My trip to Helsinki 20250526

 

The summer of 2024, I travelled to the amazing cities of Europe. That showcased the amazing things to remember, from lush green forests, to unforgettable historical landmarks. This has been one of the best travelling experiences of my life. Looking back it has been a month of travelling and adventure.

 

First we landed at Helsinki, Finland at around 5 in the morning local time. My mom made it sound like the customs was a big deal and might be incredibly difficult, but with literate English abilities, and a good outline of our plans we were quite easily admitted. We arrived at a hotel of moderate size and price. Being an Asian who has never been to Scandinavia, many of the animals and ways of living life were quite peculiar. We spent the rest of the day attempting to fix jet lag, in the process I slept from 1pm to about 8-9pm, but the night was still as bright as day. We took a quick stroll around the hotel and found a train station and many food trucks all around us. It was quite cold despite the season. We ended up grabbing some burgers from a food truck, it was more or less on the expensive side. Then disaster struck, a seagull flew right past my head and before I knew it, my burger was disassembled and distributed between the 20 or so seagulls. It was a special experience though quite costly.

 

The next morning, we ate breakfast at the hotel buffet, and since half the tables were outdoors, there were some birds all around the ground. The food was quite simple and that later day, we went on to visit an open air museum. It was about buildings of Finnish history. It was fun, and I remember looking at churches and entire buildings to house boats, but the thing I remembered best was the wildlife. There were some weird mushrooms that were incredibly hard, but after careful research it was safe, and was actually used to start fires in extreme conditions. There were also wild strawberries the wise of a finger nail, and blackberries all over the landscape. The birds included not only seagulls and pigeons, but also some flightless birds and pelicans. The entirety of our Helsinki trip was planned by no other than me. It was an amazing experience, and taking public transportation was so much more cost effective than taxis or Ubers.

 

Day two was certainly an unforgettable one. I wanted to visit so many things but we woke up just before noon. We ended up visiting a museum covering the history of the city. It talked about the major events like conflicts and major breakthroughs. Which to be honest I couldn’t care less. We also visited almost like a market but unlike ones in China everything was much more decent, but also more expensive. There were meals but also some everyday items like cups or knives. The society was completely built on trust and no one had the problem of thief, unless the birds were added to the conversation. We didn’t really buy anything, but funny enough we did try some paella.

 

The next day we woke up really early to get to a local national park which I’ve been longing to visit for a while. Public transport was slightly confusing and for a while we were quite lost. As we arrived there, everything was so green, and just nature all around us, but the buildings were well built, and very aesthetic. We hiked into the woods, which were very quiet and beautiful yet safe. We took some very beautiful photos, and I actually spotted a snake. It was absolutely out of my expectations, I quickly took a photo of his lower body just as it escaped into the leaves. It turned out to be venomous so I was actually incredibly lucky. We ate a buffet for dinner near the national park. Everything was average except the salmon, the fish was tender, fatty, and incredibly flavourful. As an Asian used to eating frozen fish, I just couldn’t stop myself from more. After dinner, we visited the nature museum just next to the entrance of the park, and learnt even more about the European nature which was so incredibly different from the rest of the world.

 

The next day we took a bus to the next stop of our trip, Berlin. It was a pleasure to see this country, and as I left with long lasting memories, I knew my trip had only started.

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