The plane kissed the runway at Helsinki-Vantaa a little before noon, and the first thing I noticed was the light. Not the bright, aggressive light of a Mediterranean summer, but a softer, more thoughtful grey, the clouds low and patient over the spruce forests that crowd the airport. I stepped out of the cabin and into the jet bridge, and the air was, for the first time in months, not trying to sell me anything. It just was. Seventeen degrees, maybe, and the faint, clean smell of rain on tarmac. I was here. I had finally, after all the planning and the spreadsheets and the goodbyes, actually arrived.
The next few days would be a blur of the mundane and the profound, but the first thing on my list was not a cathedral or a museum. It was a SIM card. Finland is, as I would quickly learn, a country that runs on its phones—for everything from bus tickets to banking to, I'm told, the way you prove who you are to the government. So I found a desk at the airport, run by one of the big operators, Elisa or DNA, I can't quite remember which, and walked out with a prepaid SIM and a small fortune in data for what felt like a very reasonable price. The young woman behind the counter spoke perfect English, as most Finns seem to, and wished me a good stay. I almost corrected her, told her I wasn't just staying, but the moment passed.
Who was I to say that, anyway? I was a newcomer, a fresh leaf blown into the city by a series of choices I was still trying to understand. I took the commuter train into the city, the air-conditioning a relief from the mild, humid afternoon. The landscape slid past the window: first the low, industrial warehouses, then the endless, quiet rows of birch and pine, and then, suddenly, the city itself, red-brick and glass, with the white gleam of the main station ahead. I had booked a room for a few nights at a place called The Folks Hotel Konepaja, in a converted industrial quarter, because the name felt right, and because the price, while not cheap, seemed to come with a certain promise of calm.
The hotel was a perfect first landing. Old brick walls, high ceilings, a café in the lobby that smelled of cardamom and coffee, and a room that was more a small apartment than a hotel room, with a kitchenette and a window that looked out over a quiet, grassy courtyard. I dumped my bags, stood for a long moment looking at the room, and then I did the only sensible thing. I went for a walk. It was late afternoon, the sky still bright, the air warm enough for a light jacket. I wandered north, into a district called Kallio, which a friend from back home, who had spent a year in Helsinki, had described as the city's bohemian heart. And it was. There was a street art on a brick wall, a man playing an accordion outside a corner store, and a park full of people just sitting in the evening sun.
But first, I needed a proper meal, something that would not be a sad hotel snack. I found a place in Kallio called Ravintola Kannas, not far from the bear park, and I sat outside with a view of the church and the passing trams. I ordered the fried vendace, a small freshwater fish that came piled high, crisp and golden, with a wedge of lemon and some cold, herby potatoes. The beer was local, cold, and the whole thing set me back about seventeen euros, which felt, for a moment, exactly right. It was the first meal of my new life, and it was remarkable for being so unremarkable, in the best way. Just a person eating a good fish at a small table on a quiet street, the evening drawing in, the trams shimmering past.
The next morning, I had a mission. The practical reality of staying in Finland for more than ninety days—of staying, period—is a paper trail, and I was determined to navigate it in a day. First, the Digital and Population Data Services Agency, which everyone calls DVV, to register my municipality of residence and get my personal identity code, the henkilötunnus. It's a number that feels like a key to the whole country, and getting it involves a form, a passport, and a short conversation with a very patient woman who smiled at my stumbling pronunciation. It took about twenty minutes, and when she handed me the printout with the number on it, I felt a small, strange thrill. I was, for all intents and purposes, a person who now lived in Finland.
From there, it was a hop to a bank. Finland is, as I'd been told, almost wholly cashless, and your bank login becomes your national electronic identity, the thing that lets you file taxes, book doctor's appointments, and talk to the government online. I had booked an appointment at a branch of Danske Bank in the city centre. The process was surprisingly smooth. Passport, proof of residence, my new henkilötunnus, and a very calm man in a grey suit who asked me a few questions about my intentions and then, after a short wait, handed me a stack of papers to sign. I was the proud owner of a Finnish bank account, and the credentials that would let me into the digital life of the country. It felt more substantial than any welcome ceremony I could have imagined.
