Want to lunch?

So let's talk about the lunches. Here in Finland people eat twice a day a warm meal, one with lunch and one with dinner. And most of the time they already eat it around 11 a.m. The first time someone asked me if I already wanted lunch at 11 a.m was at my clinical practice. I was a bit suprised that he asked it so early, cause I didn't knew it was so common to have lunch around that time. They told in school that it was normal in schools to serve the lunch so early. But what I didn't know was that they also have lunch at work that early. I still have to get used to have lunch at that time, cause I'm more used to lunch around 12 o'clock or even a bit later. For me 11 a.m is more a time of a coffeebreak, but ofcourse here they also have other times for that. Or we can just say, they actually don't have a time for a coffeebreak, cause they just drink it all the time. Coffee is a big thing here in Finland, everyone loves it and it's part of people's life. A teacher told us in one of the first meetings, that her mom wakes up every night to drink a cup of coffee and then goes back to sleep. Well I think that is real dedication.  

So for the Finns coffee is really important, they drink it with breakfast, at work, at meeting, when hanging out, on a date, at home just everywhere and all the time. An other fact about the coffeeculture here, It's rude to say no when someone offers you a cup of coffee. So I think some people will say I'm rude, cause I just don't like coffee. Maybe a good reason to learn to drink it ;)

Puhua myöhemmin

Emma

Girlstrip to Tallinn, Estonia

This weekend we did an other citytrip, we went to Tallinn. I went to Tallinn with Aniek and three other girls.

Helsinki

We left Turku on friday, we took the bus to Helsinki and took the ferry to Tallinn. It doesn't take a lot of time to get in Tallinn, we left Helsinki around 20.00 and we arrived in Tallinn around 22.30. Even though it wasn't such a long journey, most of us got a bit seasick. Well we arrived in Tallin and went straight to our appartment. The harbour is in new town, so we weren't impressed by the city, but walking towards our appartment we came in old town. WOW... that was just amazing, it was dark so we couldn't see a lot, but we could see that it was just beautiful. Walking there takes you back in time, roads are bumpy, all old buildings and some people walk around in an medieval clothing.

We got lost a few times while searching our appartment, but we eventually found it. And it was amazing, it could be from a pinterestpicutre. After settling in we all went to bed, cause we were really tired.

Saturday 29-9 

I woke up a bit early, but I figured out we had an amazing view from our window. Everyone was still asleep, so I just sat by the window lsitening to some music and enjoying the beautiful morning.

We had luck with the weather, the sun was shining and it wasn't really cold. So we decided to have some breakfast and then do some sightseeing through the city. Our breakfast was amazing, we searched a while, but we found a pancakerestaurant. There was already a queue outside so we thought, this has to be a good place. And it definitely was a good place, it was actually really cheap and the pancakes were delicious. After breakfast, it was time for some sightseeing. We didn't really know what to expect, but we just walked through Tallinn old town. This the most beautifull part of the city, it is one of the best preserved medieval cities of Europe.

 

The first thing we saw was the Alexander Nevsky-Cathedral. This cathedral is kind of the most recognizable symbols of Tallinn and it has a typical revival Russian style. It is really beautifull from the outside and inside. You don't have to pay to get inside, so really worth a visit.

 

We knew there was a viewing point, where you had a view all over the city. It was hard to find, cause we didn't know what is was called, and there weren't that many maps of the city. But we eventually found one. It wasn't the one we were looking for, but from this one you also had a beautiful view. The rest of the afternoon we just walked through the city, through all the small, cute streets.

Aniek and I decided to do a little ¨photoshoot¨ at the end of the day, cause the weather was still really good. We made a lot of pictures and had a lot of fun pretending to be real instagrammodels. We didn't do a lot in the evening, we were planning to go out. But after dinner, everyone was really tired that we decided to have a relaxed evening at our appartment.

Sunday 30-9

The weather wasn't as good as it was on saturday. Actually it was just bad, it was raining all the time and it was really cold. But we had only one day left so we made the best of it.

Again we had our breakfast at the pancakerestaurant, it is called 'Kompressor'. So if you ever go to Tallinn, I would recommend you to go there and have a delicious pancake. So we still had to fill a few hours in Tallin and because of the bad weather we decided to search a shopping mall. On our way to the shoppingmall we found a place where we could get on the citywall, something I really wanted to do. It was a bit of a disappointment, cause it was just a small part of the wall, and you didn't have a nice view over the city.

But I found an other stair that came out at a small viewingpoint. Eventhough the weather was bad, we had a nice few over the city.

After we had seen this, we went to the shoppingmall and spent the rest of our day there.

We left Tallinn around 17.00. Cause of the bad weahter the sea was rough, so again I got seasick. But we survived and around 19.30 we got back in Helsinki. We bought some food and got back on the bus, back to Turku.

Before I got to Finland, I never thought of a trip to Estonia. But this city suprised me and I want to see more of this country. Aniek and I already planned to do a roadtrip through the Baltic states someday.

So if you ever need ideas for a citytrip, don't forget about these countries, especially Tallinn is worth a visit.

Puhua myöhemmin

Emma