Suomenlinna… the sea fortress

On the long weekend during the Easter holidays, finally I decided to break the wait for someone to accompany me for some sightseeing. So, I decided to check out the most famous tourist attraction of Helsinki – the Suomenlinna sea fortress built by the Swedish King during the 18th century. This fort has played a vital role in many a wars and is how listed on the UNESCO World Heritage site. Read more about the fort here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suomenlinna

Well, fortunately for me I had one person who accepted to come with me to the fortress and so on Monday, we left for the fortress from our apartment. We have to take ferry from the East harbor which is around 300 metres from my apartment and the ferry ride actually takes just 15 minutes – excluding starting up and parking. You could relate this more to our Vivekanda Rock at Kanyakumari, just that this is much bigger in scale and is a cluster of around 6 islands.

We reached the harbor at around 11.15am to find out the next service is only at 12 noon. So, we decided to roam around the Senate square just stone-throw away from the harbor. This is where Helsinki’s most famous cathedral is situated. Given that there was some snow during the weekend, we went to check out the square in snow. I have already seen this without snow, so wanted see it in snow. But unfortunately, it was that attractive since most of the snow on the ground was already cleared up for the tourists.

So we headed back to the harbor and purchased a ticket from the vending machine for the trip. The ferry left on time and I have to admit, it was kind of overloaded. We decided to stay put near the doors, so that we could have some nice view of the archipelago of Helsinki. Lots of small islands and the ferry maneuvering through them was a good sight. As I told there was some snow, and the wind was really CHILL that two gloves were not good enough to hold back… and the hands were freezing and started to pain even before we landed at the fort at around 12.30pm

We were welcomed by a lot of white snow all over the place in the fort. It was really a great sight to see so much snow all around you… you have to walk on the snow all through the fort. We started our unguided tour without anyone’s help and started wandering around the place. It was really a great to be in a place build 250 years ago and even more fascinating that there is a small community who call it their home.

We went all around the fort; there was a church with massive iron chain attached to sets of 3 canons making it compound like thing… and some beautiful Easter eggs inside the church… the one big one around 2x1.5 feet made out of one piece of wood and many other small ones most of them with gems, glass, and even some precious metals. The church also housed a organ – a musical instrument – made of a lot of tubes. We then headed out on the snow again to see more of the old areas in the fort.

We reached the other end of the island that had a lot of canons in strategic positions and lot of bunkers and hide outs with viewing points to the sea. Some of the canons are so massive, I am not really sure they actually could fire something that big. One canon was taller than me and at least twice my width as diameter and the barrel could easily fit a shot that could be more around twice the size of my head. That’s really massive.

We further explored the area walking through the perimeter of the island when we hit a gateway called the “King’s gate” that was really a beautiful gate… with circular steps leading down to the surface of the water. We also saw a few places which looked more like housing for those who served in the fortress. We also saw a lot of tunnels and most of the closed now, except one which led to one of the canon guns through the place which looked like a storage area for the ammunition.

After a exhausting walk on the snow for 3 hours, finally decided it is time to go home, and we made it to the harbor again in time for the 15.30 pm ferry back to Helsinki. Good walks always leads to good appetite so we hit the Namaskaar Restaurant near the Central railway station for a well deserved lunch and reached home at around 17.00pm

The week that was

To start with I met a person from TCS working on a project at Nokia and luckily he is staying in the same apartment block as mine… he is staying on the ground floor, and me on the first floor. He is Krushna, and he is a business consultant with the TCS. He is joined by 4 of his friends who also work for Nokia, and they too moved into our apartment block. So, we are having a good time during the weekends, as you know how these software guys work during the week… most of the days I do not know when they come home and when they go to work.

Well, on the office front, nothing much exciting happening other than many of the CSS are out either in client location or based out of another SC office, that I hardly get to meet these guys regularly. Nevertheless, it has been nice to work with them, and a couple of teams which are putting in real hard work all through the week to get things done.

On Friday night when these IT guys were back, we went out to see a film “Jumper” which I felt more comical than adventurous that the film claimed to be. However, here I should do a small comparison study between the cinema halls here in Finland and India (within Chennai and Trivandrum). To start with, the hall is actually less than half the size of a normal theatre in India… the total number of seats is around 350 and only one class. These are mostly multiplexes with a choice of around at least 10 films… and the seat costs about 10 EUR (650 Rs.) There was no interval during the film which lasted for ~100 minutes. The snacks that u get inside these multiplex are really of high cost – 2 liter box of popcorn costs around 3EUR (175 Rs.)

