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Explore your neighbourhood
by Antonio Diaz
2007-08-24 09:47:58 |
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Travelling is easy nowadays. New routes are open every few months and new airlines with cheap cost flights operate in countries that you would never have dreamt to reach some years ago, paying the same price for the ticket than for your breakfast in Finland (although then probably you will spend three times more money on reaching the centre of the city since the airport of arrival will be located 200 kilometres away…).
 Airplanes are faster and bigger than ever; companies have a ferocious competition and offer huge discounts to their passengers. Stockman makes our lives easier with its “Crazy Days” and their huge travelling discounts. Phileas Fogg would have loved to live in the present era just to enjoy some free weeks with his lovely princess Aouda on a paradisical island, and still arriving in London at tea time to win his bet.
Finns love travelling to exotic and warm places like Italy, Spain, Thailand or the latest trendiest destinations in South America. Foreigners go to Lapland of Cape North, and everybody tries to make their closest job mates jealous telling exaggerated stories about how great their last holidays were.
I am a person who has been around. I have seen many countries and I have been in luxurious hotels as well as in a couple of “shitholes”. The other day I was in the tram listening to how another passenger talked on the phone about her upcoming holidays…and then I realized I did not know the name of the street I was.
I have lived in Helsinki for some years, and I don’t know most of the areas. It is funny how things work. I don’t really know the first name of any of my neighbours, but I remember the names of the hotel receptionists during my holidays last summer. I would not been able to tell you the names of the side streets 100 meters away from my place, but I can tell you the names of the coolest bars to have a drink in Beijing.
I don’t know where I can go to swim in Helsinki, but I can recommend you a couple of awesome places to eat in Tallinn. I do not remember the names of my cousin’s children, but I cannot forgive myself if I would forget the names of the friendly couple who walked with me all around the Big Wall of China. Is it funny or is it sad? I don’t know.
It is contemporary times, I guess. But for this summer, since I am broke, I have taken a decision: I bravely wear my shorts (if the weather allows it), my back pack, a Helsinki City Map, a couple of bottles of water, and good shoes, and I will go out to explore the streets of “Hell-sinki”.
I will fight against trams, drunkards, ONG volunteers, annoying phone calls, cyclists, seagulls, the temptation to change my route following a mini-skirt too short and my own laziness, and I promise I will try my best to fulfil my August wish: to make the city where I live a bit more mine.
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