Europe Trip Part 5: School's in for Summer

Helsinki, Finland

Tuesday, June 8

By the second day, things had started to fall into a routine. The American contingent would meet downstairs for breakfast at 8am, catch the bus outside the hostel at 8:30, and be in lecture hall R2 right around 9am, just in time for the start of the first session. The presenters changed, but our seats stayed the same day by day.

Every 90 minutes, we had a break for coffee... and tea and water and sodas and crackers and cookies and whatever other items the conference's administrators had selected for us. Generally, I and a few other attendees would walk across the hall to the computer lab to check emails or look up some information or (in my case) use the university's fast internet to upload pictures and videos.

At 12:15, we would break for lunch, and walk with the Brits, the Italians, the Spanish guy, and a few of the Finns over to Dippoli, one of the cafeterias from the pre-Aalto TKK technical school. We couldn't get the student discount, but lunches were usually around €5.50, so it wasn't at all unreasonable. Plus, the food was pretty good and was occasionally reported to be some kind of Finnish specialty by the local students, and you also got a bread, rice, and potatoes included in the entree price.

Dippoli cafeteria

In the afternoon, there would be more sessions before we were released around 5pm to our own devices. That was where things in the day would start to get more interesting, and Tuesday was no exception. As we got off the bus outside our hotel, the three Americans were talking to Jukka, one of the Finnish attendees who lived about a half mile from our bus stop. Donny and I had been talking about going to a restaurant or something that evening, and we invited Jukka along and asked him if he had any good suggested restaurants. He accepted, so we met outside the hotel an hour later and set off into the city.

I hadn't really interacted that much with Jukka, but he turned out to be quite a jovial character with a much better grasp of the English language than a lot of Americans. We started out going to a local brewery - apparently drinking is a big deal for your average Finn - where he treated us to some €7 wheat beer. Or, at least he's treated us so far... I'm still convinced that I'm going to make it up to him by treating him to something at some point before the week is over.


After that, we walked south past a nice view of the central train station - albeit one that was interrupted by tram wires. So... it's kind of an appropriate view, I suppose.


Since Donny and I had no preference except a general agreement to his suggestion of "steaks", Jukka took us to a restaurant in one of the shopping centers near the bus station. The Finns must love shopping, as there are shopping centers all over downtown, including inside the various train, bus, and metro stations. I should add that when I bought groceries on Monday night, I bought them next to one of the bus platforms.

Anyway, we arrived at Manhattan Steak House, which was both very tasty and - most oddly to us Americans - also a fast food restaurant. Hey, you can't argue with taste and efficiency.


From there, our host told us that he would likely be going on a walk when he got back to his house and asked us if we would prefer instead to walk through the downtown area with him. Donny and I had each already seen a bit of the city during our free time on Sunday, but we eagerly accepted and wound up peppering Jukka with questions about life in Finland throughout the entire trip. We found out about all kinds of things, like the compulsary military/civil service, the fact that college is free plus you get paid living expenses of around €400/month, and of course about transportation facilities in the country. All the while, we were going past the famous sites - the Aalto buildings, the Senate Square, the famous churches, the harbor - but this time I was getting the insights of a native of the country. It was quite enjoyable.

This is the best picture I have of Jukka (left) and Donny during the walk. Whoops.

Eventually, we returned to the hotel. I washed my socks in the sink (the heck if I'm paying the equivelant of $12 to do my laundry when all I really need are some clean socks and underwear), worked on the blog, read some more of Travels, and called it a night.