The seats are of ok type and were comfort enough for a couple of hours of sitting. One good thing I liked about the them are how the seats were arranged. The height difference between 2 rows are a pretty good – You are saved the effort to ask the person in the front to sit a bit more shallow allowing you an unobstructed view of the screen. That’s a big difference given the many local people being quite tall.

An evening to remember – Back to Reality Party

Well, where to start… as always with a little introduction of what am gonna talk about… this party named Back to Reality was given much of an hype about what was going to happen on this cool Friday evening Feb 29. It is more about 3 parts of the program for the evening Part 1: in the office pantry; Part 2: A bar at a place called Mantsala around 20 kms from the city center; Part 3: Disco in one of the most acclaimed hotel Vantaa near the airport.

Part 1 – Helsinki Office

To start with the evening started at around 6.00pm in the office pantry. Arrangements were made for some food before we start. A pizza which costs abt. 2 Euros, as my colleagues called it, the cheapest pizza you can ever have and worst as well. The exclaimed that it is more like rubber than a pizza. I was lucky that I didn’t have to test that since there was no veggie version of them available. Hurrah!!! But I was feeling really hungry so stuffed myself with a couple of croissants. The drinking started from the office with couple of crates of beer to start with and some bottles of finest Finnish vodka. There was this Koff – this brand has a bar-tram which keeps going around the city’s tram track – and Lapin Kulta beers, the Koskenkorva the vodka, and another kind of non-alcoholic fruit drink.

After a kind of mood-setting for a great evening we headed out to board the bus that’s gonna take us to the bar and the hotel. Here is what they meant by back to reality… the bus was at least 25+ years old… not just its age but everything… the looks, the seating, even all those upholstery inside it was VERY old… but that was a great experience and fun to travel by this not so fast bus. We loaded all the beer and vodka into the bus and we started towards our first stop the Mantsala bar.

The ride took us around 40 mins and the entire group loved the journey. It was really great to see that every group enjoys travelling together in a bus – more like VGI’s team outings – the theme was fun and fun only. People singing, dancing, pulling legs, teasing, and one different thing is here they drink as well… so it was real fun to be on the bus to this bar.

Part 2 – Mantsala bar

We reached the bar after a couple of enquiries on the side of the road as the driver was not really sure about the location of this bar. Now I will have to tell you about the image that people were projecting about this place… this is supposed to be one of very low-level kind of bar… with “gangs” of people and this probably is one of the “not-so-good” kind of place and many things like that… but on the contrary when I reached there it looked a far better kind of place than all that was told to me. Only then I realized what is low-level here in Finland. With the little experience that I have had going to bars with friends this place is comparatively far better than our B6 in Trivandrum. I was really thinking these people should visit our KTDC beer parlors in TVM or the Tasmac bars in Chennai.

Nevertheless, we had a great time there with lots of music and lots of pictures of everyone. As always the drinking continued for another hour or so in the bar, and I had a chance to have some “open” talk with some of the css. It was really a good feeling to be accepted as one of them and they were kind enough that way. There was lot of fun and when we learnt that it was the bar girl’s birthday we had more celebration and one of us actually carried her to the front and every one of us wished her a great day. It was really a touching moment for me as well as that girl and everyone in the bar was really applauding and joined in the celebrations.

Part 3 – Hotel Vantaa

After about 9o minutes we finally left for our next and last stop for the evening the Hotel Vantaa. This is one big place to go in Helsinki on reaching there we all got the “ticket” to go inside and you have a choice of 3 different dance floors. The one which most of us wanted to go was full… so we chose the one on the first floor. It was really unbelievable to see at least 1000 people in that area… that really a big crowd. It was difficult to find out where others are when in a few minutes… the dark ambience and little lighting doesn’t help much either. It was really a normal dance floor until…

A group of 3 people from the hotel who came up on the stage and said a lot of things in “Finnish” and the entire crowd will reply in unison once every minute or so… unfortunately there was no one to translate everything. After a few minutes the prize distribution came… a t-shirt of the hotel given away to the crowd… you know thrown from the stage on to the crowd and you have to choose to get it… a couple of people in our group managed to get it though.

