First Sunshine

After almost 2 weeks in Helsinki, today I had the first sight of Helsinki in broad daylight and good sunshine… yes sun shine!!! It is almost very difficult to see sun here… but today it was very nice to see the sun. Now, I feel bad about cursing the sun for heating our cities all these years in India... we don’t realize the goodness of anything until when we actually need it. So, long live our sun and its services to the mankind. Though locals still feel bad they are not having their regular winter with 10+ degrees below zero and snow! I’m enjoying this :-) One more thing I learnt, when there are no big clouds you have a lot of wind and with wind the atmosphere is even chillier than it would be when there is a cloud cover… howzzzzat!!!

Today I also realized how useful the ‘thermals’ that I wear below my dress, though it was shining really nicely, the atmosphere is really chill!!! Today I experimented without them and I could feel the chill encroaching me from every point where I did not have another layer of dressing :-) now that’s really scary to be so vulnerable to the elements without proper protection… so no more experimentation with the thermal wear.

Some things I noticed here… there is no strain involved in being a trucker here. Every truck I have seen in the past days has an electric-operated platform at the rear end of the truck’s payload area. Everything that is to be transported are moved on to this platform when lowered to the ground level, and then the platform as a whole is lifted to the truck level enabling the people to move stuff into the truck. This platform also doubles itself as the rear door… ah yes! I am yet to see any open trucks like the killer “sand tippers” that ply on the Indian roads. Also, most of the traffic inside the city moves very slowly, around 40-60 kmph and of course everyone follows the traffic rules. No one jumps the red signal nor do they do any “theatrics” on the road. Sometimes, people cross the road, only at the pedestrian crossings, when there is no traffic in sight. Accidents still happen though mostly because of slippery roads

I visited the biggest shop in the center of Helsinki – The Stockmann “Kingdom of Shopping” as they call it – and must admit it is by far the biggest I could actually even think of as a single store!!! It is really a ‘massive’ shopping area and everything under the same roof. You can get everything in there and with 8 floors it is really huge. It can be termed as a standalone sightseeing spot in Helsinki. I did not count the number of entrances it has, but I can correctly guess it has at least 6 different entrance/exits. It even directly exits to the underground tunnel station just across the road it is situated. You probably can get ‘lost’ in there… and the ‘pricing’ is in line with is size!!! Am not really sure whether it is economical… but I don’t think it would be, though!

Enjoying my stay here though a bit disappointed that I could not see and play in snow… but believe it would one day happen.

p.s. I shall put up a picture of the Stockmann soon