Helsinki revisted

In all fairness Helsinki did turn out to be a pretty nice place.  The kindness of the people really did make up for my first impressions and I did have a pretty good time on my last day in town.  Now I have finally got my photos off the bloody iPad I can actually get them onto the blog.

Sunday on Suomenlinna Island

Leaving the port on a sunny Sunday

The beach on Suomenlinna Island

Fortifications on Suomenlinna

Best find on the island...not the Toy Museum but the cafe with the best apple cake and custard ever

Wandering around the island

Back in port

Helsinki

Helsinki and I didn't get off to a a great start and I am tainted by that first day still.  However, the weather is stunning and the people are very friendly  when you talk to them.  I am not a loner by any means so I am finding the lack of friends in the town to be very challenging and have had some major dips in my mood, once again confirming with no hesitation that I do have FOBA and that is never going to change.

As you might know I love Saturdays and although I didn't love yesterday, I did recognise that it had all the elements of a great Saturday.  Sun, market, people, water, activity and food.  No family or friends but that is expected on the other side of the world.

With the sun up and high in the sky so early in the morning you are compelled to get out there eagerly and enjoy it.  It is also great coming home from the movies at night in the light.  Funny seeing drunk people staggering around at night but actually in the daylight and I am sure I saw an illicit drug exchange going on from the tram last night too. 

Helsinki is not pretty.  The architecture is grim in some places, perfunctory in others and with a flash of gorgeousness in the form of churches and a few civic buildings.  There are some trees and a few civic gardens but it lacks the charm of many other cities that I have visited.  My guess is that 5 months of snow per year limits what you can do. However, there is as much joy, happiness and colour around the place as you would want.

Interestingly, the women seldom wear black like we do at home.  Every colour of the rainbow is worn and there seems to be scant attention paid to fashion as such although the shops are full of clothes.  Things are casual and individual here and the women do no fake tan or cover themselves in make up. It is refreshing.  The Russian tourists take the form of high heeled made up beauties to  dumpy middle aged women. 

The Finnish language is totally  incomprehensible to me although I have the basic hello and thank you sorted I think. Everyone speaks English which helps but the bus timetables, signs and announcements have no resonance at all. The words are so long and they just all blend into one.  And on top of that there is the Swedish version of everything too so you have to have your wits about you.  I do seem to have some sense of direction and awareness of the city so am finding my way around easily and even in a tricky situation with the tram being diverted due to a parade yesterday I worked out an alternative that worked so was pleased with that

This is the end of this post as I am having a nightmare with the iPad and editing so am going to leave it at that.  Will post some photos in a separate post.

travelling times

Here I am in Worcester England, sitting in the amazing Hive library after having a two hour tour of the building

It is one week since I left home on my latest journey.  I was determined to keep a running commentary of my trip and what I was experiencing but time is going to fast and I am putting a lot of effort into my work so personal blogging not really happening.  I also intended to keep a diary too but it has turned into a quick mindmap at the end of the day. 

Quick rundown
Flight on Singapore Airlines to London Heathrow...not terrible.  Great care  and kind people.  Air travel is an amazing experience, watching people and discovering different behaviours that you know you would NEVER EVER display or even expect.  OMG, the things people think are acceptable.  Treating the crew like their own personal waiters through the entire trip, demanding food every minute, eating all the chips and leaving shit everywhere, then farting a lot and yelling to each other across the cabin.  Crazy.  Sadly I was one in a row of 7 of them and I was gobsmacked

Heathrow...very efficient, through in no time, no border security, I could have been carrying anything and they would never ever know.  Once through passport you are totally ignored.  I can now see why Brits coming to NZ have a cow when they get questioned about rogue fruit in their bags.

Leicester with Louisa....lovely and fun with her.  Pretty much left to our own devices by the rest of them so we were able to enjoy pottering around, taking the dog walking and going to IKEA. We also went out for two meals and a great show at The Curve.  Guy came too.  Louisa is, as always generous to a fault.

Newcastle with Richard and Vicky.  Lovely fun.  Had a great night with them and the children.  Super visit with the Angela at the library and a bit of mooch around the town.  Very interesting, a bit grubby and wet.  Got some cool stuff to send home.

Birmingham...should have spent more time there.  Amazing library yet to open but I can tell it is going to be fantastic.  What a project to be proud of.  Spent a fantastic couple of hours with Fay whom I met in 2007.  Very proud of their achievement.  Lovely friendly people in Birmingham.

