Cramped spaces between buildings

Are my absolute favorite. Old town, or Gamla Stan in Stockholm, Sweden, has plenty of these spaces to satisfy me. There is even one "street" that is barely 3' wide separating two blocks. Its really great. The "new town" is definitely different, and less charming, though still full of people, public squares populated with tent stands and interesting things to eat and look at and buy.

We visited a nearly completely self sustaining neighborhood of Stockholm, Hammarby Sjostad where they use waste to extract energy and use it to power the dwelling units. Every block is structured around a public green courtyard, and diverse living situations are available for families, single people and the elderly. Recycling stations are set up, daycares are available and grocery stores, retail and transportation hubs are nearby, or on the ground levels of main streets. Hammelby, is the ideal place to raise a family. The way people live is clearly considered, as is access to air, light, trees/nature and necessary services. The neighborhood is open, but totally safe, courtyards for kids to play, patches to grow vegetables and recreation areas are abundant. There's a waterfront view, south facing windows, interesting formal characteristics and materials, and on top of all that, it is one of the most sustainable, energy efficient neighborhood that exists to date. It is almost too good to be true, but in Stockholm, it is hard to find anything to critique. Even the outlying suburbs are not slums in any sense of the word. They still have the same basic design principles, public spaces, access to transportation and grocery stores/retail on the ground floors, south facing windows, pedestrian friendly. Perhaps the only difference is the building block's age and aesthetic appearance. The older suburbs are built in the 1960's, slightly date, but still well constructed. Maybe not the most interesting to look at, but still very functional and livable. I was surprised to find a sizable african muslim population living in the outskirts of Stockholm in these older more suburban neighborhoods.

The went to a really cool sky bar to start the night. 360 degree views of the city at night were completely mesmerizing. It was quite a swanky place, so we ended up at a more local and low key bar called Karmen for most of the night, where there were hipster locals and cheap beer.

Booze cruise to Stockholm

High taxes on alcohol + thirsty sweeds/finns who want to party = problem

duty free alcohol on the ferry between Helsinki and Stockholm + dance floor and music= solution to above problem

Cheap booze was a nice perk. It was a crazy night of dancing, booty shaking and pop music. Though, it didn't start out that way. In the beginning it was Eurovision on every screen, everyone transfixed on the over the top performances. For those that may not know, it is the European version of American Idol. Azerbaijan walked away with the title, but we didn't watch until the end, because we discovered where the dance party was, and the group had gotten sufficiently sloshed to be more interested in this. It was really fun, adult behavior was suspended for a few hours while we continued to drink, danced like idiots and sweat our balls off. The wake up call to get off the boat in the morning was rough, but our hangovers were short lived, thankfully. It was raining when we got into Stockholm, and it was really cold, like barely 60F.

That said, the first night in Stockholm was really great. We met up with a friend of Andrew's who is from Sweden, and went to a little coffee shop famous for its cinnamon rolls. The subway system here is really comprehensive and easy to get to nearly any part of the city. Really clean and QUIET. To watch the IHF final between Finland and Sweden, we went to an Irish bar called Dubliner, where the crowd watching the game was mostly Finns. They were chanting "Suomi" which means Finland in Finnish. How you get Finland from Suomi is beyond me. Then again Deutschland and Germany is pretty different too. Finland won 6 to 1. Sorry Sweden, but I won't hold it against you.

Tallin

This city in Estonia was really interesting. It is just a short ferry ride from Helsinki. The old town in it is a medieval walled city and classifies as a UN Heritage protected site. We climbed another tiny spiral staircase up to the top of the cathedral tower, and took a bunch of pictures. The group did a picnic in the park which was a great idea wine and cheese and bread and smoked fish... AWEsome.

The city seemed to cater to tourists, they had a great flea market. The souvenir to get was anything made from juniper wood which smells REALLY good. There were a lot of really nice cars, parked along the cobblestoned streets of old town, which made me suspect that there was a mob influence in the country. This suspicion was confirmed when we met with a Finnish architecture firm and they talked about how Estonia is slightly risky to do business with because of their mob affiliations, but that all the good, cheaper materials and workers come from there.

