Faced with the prospect of spending all day out and about in -6 degree weather until 10pm when we were due to board the overnight train to Lapland, we decided checking out as late as possible – 11am – was the go. Besides the sun is only just coming over the horizon at 11am then. We chilled in the room, snoozed a bit longer to get over the jetlag and took our time packing our bags. Too long in the end – I left my Australian to European charger in the room. And as most Australian travelers know getting one of these is near impossible anywhere outside of Australia. When we left the hotel, we headed in the opposite direction to the well trodden streets around the central square and railway station and towards the business district. Although we were looking for the central market hall – Hakaneimi market. A cacophony of the smells and colours of Finnish produce. Of course there was salmon by the tonne. Curiously most places in Finland, whether it be a market, a supermarket or indeed a restaurant blackboard menu, salmon is much cheaper than beef – a very different prospect to home. There were also loads of smoked meats, hams and sausages, elemental cheeses, pickled herrings, baked goods including fabulous rye breads, soups and coffee. There weren’t a whole lot of vegetables I have to say. And everywhere we went; we largely found the same fruit and vege as at home. I was hoping to find punnets of ligonberries and cloud berries but alas just strawberries and blueberries (probably grown in a greenhouse in Spain and tomatoes that probably come from Turkey). I imagine the berries are probably picked in the spring or summer. Rye bread, salmon, pickles – what’s not to love about Finnish food? We wandered about the market hall (including the really expensive Finnish handicrafts upstairs, before making a breakfast selection at a little sandwich stall we had passed on our way in. We each got a sandwich – Dan’s was roast beef and pickles on a light wholemeal rye. I had ham, cheese and salad on dark rye. There was a more interesting looking sandwich with egg and pickles but I really wanted the rye bread. We also procured what is best described as a cheese Danish in a bun. The filling, which tasted like a ligonberry cheesecake, was surrounded by a sweet bun. We also grabbed two Karellian pastries, which are a rye crust filled with rice. They have a savoury flavor and were a bit ho hum on their own. They are meant to be eaten hot with butter or an egg salad and butter mix spread on top, gloriously melting on the pastry. We couldn’t find anywhere to sit inside so decided to brave the cold and eat our breakfast picnic style on the wooden benches by the river (and rugged up with scarves and jacket). (Heaven 90210 – Urge Overkill – the return of the soundtrack to my travels – not one of their better known tunes but this evokes memories of my 20s, not least of all because of the pop cultural reference to a certain TV program. It’s the postcode not the show this refers to though.) Breakfast consumed, we decided to walk along the river’s edge and take in the harbor. On my last journey to Helsinki, in February 2009, the harbor was frozen over but the sea is still liquid at the moment and there is very little snow on the ground anywhere in Helsinki. We headed through some of the less traversed cobblestoned streets between rows of coloured apartment buildings at least a couple of centuries old. I have a billion and one shots of these streets from across northern Europe but I can never help myself taking several hundred more. These towns truly are beautiful and despite the harsh winter, the colder months, especially when there is snow, only seems to make them more beautiful and other worldly. Or maybe it’s just because I live in a place where suburban project built homes or prefab apartments designed by builders are not just the norm but the preference of many, where we borrow indiscriminately from all cultures but our own when we build our homes. We stopped along the way to visit a supermarket. One of the activities I highly recommend in any country you visit. Perhaps it’s my long history of working in supermarkets but I found the different products and the emphasis on them in the shelf layout, fascinating. For example every supermarket in Australia has at least half a row of coke, a whole aisle of chips, a thousand different types of rice and pasta, a huge fruit and vegetable selection, including a large selection of Asian greens, and of course vegemite and Tim tams. In Finland there is a large fish section, heaps of yoghurt and lots of things that condiments that come with dill and mustard, as well as, curiously, curry flavoured mayo. Dan was feeling a bit puckish so he grabbed some cupcakes that he though looked a lot like Madeira cake. It turned out they were actually lemon cakes. The lottery of packaging in a language you don’t understand. Dan also picked up the electronic catalogue at the store but quickly discarded it after he was less than pleased with the prices. Finland (or anywhere in Northern Europe) – not really a bargain destination. One of the things that is most impressive about this part of the world is that there largely doesn’t appear to be the same level of poverty evident here that you see in many other economies, including our own. There also seems to be a much flatter society – you don’t