Exploring the capital city, Helsinki!

I think that I've been to Helsinki more times these last few months than any finn has their last few years. It's not even so that I have many connections to the city, but I just keep finding new opportunity's to go and my thoughts are simple... why not take up a travel opportunity when you have one! Just recently, I had a few days off of school and my host mom was making a business trip to Helsinki for two days & so she had offered for me to come along! She had booked a hotel for Tuesday evening, but during the days Tuesday & Wednesday I was free to explore the city on my own. Although there are many exchange students in the Helsinki area I didn't really put a lot of effort into contacting many accept for a few people, only because I was just eager to spend the two days not having any plans in particular but instead just exploring/doing my own thing. I have to say, going about this way was such a good choice! I had an incredible two days of pure bliss! Everything was so low key and relaxed that I got to enjoy every little minute of it.

On Tuesday morning I left with my host moms (both my current whose working in the city & my 1st, whose studying in university there and joined us for a ride!) bright and early, roughly around 6 a.m. It's about a 2 hour drive from Turku to Helsinki, around the same amount of time it takes going from my town in the states to Chicago -- not so bad. Once we arrived into the city my host mom had to immediately go into work so I was on my own for the entire day to do whatever I pleased. Since most of the stores (and not much else) was open quite yet I decided to explore and find a comfy, cozy cafe to sit in for the morning until things came alive. I stumbled across Roberts (a personal favorite of mine in Finland) and was lucky enough to find it nearly empty being the early hours of the morning. In the past week I've been so very happy to have been on a major creative strike and have not only been able to photograph two separate photoshoots in the same weekend (view here & here) but also, I was able to borrow a friends 50mm lens for a few extra days! Since then I've been taking pictures like a mad woman, especially all the small details & portraits! And so of course, because of this fact, I'm sure you can imagine how far behind I had gotten in editing -- and still am now! Since I had a few extra hours time I had gotten myself a great big cup of coffee and sat myself down in front of my laptop on a rainy, cloudy morning and started editing away. This probably has to be one of my favorite things to do ever, because I find myself completely 100% content in all of my surroundings. After much productivity in editing and 2 big cups of coffee I was one very happy girl.

Once I wrapped up some of my editing I decided to pack up my things and head towards the shops. There were a few different things that I was needing to get for my Wanhat Tanssit (I'll explain about this more later on) and then I also decided to just roam some other stores in the city center. I found this one store in particular called Monki which I completely fell in love with! It's very much my style and they had awesome sales going on... So I was able to score some really cute (and cheap) new pieces! 

I had called my good friend Kristian (exchange student from Germany) earlier in the week to see if he would be available at all during my time in Helsinki and he had planned to hangout on Wednesday, but was also able to meet for coffee in the afternoon Tuesday as well. It's always a great time with each other! We've been good friends since the start of our exchange and have continue to stay close throughout these last 6 months. We went to this really pretty cafe in the downtown area and had a nice cup of tea while catching up everything that's been happening in our lives since the last time we saw each other.

My host mom got off work at a pretty early time so the two of us were able to meet up to have dinner together and then we decided to go see a movie in the city before going to our hotel. We went to this delicious little Italian restaurant called Vapiano where you can choose your own pasta or pizza and they cook it up right there in front of you. It reminded me of a lot of the Asian noodle restaurants we have in the states, only Italian food -- which happens to be my favorite! I had Ratatouille pasta & my host mom had some kind of chicken garlic pasta. We also both shared a plate of bruschetta.

The movie that we went to go see was called Love is All You Need, and was directed by a Dannish director. Considering the movie title was in English and one of the main actors is an American actor... my host mom and I assumed the movie itself would be English. Well, turns out it wasn't! The movie was in Dannish with Finnish & Swedish subtitles! Thankfully, one of the actors played an American actor so he spoke in English... and surprisingly enough, I just tried my best to follow along with the rest and actually did for the most part! I didn't catch unto a lot of the details but for the most part I was able to still follow enough to enjoy the movie :) And it actually ended up being a great movie! It was the perfect amount of emotional, love, and reality. By the end of the movie both my host mom and I were completely in awe and very impressed. If you're able to find the movie I highly suggest watching it! It's definitely worth your time to see!

                                                                                                                The next morning as my host mom went to her work I was able to stay a bit longer and sleep in and enjoy my morning. Once I woke up and got out of bed I took a shower and took my time getting ready for the day. I then went downstairs to eat breakfast solo, which I actually didn't mind whatsoever. I find that since being on exchange I've become completely confident in doing things on my own. From walking down the hotel lobby like it's my runway with a smile on my face, to enjoying the freshly made coffee and a table for one. Of course, I always enjoy having company when it's there but whenever it's not I also enjoy the silence of my own thoughts! :) After eating a great big breakfast -- let's just comment on how amazing Finnish hotel breakfasts are -- I went back upstairs to pack my bags up and get ready to leave. As I was doing this though, I noticed the beautiful lighting in the windows though and couldn't help but to think of the gorgeous photos my friend Hannah from the USA took with a photographer a couple months ago. I decided to pull out my camera and take some selfies myself! I am really excited about how the results turned out :) If you wish to check out the results I published them in another post here! 

I once again met with Kristian, again just for a few hours to hangout & have some coffee. We went to another cafe and both had ourselves more fancy coffee. I took a few pictures of Kristian & although they were quite normal SOOC while messing around in photoshop last week I came up with these two edits. Although rather dark, I really like the way they turned out! Quite different than everything that I've done recently but sometimes it's good to go for some change :) I snapped a few other less serious shots throughout the rest of the day where we went to Vapiano once again and had some food, met with another exchange studant Dylan (from Canada) & just hanging out in the snowy city. Once Kristian had to leave Dylan and I hungout and talked for awhile until I had to meet up with my host mom to head back home to Turku. Despite the snowy evening, Dylan still walked me to where I needed to go and after saying goodbye's I was back on the road! Overall, even though I came to the city without any major plans I was really happy with how everything ended up working out :) I had a great two days filled with good shopping, exploring, friends, and memories. I think I'll have to take more spontaneous/unplanned trips more often in the future!