Welcome to WorldCon day -1. The convention doesn’t officially start until tomorrow, but why not start talking about the exploits of today.
My initial travel plan for yesterday was to sleep on the first leg to Reykjavík and then wake up for the three hour trip to Helsinki. That failed. Miserably, I might add. Once I realized that I wouldn’t fall asleep for the first leg, my options were limited and I landed on trying to tough it out by staying awake as long as I could. The obvious problem is that staying up for over 24 hours is not good for you at all. However, I was in bed by 7:30 pm, Helsinki local time and only woke once at 3:30 am before falling back to sleep. I rolled out of bed a bit before 7 am and after a wonderful, leisurely breakfast, here we are.
Today I will be joining friends for a sea fortress tour (in English!) at Suomenlinnna. Separate post about that later, I am sure. I’m more worried about navigating the transit system. I keep getting turned around thinking north is south and vice versa. I will compensate for this by leaving early and loading up an offline map to my phone.
Outside of the events of the day, I have mixed feelings. I mostly do okay at traveling by myself, but always there’s an anticipation of meeting up with friends and the like. This trip is the most ambitious one I’ve taken in years and I’m doing it myself. I’ve taken big trips with others and I’ve always been able to share thoughts with a friend or family in the moment. This trip…not so much. It’s been a lot in my head.. Maybe that’s good for the blog because I’ll be extra motivated to get those thoughts out. We’ll see.
Regardless, I’m happy here. I love visiting Europe and I’m thrilled to experience a different culture, even though this place reminds me so much of Minnesota. The ups and downs will come, I’m sure of that, but for now, I’m digging Finland.
timboerger.com 