see a lot of cash being flashed about in the same way as some of their neighbours. Everything is well planned, designed and structured and the less than four hours of daylight aside, Finns seem to be quite balanced, content and the society is incredibly inclusive. From the supermarket, we wandered back to the harbour to look at the boats and ferries (and to find me a coffee, which by this stage I was desperately needing. Just like every other harbourfront in the world, old dockyard buildings here have been renovated and now house designer boutiques, upscale eateries and hipster coffee joints. You always know you are in a hipster coffee joint when they tell you they have at least two or three different roasts. My local, which makes coffee far good enough for hipster status and actually sells a range of different beans, avoids that tag because when I ask for a coffee, I get one without the 15 questions I can’t handle when I really need a coffee. The coffee was OK but not exceptional but was what I really needed to warm me up and kickstart my brain. As we wandered further along the waterfront, we came across hot dog stands and stalls selling all manner of fur hats, largely worn in movies featuring stereotypical Russians. Although I imagine they would be exceptionally warm. Where there is a bit of cash is on the Esplanade, the boulevard peppered with local designers (including at least a couple of outlets for Finland’s most famous export (apart from Atlantic salmon), marimekko. There are also plenty of stores selling Alvar Aalto vases and bowls. But amongst the overexposed, there are some gems from local designers – including an exceptionally well proportioned laminated hexagonal stool/table at Helsinki’s top design outlet Artek. Helsinki also has its very own, revered, department store – Stockman’s where you can find everything from talking Heads records to designer lights with three, or in some cases four, zeroes. We wandered through a few floors – most notably the toys where we found Architecture Lego at affordable prices (even in Euros in Finland) and the boots section where I didn’t find anything I liked that fit me. In fact over the course of the next few hours, a very patient Dan followed me into perhaps every ladies shoe store in Helsinki (and there are lots of them) to no avail. I suspect it was largely because he got to sit down in a warm store. While my Aldi bought snow boots ($39.95) are holding up beautifully, I was hoping to buy a new pair of stylish fleece lined winter boots for Berlin and Paris (and to take home of course). (Burnin’ streets – Joe Strummer – I was reminded a couple of weeks ago of the passing of this great legend of punk, ska and political commentary – the Julien Temple biography of Strummer The Future is Unwritten was on the telly . 22 December marks 11 years since he died.) We took a bit of a break from the boot shopping to sit down in a coffee shop. Like most of northern Europe, coffee shops are a bit of a feature throughout Finland, offering traditional filter coffee, nontraditional lattes and cappuccinos and all manner of sweet treats. We ordered – coffee for me and hot Chocolate for Dan – waited for our drinks and grabbed a table. The great thing about Finland is that pretty much everywhere you go there is a water siphon and glasses. You’ve got to imagine that Finland has some pretty well designed and maintained plumbing, and with all that fresh pure snow melting each spring, half the bottled water in Europe probably originates from here anyway. From here we headed toward the train station to validate the Eurail pass ahead of our 21:52 departure on the overnight train to Santa land, It was starting to get really cold and had been dark for some hours already (sunrise is about 10am and the sun is setting by 2:30pm and it’s completely dark by 4pm) so we decided to spend a bit of time wandering around the various levels of Stockmans – there are about 8 floors or something – so we could keep warm., We wandered to a few dinner destinations suggested by Lonely Planet but they all looked fairly expensive. And busy. We decided to head back to the pasta Express restaurant we had spotted across the road from the Iguana (Mexican) place last night. Wandering about town it became clear that Iguana was actually a chain. Pasta express was a good choice. It’s about 9.90 euros (depending on the pasta you choose) but the best part is that the chef cooks it in front of you. You get a card when you enter and take that to the counter. You tell the chef what sort of pasta you want and he cooks the sauce in a wok in front of you and cooks a freshly open serve of whichever pasta you choose. We both had penne – I went for Bolognese (just because it isn’t something you usually cook this way, and Dan went for Carbonara. Our chef was a burly Finn who chatted to us about how he loved the cold and went camping with friends in winter. He was fun to talk to and the meal was great. It came with bread and you could order drinks and side salads if you wanted. After dinner we headed back to the hotel to grab our backpacks and headed for the train station. (The Golden Age of Nicotine – Custard – that glorious age in the mid nineties when the novelty song was everywhere (especially in Australia) but it was at least a bit clever. Custard reminds me of Livid. Now that was a festival!)