The day had a rhythm now, a purpose. Between appointments, I walked. Helsinki on a weekday morning is a city of people moving with a quiet, unhurried efficiency. I crossed the wide, open expanse of Senate Square, with the white cathedral, the Tuomiokirkko, towering over it, a monument to a time when this was the empire's new capital. The square was almost empty, just a few tourists taking photos and a man selling grilled sausages from a cart near the steps. I bought one, ate it standing up, and felt the city's two centuries of history pressing in around me. From there, I drifted down the Esplanadi, the long, elegant park, with its fountains and its ancient trees, and found myself at the Market Square, by the water's edge.
The Market Square was alive. Boats bobbed in the harbour, seagulls cried overhead, and the stalls were piled with berries and peas and new potatoes. I had a cup of salmon soup from a stand, thick and creamy and full of dill, and watched a cruise ship ease out of the harbour. The Old Market Hall, a beautiful red-brick building from 1889, was just a few steps away, and I wandered through it, past counters of fresh fish, cured meats, and rye bread, and bought a korvapuusti, a cinnamon bun, which I ate with a coffee at the Fazer Café on the main street, the one with the high ceilings and the long history. The whole morning, the whole day, really, felt like a slow, deliberate introduction to the city's taste and texture.
My tram pass, a monthly HSL pass that cost about seventy euros, turned out to be the best purchase I've made here so far. On my third afternoon, I tapped my phone against the reader at the ferry terminal and walked onto the boat for Suomenlinna, the sea fortress that sprawls across a cluster of islands a fifteen-minute ride from the city. The ferry moved steadily across the harbour, the wind cool on my face, and the city shrank behind me, a cluster of white and red and gold against the grey-blue sea. Suomenlinna is a place that asks you to be patient. It's not a single monument but a whole series of it: bastions and tunnels, old dry docks and grassy meadows, all from the eighteenth century, when the Swedes built it to guard their eastern flank. I walked the ramparts, looked out over the Baltic, and felt the deep, slow weight of that history. It was, I think, the first time in my arrival that I felt the country's past as something solid, something I could touch.
And then there was the sauna. I knew, of course, that it was a cliché, but I also knew that it was essential. So, on my fourth evening, I went to Löyly, the modern seaside sauna that locals, I'm told, have mixed feelings about, but which is undeniably beautiful. I paid my entrance fee, changed in the wooden locker room, and stepped out onto the terrace. The building is a stack of timber, designed to look like a forest, and it sits right on the water's edge. I went into the smoke sauna, sat on the slatted wooden bench, and let the heat wash over me. The air was thick, and the only sound was the gentle crackle of the stove and the hiss of water as people poured it over the stones. After a while, I walked outside, naked, and stood on the wooden deck, and the cool air felt like a revelation. In front of me, the sea, the islands, and the sky, all grey and silver, and I felt the heat leave my skin in a slow, gentle wave. It was, I think, my first truly Finnish moment. The sauna, the lake, the sisu it takes to walk out into the cold, all of it making sense in a way that no amount of reading could have conveyed.
There were, of course, the small frustrations. The tram line that supposedly took me to the Central Park was closed for summer track work, and I spent a confused hour on a replacement bus, which, I was told, was a normal part of the Helsinki summer. And there was the moment, in a grocery store, when I stood in front of a shelf of rye bread and realised I didn't know the difference between any of the five kinds, and I just picked one at random and hoped for the best. But these were the small things, the patch that would become the fabric of my days.
On my last evening before I moved into the small flat I'd rented, a modest one-bedroom in the district of Töölö, for a rent that, at about 1,150 euros a month, was a sobering number but seemed to be the going rate for a modest but clean apartment, I went for a walk along the seafront. The city was quiet, the sun beginning its slow slide towards the horizon, and the air was cool and clean. I walked past the Old Market Hall, closed now, and out onto the quay, and I listened to the gulls and the gentle slap of water against the stones. I was, I realised, a very long way from home. But I was here, and that was the thing. I had jumped, and I had landed, and the next few months would be about learning to walk. For now, it was enough to stand.
The evening was turning to a pale, golden dusk, and the light off the sea was smoothing the city's edges. I thought about tomorrow, and the day after that, and the bus that would take me north, to a place I'd only seen in pictures. Finland is a vast country, and Helsinki is just the front door. I'd knocked, and the door had opened, and the light inside was soft and grey and full of promise. So, for now, I'll sign off here. The next episode will come to you from deeper in the summer, as I head east, towards the lakes. Moi.
Moi.