fact that we had a reservation (actually a prepaid reservation).. and the young woman (whose English was adequate, but not totally comfortable).. told us that there was no room for us. Yes, she had our reservation; yes she knew it was prepaid.. but “Somehow there weren’t any rooms any more,” she said very politely. We continued to say that could not be possible because we had a reservation. She continued to acknowledge the reservation, but also kept saying there was no room; they were booked full. After a few minutes of this, both Mike and became a bit unglued. She politely offered that they were holding a room for us in a hotel in Espoo which she said was 10 minutes away and which we knew was a minimum of 30 minutes away…Unfortunately for her, we know this city pretty well. She then said she could get us a room at the Airport Hilton.. We said we wouldn’t go…

To make a very long story (2 hours of it) short.. we wound up demanding to talk to a manager and she phoned the manager of the Kamp (a companion hotel of the Linna, but much more upscale).. I talked to him and he repeated what she had told us. We said we were coming to the Kamp and that he had to find a room for us… We took a taxi there, and stated that we would sleep in the lobby if they did not find a room for us in one of their three hotels (all located in close distance to one another)… Then it got worse, as he explained that there was not one single room in the entire city of Helsinki available.. He blamed Internet booking for the problem.

At one point Mike said that we knew “very important people in Helsinki” and that they would address this issue the next day. I said we’d call the Helsinki Sanomat (the newspaper)… I was actually doing quite well with the manager, continuing to say that we were not leaving… but then he made a big mistake.. He told us he was holding rooms for some executives of JP Morgan Chase, who were arriving at 2 a.m. So Mike got a bit unglued as to how come no one was giving away their rooms when they had no problem giving up our room … There was something said (by us) about capitalism.. etc. etc….

Anyway, they gave us a room here at the Kamp. We were slightly appreciative.. but obviously quite pissed… We got to the room at about 2 a.m. But at least we were settled, could unpack, and we could stay here for the entire 5 days we are in Helsinki…

Yesterday when we returned to our room, the Linna had sent over a bottle of champagne, a bowl of fruit, and an apology including a gift of two nights to be used within a year (which is highly unlikely)… The manager of the Linna also called to apologize and say they were having a staff meeting to review what went wrong. I also heard from the online booking agency and they apologized…

So — yesterday, waking up a bit later than usual — we strolled around Helsinki (it’s overcast and it rained a bit yesterday) — up and down streets that were familiar and ones that we probably never walked on when we lived here. It was nice to visit a city that we know fairly well and can maneuver easily. Everyone and I mean everyone now speaks English quite well, and most people greet us in English .. indeed even if I start to speak in Finnish, everyone quickly flips to English. Of course they are all very facile with languages and most Finns speak at least 4 languages now — all quite well.

Last night we were picked up by old friends and we went to their place for dinner, a few miles from downtown — a nice quiet meal (with champagne, compliments of the Hotel Linna)… Took the train back to the center (the metro system didn’t exist when we lived here… but we’ve been on it many times in recent years)…

Today, it was lots and lots of walking.. I strolled around the Senate Square (Senattori) and what is now considered the “design district” (but was a run down neighborhood close to where we used to live; now it’s quite hip and I’m sure that our apartment is renting for a hefty sum)… This particular part of town has a lot of Finnish Art Deco..

The city is still wonderful — lots of hidden charm; walking streets; parks sprinkled everywhere; and people are friendly, gracious, and somewhat unstressed.

Tonight we head to Espoo (about 40 minutes from downtown) to the weekend house of friends.. for dinner, sauna, and lots of catching up. Conversations have all been circling around Obama (and now Kennedy) and the US’s political and economic mess. I’ve given up on looking at prices because the dollar is so weak that everything you look at is expensive.. A simple ice cream cone (2 scoops) is close to 7 dollars… one scoop is slightly more than 5 dollars.

Hope you are all well — Nakemiin/ Tervetuloa
Fern