I made it to Finland! I was very very tired when I arrived due to foolishly staying up until 3am and then my silly body waking me up at 7am the next morning, and THEN catching a flight at 9:30pm that passed through a six hour time difference (and was 4 hours + 3 hour layover + 4 hours) and put me in Helsinki at 3:30pm, an hour delayed from the original arrival time. But I managed to stay up until 11pm and seem to be on track with local time now! Below is a photo of my friend Fanni from dinner last night. She’s another double bassist and I met her at an arts centre in Quebec when we both attended masterclasses there last summer! She and her boyfriend graciously agreed to host me and I am very thankful! I made them a set of 8 cotton/linen napkins to say thank you. (I also tried to bring a bottle of Nova Scotian wine for them, but then I had to bring a bunch of warm clothes for Iceland and my bag got too heavy and I had to ditch the wine. ALAS!)
This morning we had breakfast together, which included cream cheese speckled with reindeer meat and a delicious mango yogurt that I poured on my oatmeal (it’s runnier than the yogurt in Canada). She stayed at home to do laundry and practice in the morning, and I headed to the Marimekko outlet store which I was VERY excited about!
There was a lot of cool clothing to look at, but it was very expensive (think 125€ minimum for a dress, and I also saw a beautiful huge maxi skirt that was 235€). I really liked the idea of the dress directly below – the little pockets are all real! There was also another button-up shirt dress that had pockets all over it in much more random places. I definitely want to steal the idea of the dress in the photo; Fanni says it’s a very popular teachers’ dress in Finland. I tried on one dress, but it must have been an older design because they only had sizes 42 and 44, and while the shoulders fit, the bust darts were way too low and I would not spend that much money on something that didn’t fit well! But it was made so beautifully, the invisible zipper was so perfect, especially with the full lining. The cloth next to it is something called a “fitting cloth” which I was confused by, but apparently you are supposed to put it over your face when you put the dresses on so that your makeup doesn’t get onto the clothing. Luckily I don’t wear makeup at all, so that wasn’t an issue.
I was obviously most interested in the fabric section of the store! I think it’s so cool to see a design house selling the fabric the clothing is made from directly to consumers in the same store that sells their clothing and home goods. This outlet is also in the same building that houses their printing facility, but unfortunately they don’t offer tours. The fabric on the table in the forefront of the photo is specifically garment fabrics; they had jerseys and lighter-weight fabrics that seemed similar to tencel twill or a rayon. I looked at everything on the table and up on the wall shelves very thoroughly before deciding what I wanted to get. I had read Heather Lou’s blog post about her experience at Marimekko in Sweden and was very mindful of converting Euros to Canadian dollars in my head before I bought anything, so I didn’t get a shock when I looked at my credit card! The good thing about the outlet store was that a lot of things were discounted, and there was a lot of selection. I went to check out a smaller Marimekko store close to Fanni’s place to see what the difference was, and none of the fabrics were discounted and there was a much smaller selection.
I ended up getting two pieces of fabric. The first is one of the iconic huge florals, and I got 2.5m of it. I plan to make a sleeveless Grainline Farrow dress out of it (minus the seam details so that the print doesn’t get chopped up). The second thing I got is 1m of a cotton linen (which was not on sale) that I loved and plan to use to make shorts (any opinions on which shorts pattern I should use? I have Jenny, the Maritime shorts, and the Lander shorts).
Fanni lives right downtown in a lovely apartment, and you enter it from a courtyard in the back of the building. You get into the courtyard through a gate that’s closed and locked during the night, but in the daytime it’s open and it has a nice design (below). As well, in her neighbourhood there’s a building that she says does a lot of art shows because people can rent out the space for their own shows and exhibitions.