We visited a new development with my professor, and cut through a back yard from a public path along the water and had to scale a private garage door to get to the street. Then we tried to break into the graffiti'ed-over concrete soviet institutional abandoned music hall where the ferry dropped us off. Fun day of trespassing, it's all in the name of academics. Right? Ha. I'm just glad there is another monkey with no fear of getting caught jumping a fence on the trip.

Helsinki saunas and bar scene

Saunas are THE thing to do here. We went to a public sauna in the Kalio district of the city. It was great; the cedar wood smell, the hot hot air that burned your nostrils at first, the stepped seating, being naked, etc. The Finns go in for like 10-15 minutes at a time, then go outside in their towels and chat, drink beer and then go back in and start the cycle over. Sometimes a cold shower is thrown in, to mix it up. According to Ville, the Michigan M.Arch graduate from Finland who showed us around the Aalto designed University, most single family homes have saunas in them. Really interesting.

Helsinki was also voted the design capital of the world 2012. There is an entire district of the city that sells designer everything, from furniture to shoes to textiles, everything in between. There is this famous textile place called Marimekko that had lots of bright colors and patterns. I actually liked a different textile place called Finlayson better. Artek is the furniture store that Alvar Aalto started, and had a lot of cool stuff. My favorite piece was an end table made of driftwood, that was lacquered over. The city is very clean, the green and yellow trams go everywhere, and buses and a metro are available from the Kampii shopping center, close to the central railway station and man bus station. We stumbled across a museum of the tram, that had some cool stuff, including a history of the ticket size and shape.

For dinner after the sauna I had cold smoked reindeer with "belinis" which were basically savory fried pancakes with sour cream, onions, relish and a cold mushroom/sour cream/vinegar salad. Interesting, but it was good. Reindeer tastes like beef jerky, just slightly gamey. They eat a lot of fish (herring, salmon, perch), and use dill a lot which I love.

Night life is interesting, Finns are shy until approached, and then they are super friendly and helpful. Some are not so shy, like Hannu, a designer type with Corb glasses who took us out to a gay club- about the only other happening place on a Wednesday night. We started at a bar called Llamas, which was a Mexican bar with wooden swings hanging from the rafters for seats all around the bar. It was a group favorite, if not just for the fun name. On our free day we found a little courtyard bar, with the most amazing cocktails (and a price to prove it). I had a vanilla ginger basil vodka cocktail, totally delicious, rivaling my favorite cocktail from Violet Hour in Chicago. There is this liqeuer here called Salmiakki, the Finns love it, and Hannu got us all shots of it. To me it tastes like salty coffee with a licorice aftertaste.

We're about to leave to board the Viking cruise ferry to Stockholm, so that's all for Helsinki, for now.

Day 1 in Helsinki, Finland

It's weird how you find your way through a foreign city. You take notice of familiar words in the signage in front of buildings, even though they may mean very different things. "Apollo theatre," "Forum," (yes, the Romans, everywhere) "Diesel." Some I know from American culture, others from capitalism, but they are the signs I remember telling me where I am along a route to a destination. When you can't pronounce the street names (which are in both Finnish and Swedish the two official languages) it's this kind of mnemonic practice that becomes important. Our hostel is a short walk from the main rail station, and signs for the Metro are all over the city. Cobblestoned everything, bikers, little parks in weird shaped blocks of the city, it is definitely more of a traditional city with tall buildings, densely spaced than Reykjavik. Helsinki was voted the design city of 2012, and has an entire district dedicated to design; fashion, architecture, product design- design is in everything here. It is the home city of two of my favorite Architects, Eliel and his son Eero Saarinen.