Worcester.   Haven't had a chance to explore yet. Will get out there soon once I have written up my notes.  Looked very pretty coming in and I am looking forward to walking along the river and seeing the sites

Hot stuff

Here I am in Leicester, England, yes England.  It's been ages since I have had time to blog, so busy have I been planning. My epic European and Scandinavian adventure has only just started and will see me traipsing all over the north of England, London, Amsterdam ,Helsinki , Sweden and Denmark.  I am fortunate to be sponsored for the trip but also carry the weight of expectation and the guilt of getting to leave broken Christchurch for some relief.  It is a luxury many cant afford.

I am currently hanging out at Louisa and Guy's and we are just home from the matinee session of Hot Stuff, a very British grown up panto kinda thing with Ceri Dupree, drag Queen extraordinaire and what a hoot it was. Funny being in someone else's culture and observing their ways of responding and enjoying a show.  I realised the music was 'their' music as Split Enz is ours.  Although world famous, the music has special importance to the people it belongs too. Very fun.

Coastal journey

Instead of roaring up the highway we decided to check out the views and little townships of the Dunedin coast at a slower and very windy pace

 Oamaru

Dunedin School Holiday

I cant believe I havent told you about this great 4 day holiday we had in Dunedin.  We normally rush down there to visit Jasmine, stay a day and then roar home again but this time, considering it was the school holidays, we took a few extra days to spend in gorgeous Dunedin and celebrate Jonty's birthday too.

The weather was not very good most of the time but there is something about windy rainy days that make things just a bit more interesting.

Waterfront

Gasworks Museum where Jasmine works every second weekend.  It is one of only three known working gas museums in the WORLD.  It was the first in New Zealand to start working and the very last to stop.  It is an awesome place well worth a visit.  I took a few pics trying to capture the industrial beauty. I am not sure that I succeeded but I had a lot of fun trying.

 Jasmine's pikelets

FOBA

I have this fear..the fear of being alone. My friend Alex made it up at the pub the other night when I was telling her about how hard it is going to be for me to be on my own traveling next year. I have won a scholarship which enables me to get out into the world and do some research and exploration. A wonderful once in a life time opportunity tinged with the fear of being on my own. I am very competent and capable of traveling solo and have no fears on that account. However, past experience has shown me that more than a couple of hours on my own is terrible. I get lethargic and morose without the energy and company of others and very bad demons enter my head. It is dark. This is a sad but unchangeable personality trait.

I love parties, family gatherings, work, chance meetings, children, old people, anyone I can talk to and hang out with. I am not a mad woman who talks to strangers in that awkward way but give me a smile and some encouragement and I can have a lough and make a nice connection with almost anyone. My deep need of people drives me. So, how the hell am I going to manage for one month with no friends or family on tap?

Well, I have come up with some plans... 1. Going to a conference in Amsterdam where I am hoping to know at least one or two people from NZ. I am doing the hard yards now making connections and hoping like hell there are people there I know and who are prepared to spend time with me. I am looking for a fun outgoing and energetic person who doesn't need a lot' alone time' themselves.

2. On the England leg of the journey I am impinging for days upon my lovely sister in law Louisa whose company I love. I am also planning that we will have a weekend away somewhere so I can get a people battery zap (as well as give her a break from her busy life and just hang out together exploring a new place for us both)

3. A colleague from NZ has also asked if she can join me on some of my journey, phew...that is a relief. Although she is quite different in her need for people and loves her alone time, I think this will work.

I admire people who travel for work who can spend time with others and then have those yawning hours from early evening to mid morning usually on their own. I am guessing you just do lots of work to fill in the time. My experience has been that when you are meeting people from other countries they don't always 'host' you outside the meeting so you are just left to your own devices.

4. Another thing I might do is beg some people to hook me up with people they know in various cities and make them spend time with me. That will take so chutzpah but I think I am up for it. The joys of aging for me(and there are few I can attest) is knowing and accepting myself, putting myself out there, asking for what I need and not worrying too much what people think of me. This is not easy for everyone, I struggle with it but for my sanity I am going to embrace it and see how it goes. My journey will appear on this page, as much for my own enjoyment as anything else.

Found in Wellington

I started this post MONTHs ago and have just found it in the drafts....I think we may have done this in April but I am not sure...

It is not often that I go anywhere without my camera and although I know phones take good photos these days, mine doesn't.  So for this post I am relying on some grainy sots from my phone, better ones from Alex's and some web images to visually describe a great day in Wellington.    Going for one day meant one intense stab at a few pre-planned activities PLUS a few found treasures.   Of course it was 28 stonking degrees in Christchurch while we landed in a windy, muggy, grey and wetish Wellington.  It didn't matter  a jot.  I have been to Welly a bit in the past 6 months so for me it was a few revisits to places I love and then we discovered some new treasures.

