First Days in Helsinki

Their is a competition back home in the UK where people can enter an short article about a trip they have taken. Here was my entry about my first few days in Helsinki, Finland.

I hope you like it I wonder if it would make a good full story?

"Helsinki isn't really that cold, " I thought to myself as my feet touched down on Finnish soil for the first time on a mild Friday afternoon in January. I then brought this up with my cab driver on the ride from the airport to what would be my new home for the next 6 months. He explained it had been surprisingly warm for this time for year, but come next week the minus temperatures would descend. We continued to exchange pleasantries for the rest of our journey. He was originally from Washington but married a Finnish woman, a reasonable explanation as to why one would immigrate to Finland, and naturally he seemed intrigued as to why I was here. A question I too, as of yet, didn’t really have a well-formed answer to. I’m just a nineteen-year-old student who after a lifetime of living in London jumped at the chance to experience somewhere new on an exchange.

A grand building in the city centre stood out to me on our drive. It had an arched roof and was clad in a reddish brown brick. The outer rim of the arch was an emerald "statue of liberty" green and adjacent was a clock tower capped with the same green to match. There were grand wooden doors with gold handles at the entrance and above stood a sign reading "Rautatieasema Jarnvagsstation".

"It’s merely a train station, " my driver said dismissively.

A couple of days later I decided to visit this mere station and as to not disappoint it was just as beautiful to me on the inside as it was outside. As I gazed around in awe a Finnish gentleman approached me "Just standing there you really stood out to me and I felt the need to come and talk to you, " he said. I do not know if I stood out because of my bright red coat or perhaps just being a black person in Finland. Almost reading my mind he goes on to say "Well most Finnish people like to wear dull colours like grey. " We continue to chat and I tell him my name "Daniela. " He repeats it several times and struggles to pronounce it. He says he has never heard it before and is curious to know the origin. He then tells me his own name, "Arttu, " and I couldn't help but think the same. He seemed pleasant enough so we exchanged details and parted ways.

By the following weekend as my cab driver had foreshadowed the weather took a beautiful turn for the worse, a sentence you could never use to describe the British weather but is more than appropriate here. The temperature dropped and with it came the infamous Finnish snow, thick yet light like a clean white duvet over the landscape. The snow illuminates the city and I was keen to take a walk in the town centre to really take it all in. As if reading my mind again a receive a message from my new Finnish friend "Would you like to go for a walk? ".