Helsinki and 32nd birthday

Xabier Osteikoetxea
Sep 25, 2019
3 min read

I arrived to Helsinki after another brilliant ride with beautiful landscapes from Turku. There I would spend the next 4 days including my 32nd birthday. I was very curious to see the capital city of Finland and hear and read Finnish language. Interestingly in Swedish is also an official language in Finland so in addition to encountering Finnish I also saw more familiar Swedish signs. I already knew Finnish belongs to the Finno-Ugric family of languages and as a Hungarian speaker I was eager to hear if there were obvious commonalities and shared words such as we encounter in Romance languages. However it became obvious that the relationships between Finno-Ugric languages are more distant as I couldn't distinguish any common words but it seems the grammar logic is similar.

As with other destinations, I set out to explore the main sights of Helsinki. I was very fortunate to have sunny weather although it was rather cold and at night I was shocked that temperatures could reach 3-5°C. I was especially impressed by the Helsinki and Uspenski cathedrals. Each cathedral towers over its part of the city and both can be seen from various sites.

Helsinki with it's towering cathedrals.

Helsinki cathedral is Lutheran and was built in 1852 in a neoclassical style while Uspenski is an Eastern Orthodox cathedral built in 1868 in Bizantine revival style.

Helsinki cathedral.

Uspenski cathedral.

Across the water from the city center there is a beautiful fortress island called Suomenlinna, translating to Castle of Finland, which is inhabited by around 800 people. This island is an UNESCO World Heritage site accessible by a quick ferry from the city. The fortress was initially built by the Swedish crown in 1748 but later the Russians occupied the island in 1808 and subsequently the rest of Finland too. Only did the fortress return to Finland from Russian occupation with the Finnish independence in 1918.

Suomenlinna fortress island.

Another very interesting are if Helsinki is the Töölönlahti Bay with surrounding parks and museums. There are a number of modern buildings housing various museums including the Helsinki Music Centre, Central Library, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, as well as having close by the Parliament House, the National Museum of Finland, and the Linnanmäki amusement park.

Helsinki Music Centre.

Central library.

Parliament house.

In Linnanmäki there was the Sea Life aquarium that I was very fortunate to tour with some locals I met and who work there. It was very special to see the aquarium from their perspective with lots of inside information and I learnt that many if not all venomous frogs are not actually venomous on their own but instead through metabolising the venoms of the insects they feed on, thus in captivity they lose their venoms due to eating other insects.

Helsinki Sea Life.

Not only was I really lucky to visit the aquarium with this awesome group of locals but also they celebrated with me my birthday. They showed me an iconic Finnish drink called "lonkero", named after the English term "long drink", and consisting a mixed gin drink with various flavours and exactly 5.5% alcohol due to the country's strict alcohol regulations. After a few lonkeros and brithday shots we also went to a local university party and later a karaoke night. It was the quintessential Finnish night out according to my friends and I was very lucky to meet and hang out with this amazing group of people.

Birthday night out.

Birthday tequila shots.

While preparing to leave for my next destination I though that it could be a great to celebrate my birthday Finnish style in coming years and hopefully I will meet again with the awesome group of Helsinki's Sea Life guides.

Travel from Oslo to Helsinki: 1016kms in 17hr30 Total travel for the trip: 3439kms in 44hrs