Sailing on Cannon Sloop Diana

While Suomenlinna is known as a Unesco-World Heritage site, many people don’t know that a group of enthusiastic shipbuilders has rebuilt one of the original types of wooden warships they invented in Suomenlinna. For educational purposes, we Suomenlinna guides received an invitation to participate in a short sailing trip on the historic “tykkisluupi” and to…

Sibelius in der Holzkiste

Endlich habe ich es geschafft, ein Konzert im berühmten Sibelius Saal in Lahti zu hören. Schon im Februar hatten wir die Karten gekauft, im April war das Konzert bereits ausverkauft: BBC Orchester aus London, Okko Kamu der Dirigent, Sergei Malov als Solist. Gespielt wurde das Violinkonzert und die 2. Symphonie von Jean Sibelius, als Zugabe…

Suomenlinna Fortress

In addition to taking my exams as a Helsinki Guide, I have enrolled into a training to become an authorized Suomenlinna Guide. The large historic sea fortress on several (5,6,7,8? The number keeps changing) islands in front of Helsinki has made it into the Unesco World Heritage list. It has been a very important influence…

Mitt-Sommer? Mid-Summer?

Juhannus, das Mittsommerfest in Finnland, fiel dieses Jahr ins Wasser. Und in den Kühlschrank, sozusagen. Es war so ungemütlich, dass wir das Anzünden des großen Feuers auf der Insel Seurasaari nicht abgewartet haben. Weicheier, ganz klar. Dafür kam dann später wieder die Sonne, um uns wenigstens mit einem schönen Sonnenuntergang und dem Phänomen der “Weißen…

Here they come

Just imagine you are going on a ride with your bicycle because the weather is gorgeous, you have a free day and you decide to browse some parts of the city that you haven’t seen for a while. Helsinki is changing so quickly in the last years that it is at times difficult to keep…

What type of relation-ship are you in?

It seems that the bulk of relationship self-help advice is concerned with getting people into a relationship. The next biggest chunk of advice is concerned with getting them out of it again. Having been, to my own utter surprise, in a long-term relation-ship myself, I have been wondering about this topic a lot. The Tall…

Craning your neck

Finnish “Jugendstil”, Art Nouveau,  lasted only 25 years (1895-1920). In those years, over 600 multistory apartment buildings were built in Helsinki, which changed the face of large parts of the city in a blink, from a sleepy wooden town with patches of bare rock,  to an urban environment. In a dramatic pace, these buildings were…

Double or half?

I just realized with full force that I do have now double citizenship.   Something I never intended nor expected to happen in my life. Or am I half German and half Finn now? At least I don’t feel anymore like a real German, but I am not a Finn, either, and never will be. Although,…