Hei Hei and Moi moi Helsinki- part 2

Ahh yes, the naked blacksmiths statue of Helsinki- for students apparently...what more reason do you need?

Sorry its taken a while to write the next not so exciting installement of Helsinki, I took the weekend off to relax and then this week has so far been work, getting covered in dust as my mini boss packs up his stuff for his imminant move to Nagoya.
Anyway... where was I? Ah yes, back from Tallinn. The next day the conference started and I went along to show my support for one of my colleagues who was talking. Poor girl, I think she was petrified. The talk before hers was a very european abstract talk- practically philosphy. Anyway, she did fine, we skipped out the last few talks to go on a bus tour we'd signed up for, which was good for me as I was suffering from a headache since I had woken up at 3am in the morning (yeaaaahh..gotta love jet lag). It was so nice to be able to understand everything being spoken on the bus tour- my previous one was my 2 day tour of Rishiri and Rebun last year- a full on Japanese tour and I spent most of it in ignorance about the islands and what ever fascinating titbit there were saying. 2 hours is more than enough to see all the sights of Helsinki- we even saw somethings twice its that small. We stopped off at the Sibelius momument.Isn't he a cheery looking chappy? Wonderful music- miserable sod from his face.
From here we headed to the Rock church- a church carved out of the rock- imaginative name...
Its got really good acoustics and was crawling with about 5 tour buses from Russia mostly. But a pretty place for a visit. Santa's shop was close by too.
The tour dropped us back at the conference sight in time for lunch- all the goody two shoes headed to the lunchtime seminar- we headed to the market for lunch. Salmon soup and fried crayfish all for 7Euros- which is very reasonable for Helsinki. I hope I can find some dill here soon and try this recipe out- Its perfect for a Hokkaido autumn I think!
The only downside were the many wasps which wanted a bite of the soup and crayfish too.I had forgotten how annoying wasps in Autumn are in Europe, so persistant and always there when you're eating.
After a quick amble through the market we headed for a quick look at the cathedral, the main landmark in Helsinki- heck its visible from some miles out to sea. The square had a collection of "buddy bears" each one painted to represent a different country. (anyone else think that the china bear is looking particularly smug?)(Yes this would be the British bear- don't ask what's on its head)
It was also populated by a whole crowd of students wearing bin bags and paper hats or overalls in badges. Crowds of them were seated on the steps of the cathedral with loudspeakers calling various groups to buses- no idea what was going on, but it was fascinating to watch. I guess it was some new student orientation weekend or something. anyhoo we escaped the madness into the cathedral which was a lovely oasis of calm after all the noise of the morning.
After this I headed back to the hotel for some sleep as the headache hadn't really gone away and the others were good little conference attendee's. I had a nice afternoon nap and got up in time for the evenings entertainment- a welcome party at the city hall- I slipped the lease and ended up going out for a beer with the British contingent who, as usual, were the latest out.

Next day was spent actually attending some of the conference and then a nice if somewhat windswept and lenghty walk around the world heritage site of Suomenlinna, which was pretty autumnal looking...In the evening was the conference party- which was a big buffet and drinking session with a live band and dancing-much to the amusement and googly eyed-ness of my colleagues. Though the sight of leading names in the field dancing like your Dad at a wedding is kind of funny in that slightly embarassing way. My former boss (who's now in Australia) and I managed to get them to dance for one song, then we retreated to the hotel bar so my mini boss could finally try Aquavit- his sole reason for coming to Helsinki it seemed like.
The last day of the conference- was the busiet for me- I actually went to most sessions, stood in front of my poster talked science and stuff and met my parents, who came across for the weekend. My colleagues also got to met them, and were declared "kawaii" so I suppose thats good. Later they said how interesting it was to see us hugging- do they shake hands with their parents after not meeting for a long time or something?
Conference over- I moved across to my parents (Russian)Casino style hotel near the train station and we ended up back at and even colder and windswept Suomenlinna island for the morning as the ferries to Estonia were way to expensive.

There we are my trip to Helsinki and Tallinn. I came back with a pile of salty licorice, a dress from Marimekko ( only Japanese people know about this designer apparently), a liking for reindeer ( I think we ate all of Santa's sleigh and more), knowledge that many Finnish words are actually pretty rude words in Japanese- or so I've been told, and a promise to visit my friend in Taiwan in the next two months. So thats a nice way to get over a trip - plan another one.