HELSINKI: "DAYLESS DAYS, NIGHTLESS NIGHTS"

 WRITINGS 

"Only Finland - superb, nay, sublime - in the jaws of peril -

Finland shows what free men can do"

Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, 1940

I fell in love as soon as we met. It may be a capital city but something feels so organic here. Your average person doesn't exist here...they LIVE here...

Life comes naturally.

Walking through the city at the start of Autumn you see her aging before your very eyes, adolescence reaching maturity. The cold creeps up, the first frost covers the grass in the morning, a snowflake falls in front of your eyes and melts on your nose introducing the start of a long, dark and unforgiving Winter season. Everything turns white and makes the city look pure and untouched, almost virgin-like. Slowly the snow begins to turn to water as the sun gets higher in the sky and life starts to get louder and animated as Spring signals a change in nature's mood. Life is born again and you can smell the sunshine, feel the birdsong and hear the fresh new daffodils blooming. The days get longer, in a really good way, you have time to do everything in a day and still find time to relax in the warmth. Like a bride walking down an aisle, Summer enters gracefully looking more beautiful than you've ever seen her, smiling and glowing radiant. People here wait an entire year for this moment and when it comes, they treasure it.

The city that hibernates through dark, cold Winter days but stays up with the sun through light, warm Summer nights. The city of 'Dayless Days, Nightless Nights'.

Finland - Land of the Midnight Sun

Published on YouTube; 4 Mar 2013 by VisitFinland

The people here cannot be explained; they are deep-thinking, happy-go-lucky, extroverted, selfless individuals...

...and also none of the above.

I love Liverpool but I'm having an affair with Helsinki and I'm falling for her more and more. It's my new drug, my new addiction, my new everything, my new past, present and future.

It has a personality that just clicks with your own. It's funny because at some points I've never felt so lost and far away from what I know as home, and yet felt so comfortable.

The inhabitants are fashionable, intelligent and interesting. Everyone seems to have a story, a purpose. They may be famously quiet and reserved but they have heart. They care about life; environment, culture, family and even you.

Helsinki offers so much of what you want and still somehow manages to leave you feeling slightly unsatisfied, so you go out and give it another go, only this time you fill the void of last time and find a new gripe.

But no one says this place is paradise...really, where is?

"Home away from home, familiar and unknown, I can only smile when you upset me. Winter covers Autumn leaves and flowers Spring in Summer breeze, I'll live out my years in Helsinki by sea." Deej