hei from helsinki

longest flight: jfk-iad-cph-hel. yup, not one but two stops to get to helsinki. okay, i purposely picked this flight because i wanted to stop by copenhagen. i got two stamps in my passport since i accidently went through more than one passport checkpoint. go shar! anyhoot, i got maybe an hour of sleep on the flight from DC to copenhagen. i watched the other boleyn girl and rewatched definitely, maybe. i was very impressed by SAS because they have baby bassinets for them to sleep comfortably = no screaming babies on the flight.

coolest lamp: this lamp is in my hotel room. go figure from the scandie designers. tho not by a finn, but a swede named harri koskinen this cool block lamp sat on my artek stool/nightstand in my hotel. the stool however was designed by the famed finn alvar aalto.

best site for a conference: finlandia hall. this was also designed by aalto and not a bad place to have to spend your time in a booth if you are in a beautifully designed building. i was in the congress wing on the second floor.

most anticipated guest: vanessa. this gal is studying in my fav scandie city, copenhagen, for 8 weeks and i invited her out to helsinki for a pre-school excursion before she started making her chair for her furniture class. we hit the ice bar, which was really cold even with the parkas they provided. i had the finnish classic minttu, which was basically a shot of minty vodka. i also ended up drinking most of v's peartini. (jac, i haven't had beer and there were lots of fun varieties). we took the 3T tram which basically is a cheap way of touring helsinki for 2 euros. the next day we set off on foot for some pics of the sites (mel, your camera is giving me the white screen of death). for dinner, we had true finnish cuisine. i went all anthony bourdain and had me the forest foreman's skewer, which consisted of reindeer fillet and elk sausage. it was surprisingly delicious and not as gamey as i thought it would be. sorry rudolph.