After sometime there came a group of people who were to give live performance for the dance floor… I must admit they were really good. They were interactive with each other – all in the songs – and also made the crowd really interactive with making us sing a few lines. Well, I did not understand a word of what they were singing but I really enjoyed the energy they brought to the dance floor. It was a great performance which lasted for an hour. Once again, the same normal dance floor music with a DJ. By this time we decided to hit the other floor and headed there… the dance floor was not as big as the first one but looked more prominent… it was around a feet below the normal floor level with separate lighting that it looked more like a stage.

I enjoyed the evening thoroughly until tiredness took over at around 2.00am so around 8 of us left together and we had a long wait for the taxi outside the hotel once we got one, we left with a lot of great memories… and reached home at around 3.30am and hit the bed….

Welcome dinner for me

As we decided in the weekly meeting of TAs my welcome dinner was scheduled for Thursday, February 21, 2008 at the Kipina restaurant – a famous restaurant for home made tapas (Spanish) food. As per the plan we were supposed to leave for the restaurant from the office and I thought I will have to be in the office for more time. But, Netta had different plans. We left the office around 17.15 and headed for the latest building the in the Helsinki city center which hosts a restaurant on the top most tower area. So, we (Netta, Sanna, and I) climbed the tower (12th floor) and the restaurant was pretty crammed with little space and was stuffed with as many chairs as possible.

The view outside the tower was pretty impressive even though the climate was very unfavorable with grey poured over the entire sky… but was able to see the city from a good vantage point right in the heart of the city. Made some pictures, though most of them were not that good… especially given the “chill” conditions 12 floors up and a small camera… it is tooooo shakkkkky to take picturesJ. I had a cup of refreshing coffee before we started to our restaurant for the evening – Kipina.

Walked all the way around the block via the central station again and reached the restaurant at around quarter past 6. On our way, Sari joined us and we hit the restaurant and waited for Mervi and Annika to join us. Meanwhile, we ordered some starters… a couple of vege dishes for me and some more. I had ordered a glass of red wine to accompany my snacks and by the time food arrived both the girls joined us and we had a great time together chatting about everything other than work. J They want to learn some swear words so I taught them a few domesticated animals. I ordered for some pasta with onions, tomatoes, and garlic. It was good and really filling.

Everyone ordered a different dish and they shared to taste everything that was in offer in that restaurant. As I said earlier, this restaurant offered homemade food, so the menu was pretty small with little but tasty dishes. Most of them had troubles finishing off, so we went ahead and ordered for a dessert – a vanilla soufflé. I ordered for coffee again (Irish) and with that closed the day with a nice feeling of getting to know my colleagues better.

A weekend around Helsinki

After a long time, today I finally sat down to write down my log. To start with I wish to describe the long walk I took around the city center of Helsinki. On a “sunny” Saturday afternoon I finally made my mind to roam around the city center and to locate the place where I had seen some of the Indian stores on my previous trip on the tram. So, I set out appropriately dressed, to this one of its kind treasure hunt to find the Indian market.

I started my tour with a visit to the harbor that I had been earlier to see it in sunlight and it did not disappoint me… made a couple of pictures around and headed for the Helsinki cathedral the most prominent landmark in the city center. Made a few more pictures and found out my battery had ran out… I have a spare battery but that was in my room. The thrill of adventure ahead, I made my way back to my apartment to pick up my spare battery. Well exercising perhaps. Replaced my battery and hit the road again to the cathedral to cover it fully. Made more photos and started walking around the place called Senate Square.

Went around without any particular destination in mind… went to the other side of the harbor which just a couple of streets away from the first point where I met the sea. Took more pictures and walked through the streets, also found a nice color scheme on a building which I’m planning to put on my house back in Chennai… nothing special just cool brick red accentuated with dark brown. Cool one really! Found my way around to the tram track and started following it with the hope that I would reach the area where the markets are… I wasn’t disappointed… I found the locality around a couple kms from my apartment and believe it there are a total of 8 shops which offer Indian items.

Went inside a few of them and bought some pappads, pickles, chick peas, green peas, moong dal and some rice. On my way back to my apartment I took a different route which brought me to the Helsinki Central Railway station. Found a nice ice skating area near the station, watched for sometime before heading back to home. On the way back spotted another of the Indian cuisine restaurant “Namaskaar Express”. This was more of a fast food kind of restaurant. Nothing that you have to order and wait for them prepare it… it is all there and just have to be put on the plate. When chatting with the guy in the restaurant I learnt that it is run by a Pakistani. Well international relations far away from home. Cool!!! Overall it was a very energetic and revealing walk through the city center. Planning to hit the market once I run out of stock of the items.