One Week Down
There is no feeling like moving to a new city. The last time I felt this destabilized was when I moved into my brother Seth’s basement apartment in New York more than five years ago. I can feel the same synapses firing.
My move to New York is serving as a blueprint. We were sharing 300 square feet in Harlem, and I was sleeping on the couch while living out of my backpack for a few months. Without that experience, this move would be a much greater challenge for me. Now, Jessica and I are in a smaller space in Sörnäinen, but we have closets and a bed. This is luxury.
First Impressions
If I had to use one term to describe Helsinki, it would be understated. So far, many of the stereotypes about Finland have held: people keep mostly to themselves and it’s been chillier here than it is in New England. At the same time, we’ve discovered that the city is more than meets the eye.
By walking much of the city, we’ve experienced more than I anticipated in our first week. The sights, smells, and sounds, of Helsinki have already left indelible marks.
Sights: The Helsinki Cathedral is smack dab in the middle of downtown. It’s a beautiful building that presides over Senate Square (Senaatintori). The cathedral, and most of the buildings on the square, were built by the same architect in the early 1800s after the Russians took over Finland from the Swedes. Helsinki was nothing more than a fisherman’s village before then, but the Russians wanted the capital of their new territory close by.
Jessica shot this beautiful photo of the tram near the Helsinki Cathedral.
Smells: Right away, Jessica and I noticed that the city smells like baking bread and black coffee everywhere you go. The common-sense explanation for this is that there are cafes on every block. I generally enjoy a frugal lifestyle, but those smells will be tough to ignore during the dark Nordic winter.
Sounds: The peaceful hum of the tram and the whispers of its riders will forever stick with me. After living in New York City, I am not used to a quiet ride on public transit. The silence is deafening.
Photos from the First Week
Jessica is great at planning simple, enriching experiences that are relatively inexpensive. Two of our most recent required a ferry: a trip to Suomenlinna, an island sea fortress off the coast of Helsinki, and a day trip to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Check out some of my photos from our first week below.
