Hello from my home in Helsinki! This is NordLetter #, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.
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The woman in the yellow jacket slowed her bicycle to a crawl, then slowly, gingerly put her foot down, then the other. Other bicyclists passed her by, as she slowly moved the cycle perpendicular to the bicycle track, facing the zebra crossing.
The light turned green then, and the bus I was sitting in started to move. I smiled at this. She was old, and frail, and yet she was riding this bicycle with two bags hung on the racks of her white bicycle.
I do the same, not as gingerly as her, nor on a white bicycle. I use city bike - the 35 euro per season service that the cities of Helsinki and Espoo provide every summer.
Once subscribed, you can take a bike from any of the many stations around the cities, and ride a city bike for 60 mins. It is a great solution for last mile connectivity in the cities.
In my case, it is a great way to travel to and from work each day.
On Tuesday, I bought the subscription after trying to get this ticket since before April started. Whenever I tried, it said, there was no card added to my account.
I checked my HSL account, removed the existing cards, and added the Wise card again. It looked OK on the HSL app, but I was just not able to buy the subscription.
On Tuesday, after dropping Savya, I decided I will ride a bike to work today. I stood, in front of the station at Kumpula campus and tried to this one more time. I would take a bus otherwise.
It did not work. It gave the same error. This time, I scrolled down, and saw that there was a section for cards in this web page, and there was no card added here.
HSL and City Bike operate independently from each other. Or that was my experience. You need to add a card on the city bike page as well. Why is that? I don’t know.
There are two ways to reach my office in Vallila - via the E75 or via the little bicycle track that goes through Kumpula - Kumpulantaival.
On Tuesday I had taken the E75, on Wednesday, the bicycle track. The bicycle track was calmer, through nature, fun overall. On my way back I was singing out loud while riding the bicycle. I’m smiling now, as I write this, thinking about that.
I was going downhill, going uphill is a little different.
I know my route now, so I get to enjoy the ride, without worrying where to take the next turn. That helps.
All through the summer, I have been wondering whether to buy this bike or that, but I think this provides me with the best of both worlds.
I get to enjoy doing the thing - riding the bike, without worrying about maintaining it, or worrying about where to park, and so on.
But the same thing, can manifest in different ways. Like the same freedom that allows me to park this bike at any station means, I need to find a station and then walk a little bit extra to where I need to be.
It also means, that a bike needs to be available at the station, for me to take a ride. Which has been a little problem here at the campus. In evenings, for example, there are no bikes at the station. I guess the students ride the bikes to the station in the morning and then leave in the evening.
It has not been a problem till now, but can be.
Oh but the joy of riding a bike in the city. And that too for so cheap. For comparison, I buy a multi-journey ticket for around 10 trips for 30 euros, approx.
Back home, I had bought a Firefox bike after starting to work. I had wanted to ride it to work then as well. But riding the bike from Noida to Gurugram was not possible. Well, even if I was working in Noida, it would not have been possible then either.
The weather and the roads are not conducive to this though. I rode that bike a couple of times though to India Gate on Sundays. But then the friend I would ride with left UP and went to live in Rohini in Delhi.
And so that bike stayed in my balcony eating dust for many, many years, before I sold it to the same friend. He had a girlfriend now. They wanted to go out on rides together.
I will get a e-bike at some point. But the good ones are so damn expensive. You can get a used car for cheaper than that.
I finished reading I Deliver Parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan. It is exactly what it says in the title - experiences of a man who delivers parcels in Beijing. There are so many things I have underlined in this book.
There are so many meditations on work in this book. Things that one might feel do not apply to them, but they do. Like this.
But, supposing work is something we are compelled to do, a concession of our personal will, then the other parts of life—those that remain true to our desires, that we choose to pursue, in whatever form they take—might be called freedom.
On a warm sunny Friday afternoon, as part of a team day, I went and played Curling.
Do you know what Curling is? Its an Olympic sport. Have you seen those vides of athletes almost parallel to the ground, sliding some rocks across some 45m? Here’s one, check it out.
There are two teams eight stones, the goal is to get your teams stone as close to the centre as possible. The team with their stone closest to the centre wins. Of course these are stones, so you may have an awesome shot and be on the absolute centre (like hitting the bulls eye) but the very next shot the other team can knock your stone away.
There is a reason its called chess on ice.
It was difficult to play. You basically put a thing on your left foot (for a righty), start with sliding the stone, then start sliding with your left leg, then keep your right knee on the ice, and then at some point leave the stone imparting it some spin. After that your team mates brush the ice trying to get it to go a bit further. After it crosses the blue line the other team tries to brush the ice so that it leaves the house.
I could not slide on the ice. I would just start and then push the stone away while falling on my ass on ice. But I managed to win two games for us. So yay?
It felt a bit like bowling. But not really.
But as I said, I had fun. I did scrape my knee though. And thanks to that, no yoga these past two days. Yay :(
After the game, we went and had pizza at Capperi. The pizza was great. The kind I like with fresh ingredients - great tomatoes, great cheese, awesome bread. It did not feel heavy at all.
I and Prerna will go there sometime this week.
The gents talked about their time in the army, and some things that happened after that. They asked about me and India, and whether service was required there. I told them it isn’t. But service men and women get respect in the society. We talked about other things as well.
I finished with a tiramisu in a beautiful teacup. I loved it.
I walked down the street to a go-around and rode a city bike home from there. I needed to.
If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄
Until next week.