The Hippopotamus Restaurant is obviously not a big secret to the ladies of Wellington who made up most of the groups in the first floor restaurant at the famous Museum Hotel.  Stepping into a world of French loveliness we managed to get a tiny table by the window after Alex charmed the maitre d into letting us stay.  Yes, we used the earthquake card....unashamed.  It was awesome.

One of my favourite shops in Wellington - Small Acorns

Before I forget

I spent two days in Auckland this week attending the Association of Public Library Managers conference as a guest of my manager.  Holed up in Rydges Hotel on Federal Street for two days with no shopping opportunities or art gallery visits was a bit sad.  However, I did manage to have two delicious meals out so in the spirit of social media and the need to share everything, here are two recommendations for those in the area and looking for tasty treats to warm the winter nights.

Café Hanoi, cnr Commerce & Galway Streets, has been quite rightly featured as  Metro top 50 restaurant.  Very good value for money a well as stunning Vietnamese flavours, fresh and piquant.  I enjoyed a girly catch up with gal pal Karen. 

A very affable and chatty night was spent with 50 other library types at the Wine Chambers in the cute skinny part of the city.  A lovely antedote to the broad brash Queen Street at 33 Shortland Street.  the food was good but could have been great.  Another top 50, I suspect it would be better on a less busy Monday night.  However, no complaints from me.

Holiday Shopping

One of the joys of going to a 'resort' style town for your holiday is that the shopping is great on the windy and cold days.  Due to some of the unplanned things that happened our shopping took on a slightly different tack than normal.  We found ourselves in the Salvation Army Store looking for a woolen blanket for Nic...the nights were very cold.  We also found ourselves at Wanaka Wastebusters which was fantastic- legendary - and you must go next time you are in Wanaka.  We got snow chains, brand new for $10.

Our disastrous boat trailer tyre incident meant we met Lucy who owns Escape in the main street and also Mr Robinson of Mrs Robinson in Tarras.  Nice people and retail outlets.  Our neighbour at Glandhu Bay owns the menswear store in town called Structure for Men.  Another very kind and lovely person.  I am doing plugs for their businesses because they are lovely people and their stores are good too.  So if you are in the neighbourhood, check them out.  

 Another joy of travelling is finding the farmers markets and we happened upon a very lovely little market on a cold an windy day which turned out to be a very cold, wet and windy night in which we bailed from our tent.  Another story for another day.

Francesca's Wood Fired Pizza with Stewart Island salmon, fresh Central Otago apricots and the plumpest cherries ever and lastly German cherry custard tart were our highlights...YUM

Oh yes and we spent a very happy time in Gallery 33 buying a stunning piece of artwork to add to our very small and learner art collection. 

Holiday

We are back from our annual end of January camping holiday.  Not from our beloved Totaranui which may never again be accessible to us in the same way, but rather from the south, the stark and beautiful Central Otago region.  Wanaka has always been a winter or autumn destination for us, not a mid summer one.  We took our big tent, small boat, kayak, 3 bikes and a ski biscuit.  It was a holiday of extremes and some incidents that up until now have not plagued  previous camping holidays.  The key features were wind....lots of it, some snow and extreme heat.  Without dwelling on those things, here are some pictures of our holiday.

 Lake Pukaki on the way down...Aoraki Mt Cook in the background

 Wow!!

 Lake Wanaka and Nic all geared up for a big day in the water

 Jonty and Nic enjoying a quiet rid on the boat

 Morning on the lake

A hot morning and a tiny beach all to ourselves

Glendhu Bay on a very hot day

The mighty Clutha River

Swing bridge up the Matukituki Valley

Up the Matukituki Valley at the end of the road

Random Travel Post #2

Years ago Karen, Ruth and I wandered along the Rakaia Gorge walkway thinking that we were on a light walk.  Getting to the end of it with one orange and a drink between us, we realised how ill prepared we were.  It is one of those trips that ends up being the trip we talk about when reminiscing.  I was keen to get Nic out there to enjoy the track and in the endless search of getting the hell out of here, we went up there one cold June morning.  It was fantastic, and we didn't even get to the end of the track.  Gorgeous and we took more food this time.

 Looking east

 Looking west

 This very friendly horse drove us back over the fence to enjoy our pizza with a view.  How cool it was to find a picnic table and chairs in the middle of nowhere.

Piwakawaka