finland

I've been to Helsinki, Finland, three times since September of last year. This is the first of a number of posts that I'll put together into a meta-link (including dining posts from YatCuisine) when they're all up.

Market square near the harbor. It's a combination farmer's market/flea market.

The fresh produce made me wish I had a stove in the hotel room where I could do my own cooking!

Wide shot of the market.

Finland's Presidential Palace.  Prior to being a democratic nation, Finland was a Grand Duchy of Imperial Russia, so there are a number of palace-size/style residences that have been converted for other uses.

On my first two trips to Helsinki/Espoo, I stayed at the Palace Hotel Sello, which is in walking distance from the Hitachi Data Systems office in Espoo. Last September, The HDS folks booked me back into that hotel, but we all failed to consider that the courses I came over to teach weren't to be held at the HDS office, but rather at Konehuone Oy, which was a bit further away, closer to downtown Espoo. The office is about 16km to the east of downtown Helsinki, but it's south and east of the hotel by 13km. For my trip in December, and this week as well, they booked me here at the Sokos Hotel at Tapiola Garden, which is only 7km from the office.

The room is a typical European style, two twin beds.

Not much drawer space, and, most disappointing, no coffee/tea service in the room.

Workstation area. Wi-fi is free here, unlike at the Palace Hotel Sello, where it was &euro15 per day. I can put up with no electric tea pot in the room with a savings like that.

Additionally, the view of Tapiola Garden is gorgeous. I'll try go to get some photos, assuming there's enough daylight to get them.

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This was the view from my room at the Sokos Hotel Tapiola Garden, yesterday (Saturday) morning:

This is a concert hall at Tapiola Garden.  My hotel is on one side of this big reflecting pond, then this cultural complex and a shopping mall next door.

(more photos after the jump)

On the other side of the refelecting pond is this swimming arena.  There's an olympic-sized pool inside there with bleachers around it.  When not used for competitive swimming, it's open for anyone to swim.  I asked my colleague from HDS how much the water is heated, he said "not much."  I passed on checking it out.

When I woke up this morning, the scene was a bit different:

Overnight snow!  Now the reflecting pond is frozen over completely. 

Frozen all the way across! And people were in there swimming at 8am.