The Daughter of the Baltic

Many years have passed since the first and only visit to Helsinki. Very long time to remember, not to mention how young I was. That long ago I was only starting my first year at the university of architecture so I have to admit I was not even too impressed and demanding about the architecture in the city, or any city. Totally opposite as how I am now wherever I travel. But something that has never changed in all this time is my passion for art-deco and art-nouveau styles. And yes, that’s right, Helsinki has one of the largest collection of art-nouveau buildings in the world.

Returning back to this city was as exciting as for the first time. Gladly to find out it is still as cute and well cared, clean and elegant as I remembered. A big down side, the much higher costs for everything in overall. Back in 2002 they were only starting to use the Euro as currency merely 6 months before my arrival and I remember the people already telling how much the prices went up. But now, everything has changed, and although it is not as expensive as its neighbors (Sweden and specially Norway), there is a clear steep increase in prices.

So this time, I got to see how the city looks like in winter time. Fair enough it’s not very true as it was already spring and not the peak December/January; but still, was it was freezing cold. Quite the opposite as how this was the first time I came to the city at over 30 degrees in the middle of the summer. But don’t take this for granted, the weather over here even in August could be very bad and cold. I was perhaps very lucky, but it’s not the norm.

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