Faux-Pax and Design

Another week has gone by and we are still learning things about Finland. Brent started Finnish language courses at the nearby community college. It is rather unconventional compared to language classes that we've taken -- they skipped learning the alphabet and any sounds and jumped right into verb conjugation. I will start a class this week that is held on my campus. Hopefully between the two of us, we will soon be able to read signs and understand any announcements made on the trams about a mid-route change in lines... However, not knowing Finnish hasn't inhibited our managing life in Helsinki.

This weekend, we were able to put our hard-learned culture skills to work. Where did we learn them? From several books and TV shows, compiled by expert travelers. Anyway, one of my coworkers moved to an apartment that is around the corner from where we live, and she invited us to her house-warming party. We read that it is rude to be fashionably late in Finland, and so we showed up at 6 on the dot for her party. As you may have guessed, we were the first ones to arrive, by at least 30 minutes! It was as embarrassing in person as it is for you to read about it. We kept her company while she finished making appetizers and discussed a few other inaccuracies in our culture knowledge. Fortunately, she and my other coworkers that arrived at much more socially-acceptable times, thought our faux-pas to be cute. I wonder how much longer any gaffs will be thusly considered???

We spent our sunny Sunday acting as tourists again, and covered quite a bit of ground. Our first stop was the library in our new neighborhood. It is a beautiful building, built in 1912, and best of all, it is open on Sundays. Only about half of the businesses are open on Sundays, so it is exciting to find your cafe/restaurant/clothing store of choice open on a Sunday. Legislation was passed sometime within the last 10 years, allowing shops to be open on Sundays, but only if they desire. Here, all people are entitled to a weekend, and it is taken very seriously.

It's been Helsinki Design Week here for the last 10 days or so, and we thought we'd go see part of it on its last day. On our way, we came across a street performer who played bottles. He obviously had quite a lot of experience and had this whole set up. He also had a stereo with a rhythm line to accompany him. This picture may not accurately show it, but he had attracted a rather large audience.

Onto Design Week. In honor of being selected the World Design Capital of 2012, Helsinki put together a city-wide festival of design-themed exhibits and events.

Unfortunately, we only made it to one event of everything that was going on (http://www.helsinkidesignweek.com/), and that was the Finnish Design Shop, held in the Old Customs Warehouse next to the South Harbor where many of the cruise ships stop and the kauppatori (market) is held.

Inside there were aisles and aisles and rooms filled with things made by Finnish designers, both famous and obscure and up-and-coming. There were things there made for every room of your home, including the closets. 

Afterward, we wandered around the small island of Katajanokka to look at the old remnants of the shipping industry. Where these things occur now, I am not sure. However, all of the old brick buildings were left behind and they have fortunately been repurposed rather than destroyed. We then took the tram to the peninsula where the largest park in Helsinki is located: Kaivopuisto. This neighborhood also holds the American Embassy. We thought we'd return some other time to locate the embassy and walked through the large park instead. As I wrote a few posts ago, the Finns are hyperaware that winter is approaching, and I hear about it at work daily. The park was mostly green, but contained a few sure signs that summer has ended. We look forward to the next few weeks of beautiful color that await us before the snow sets in.