Again, the air is fresh with a chill in it, but the day was really nice, 67 degrees. Alternating smells of perfume, cigarette smoke and crispness as you walk through. I think I was the only person in the city wearing sandals, but I'm ok with that. I inadvertently ordered an entire 14" pizza for myself, the remaining half of which is sitting on the table next to me at the hostel as I write this. Passed by at least two karaoke places, out of which I could hear badly sung English songs. Hilario. Everyone speaks English, and they can usually tell you're a tourist and switch over, though sometimes I've had to ask. I came across a market where they were selling make your own dried fruit and nut trail mix with wooden crates full of dried bananas, apricots, cherries, cranberries, just about everything and peanuts, almonds and cashews. They also had a cheese stand, candy stand and soaps, purses, etc. There was a little show set up in the middle of the square in front of the Forum mall, where I stopped to watch four girls do this pseudo Latin dance routine. Though they had a decent audience the applause was weak, people must be used to this kind of thing- performances randomly on a Monday late afternoon, maybe its just not that impressive.

One ingenious thing is the way they put parking lots in the interior courtyards of buildings. There's a drive and arched opening for cars to go through into parking lots beyond the street front. Its a great way to accomodate cars while not sacrificing the cityscape with open parking lots all over the place (think, Detroit, or L.A. no disrespect but, you know what I mean). There's a nice sensibility of keeping the city for the pedestrian, and tucking cars away, underground or behind the street building line, inside building courtyards.

Happy happy happy to be here! Going back out to explore, this time with sneakers and a fleece.

Iceland- first impression

Just before we landed, the terrain looked like what I imagine the moon would, only darker, more earthy colored. The drive from the airport to the city is about 40 minutes, along the way we passed a combination taco-bell and KFC and the grad students laughed, remembering the ridiculous rap we listened to in Theory class in a lecture about non-place.

We stop at a bakery and get some fresh bread. What is it about travelling abroad and me becoming obsessed with bakeries? Maybe because that kind of specialty is kind of rare at home. Needless to say, we found it again when we went exploring later in the day, so we could come back.

The city itself is very charming, low to the ground, the buildings rarely get above 3 or 4 stories. Lots of gabled roofs and house-like buildings. Some of the roofs are painted bright colors, I imagine this helps liven up the place during the winter when its gray and cold. Our first, layover day in Reykjavik was gorgeous, a there was a little chill in the air, but it smelled so fresh and clean, a big change from NYC where I'd spent the previous day. The view from the Cathedral, a modest 8 stories tall was gorgeous, offering a complete 360 view. There is no tipping in Iceland, which I liked- though service is much more laid back, which as an American I unwittingly noticed. The language is mesmerizing, so different from any that I know, but I'm still able to recognize bits and pieces, mostly from English. Its full of hard r, k and ouhh sounds. The suffix -gata follows a lot of the street names.

The city hall building is equally interesting, with its piloti that go into the city pond, the concrete arch roofs, and green algae walls at the front. The spaces are nice inside, backlit staircases are a nice designer touch. The concrete is a bit brutal untamed as it is, dirty looking, but its I think a nice and raw contrast with the sleekness of the glass. The arch throws me off somehow, stylistically it reminds me of tropical buildings in South America. Many people had opinions about this building, and it took a long time to build and a lot of money. Even more controversial is the new music concert hall- HARPA. It is quite the iconic building, no plane of the exterior shell is a ninety degree angle, the glass honeycomb facade was designed in collaboration with an icelandic artist and structural engineers, and remains incomplete even though the building has officially opened to the public. They hope to have the final inauguration and building 100% complete by the end of June. The art designer who worked on the glass facade refused to be part of the opening in May because the facade was not finished, but the symphonic orchestra conductor insisted that it open in May even though it was not finished because it had been so far behind schedule. The conductor won. The building is important because its the first venue designed to meet the acoustical needs of a true concert hall. Music in Iceland is important, and there are some great musicians which the country has birthed; Sigur Ros, The Sugarcubes and Bjork to name a few. The music festival is heralded as a truly great time, annually in October its called Iceland Airwaves. Icelandic and foreign musicians play in Reykjavik's clubs for a week.

Olof, the girl that I'm renting an apartment from is so sweet, and her place is very nice, students live in really great sized studios I'm a fan, and excited I get to stay there for a month after our Scandinavian travels. Tomorrow is Helsinki...