Helsinki Snapshots
The sun disappeared hours ago. It never broke through the overcast sky—it just faintly glowed below the horizon, painting the scene with a muted whitewash that matched the slushy snow on the ground. Nighttime comes in mid-afternoon in Helsinki, Finland, wrapping the place in a lingering darkness spotted with twinkling lights from apartments, tram cars, office buildings and streetlamps. After dusk, the city quiets except for sidewalk stragglers and a youth hockey team practicing on a public rink in the park. The city is mainly flat and rests against the Baltic Sea with small, undulating hills dotting the landscape; only the most trafficked byways are plowed after a snowstorm and there’s a wetness that hangs in the air and clings to the ground. Further north, the country is spacious tundra, but Helsinki is a skier’s paradise for urban hits and transfers; handrails at every corner give rail-jockeys the chance to swipe, tap, press and express new visions amidst the winter cold…