In the afternoon, Fanni joined me and after all-you-can-eat sushi nearby, we walked to a lot of churches. Some of them were closed so we couldn’t go inside, but a few were open, and the exteriors were great anyway! There are a lot of Lutheran churches in Helsinki, and the first one we went to was Johanneksenkirkko. “Kirkko” at the end of things means church. Side note: something interesting I learned is that even though only 5-ish% of the population still speak only Swedish, all signs in Finland have Finnish first and Swedish second. All of the metro stops I went to today had Finnish and Swedish names. Johanneksenkirkko really just means St. John’s Church. I really loved the wooden pews inside. I also always find it really emotional when I see the array of candles in churches that people can light for loved ones. It makes me feel teary to think of all those candles representing a person that was in need or who had passed away, and someone that cared enough to light a candle for them.
Very nearby to the church was a paper shop that Fanni said she loved, so we went inside. I got a few postcards, all with Finnish art on them, and bought some stamps so I can mail them soon.
On the way to the next church, we passed through Kauppatori, which is the market square. One vendor offered us samples of her strawberries – she had two different kinds and they tasted very distinct! I also loved the cherries. We thought about going back after, but didn’t end following through, although I might head back another day to get a mixed box from one of the sellers, because they had a mixture of blueberries and strawberries and cherries and apricots in them, and that would be a good snack for walking and munching.
The next church we visited was very nearby, and is an Eastern Orthodox cathedral. It’s called Uspenskin Katedraali (Uspenski Cathedral) and they had special summer hours so we could not go inside (closed on Mondays!), but walked around the perimeter to check it out. After, Fanni took a couple photos for me – I find that’s the thing about travelling alone, you end up with no photos of yourself. I brought a tripod for when I’m in Iceland and will be driving a rental car, but when I’m walking around here it seems like a big clumsy thing to bring around so I’m lucky to have a friend with me! Excuse the sassy pose in the second photo – it was very windy and I was trying to keep it out of my face, haha.
I love the old building style in Helsinki! Some of them say when they were built, and it seems to be around the middle of the 1700s. It’s interesting to me to see what a huge difference there is between buildings in other regions that were built around that time period. Somehow the style of these buildings doesn’t seem “old”, which I know is a silly thing to think. I love the colours they use as well.
The next church was huuuge! The church right before this said on their website that they were open but then weren’t, and this one said online they were closed at 3pm, but then had special summer hours and WERE open (until midnight!). So we got to see inside after all. The inside was a bit crowded and honestly pretty minimal, so I don’t have any good photos of it, but it was reallllyyy big. It’s a Lutheran church called Tuomiokirrko (Helsinki Cathedral) and it seats 1300! You can see it from many places in Helsinki (including Uspenski Cathedral) and it has a good view from its elevation. (There were a lot of tour buses there, it seems to be a very popular tourist destination.)
The next church we visited was the one Fanni said was her favourite. It’s crazy, you can’t even tell it’s there until you’re right in front of it, because it just looks like a clump of rocks that was left in the city (which there actually are a couple of these, so it’s not so out of place). It’s called Temppeliaukion Kirkko (Temppeliaukio Church), but people also call it the Rock Church because it’s built directly into the rock! All the other ones we went in were free, but this one cost 3€ to enter. A tour bus arrived right after us, so we had good timing and I was able to get a few photos before it was completely swarmed. The roof/ceiling is really beautiful. There are the struts that you see below holding up a circular ceiling, and you can see out through the space between the walls and the ceiling, which lets in all that natural light. The ceiling is woven out of what seems to be copper, and it really enhances the colour in the rocks that form the walls. Fanni told me that they have concerts there, and they had a small pipe organ off to the side.
The final church we went to is the Kamppi Chapel, and it’s also known as the Chapel of Silence because you aren’t allowed to make any sounds when you are inside. It’s very small, and you also aren’t allow to take any photos at all unless you are a professional photographer and get permission ahead of time. It was built in 2012 and has a very unusual shape as you can see below. Everything inside and out is wood, which makes it feel quite raw – the pews and the interior walls were left their natural colour as you can see here.
After this, we headed back to Fanni’s to watch some of the World Cup and to get supper (our feet were very tired). Tomorrow, I head to Rauma for the day! I’m excited to check out the wooden town, eat lunch at a 50 year old bakery, and wander around (probably into at least one more church)!