Travelogue, Day 4: Turku

I’m really kind of a grump of late, and I’ll be damned if I can explain why. Some of it is legitimate, but most of it is from stress I can’t pinpoint, and all I can say is that I’d better stop being such a pain in the ass, or I’m going to have to bitchslap myself into submission.

Grumpiness aside, T and I accompanied Christian up to the conference site this morning, just for the heck of it, and then went into the center and walked around for a bit. I decided this morning we wouldn’t do any real tourist stuff, just try to get a feel for the city and get our bearings. We walked around the city center for a bit, buying some tasty strawberries and the Kauppatori (outdoor market), since Finland is the biggest exporter of strawberries in Europe.

Oh my God. I love strawberries – not nearly so much as cherries, but good strawberries are heavenly – and these are some serious strawberries. DELICIOUS. I am totally buying two liters of them tomorrow, and I totally expect to consume them tomorrow.

Pardon my berrygasm there. Good fruit is hard to come by in the U.S., I’m sorry to say.

Anyhow.

We went to the outdoor market, stopped at H&M to buy Torsten, who is bigger by the day, a new outfit (we’re up to 18-month sizes now – I’m totally serious), listened to some absolutely incredible street musicians playing mandolin/guitar duets (Torsten just loves music, which makes me so happy – I may not speak to my father anymore, but being able to share music with him was one of the wonders of my relationship with him, and I treasure that memory), and went to the grocery store before coming back to the hostel for a nap and some active play.

Oh, and remember what I said about the train yesterday? Well, it turns out that here in Turku, if you’re taking a baby on the bus, you ride for free. (Limit 1 parent) No, I didn’t mistype that – take a baby on the bus, and you ride for free. Which is about as freaking awesome as it gets. You get to climb in the back door, there’s a special space for baby carriages, and you don’t have to pay.

As opposed to Denver, where half the time (some of the drivers are awesome, but some, well, aren’t) just to get the driver to lower the lift for your baby carriage takes an act of God, and people are often uninterested in moving so you can lift a seat to park the carriage in the front. Especially on the #20. (*peer* at people who ride the 20 eastbound between Franklin and Yale)

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but I love public transport in northern Europe. Love. It. We live in Denver without a car, which is painful but doable. (We also lived in Los Angeles without a car, which was painful and made my life, at least, suck, but that’s another story) But there are lots of places in Europe where you can live your whole live quite happily without a car, minimally inconvenienced and still able to have a social life. Let me tell you from personal experience that unless you’re connected to a university, the same is not true for much of the U.S., Denver included.

Amsterdam was even better, because I could bike everywhere and stay out as long as I liked, something not possible in places like Denver, where if you want to get home after about 10, you’re totally screwed, even if you live as close to downtown as we do. It sucks.

And Denver’s public transport system, for the U.S., is actually pretty good.

Anyhow, so Torsten and I are getting along just fine here. He’s my awesome travel buddy, and I love him to pieces. That he flirts with the little Finnish girl babies on the bus tickles me, but what’s funnier is that they all stare at him the whole time he’s on the bus.

It’s those big blue eyes, I tell you…

We came back and napped for a bit mid-afternoon, and then went out to meet Christian for dinner. One of the Finnish GNUnet gang was at the conference and came along, which was nice. Christian had the idea that we’d all try to crash the conference reception, baby included, but given that T’s usual bedtime has been about 8:30 here, I wasn’t even going to try that. Nothing worse than grumpy baby at an event and having to slink off to an exit while Papa stays around geeking. It makes me feel as if having a baby has somehow caused me to relinquish my geek status, and my ego is sore enough as it is…

Tomorrow we’ll really try to explore Turku, though with a baby, any plan is tentative .