|Wanderlust| Travel Diary: Helsinki during 2017 Figure Skating World Championships – Day 6 and 7

April 2, 2017

Riesenrad Helsinki
At the harbour of Helsinki.

As the exhibition started at 14:00, we had the morning off. We went by boat to the fortress Suomenlinna and had a walk there. When K. and I had been to Helsinki in 2006, we had also already visited Suomenlinna. But back then, it had been super sunny and warm and today, it was foggy and cold. That’s why it was like visiting a totally different place. Everything looked mystical…

 

Suomenlinna
One of the bridges of Suomenlinna

 

Suomenlinna
Fog over Suomenlinna

 

Suomenlinna
Typical Nordic houses on Suomenlinna
Suomenlinna
Café on Suomenlinna

 

Suomenlinna
Passing an island while leaving Suomenlinna

 

sea gull
Sea gull

Exhibition

Team Unique
  • Misha Ge – music by Justin Bieber: Evgenia Medvedeva was sitting on the boards for him. This was one of coolest exhibition programs ever. This boy can dance! If he really retires as a singles skater, I think he should give ice dancing a try. He showed more dance moves in this exhibition piece than all the ice dance teams in the FD combined. He probably needs a partner who is not that tall, that’s why I would suggest Yana Kokhlova as his partner…
  • Emmi Peltonen – TFB (typical female ballad)
  • Cappellini & Lanotte – „La Cumparsita“: I had already seen this program at Nebelhorn. Fun to watch.
  • Shoma Uno – TMB (typical male ballad): he is really cute and has a looot of devoted fans. Kind of like the German ski-jumpers in the millenium years…
  • Stolbova & Klimov – „Please, Don’t Stop the Rain“: they have the best throws (alongside their teammates Tarasova & Morozov).
  • Gabrielle Daleman – „Confident“: a real loud disco beat.
  • Boyang Jin – Cowboy: he had amazingly fast toe-steps. Oh, the good, old times…
  • James & Cipres – „Unsteady“: they ended with a headbanger which was totally appreciated by the audience.
  • Mai Mihara – „Meditation“: very pretty.
  • Shibutanis – „Do You Remember“: choreography by Stephane Lambiel.
  • Valtter Virtanen – „Island Song“: looked like coming straight from Baccardi Island. I liked it.
  • Team Unique: first time ever I’ve seen real synchro skating. Interesting to watch.
  • Törn & Partanen – Joe Cocker: bizar and very short number. They wore fat suits!
  • Savchenko & Massot – modern „Romeo & Juliet“: she died at the end.
  • Kaetlyn Osmond – „Hallelujah“: one of my fave songs – NOT.
  • Bobrova & Soloviev – „Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White“: probably the most real dancing we’ve seen in ice dance all week long. I loved it! This would make such a cool Latin OD. Plus, the music brought back memories because Viktor Petrenko had a pro program to the same music.
  • Javier Fernandez – „Touch of Evil“: I found the music kind of unnerving.
  • Duhamel & Radford – „Heros“ by Eric Clapton: an angsty program.
  • Carolina Kostner – „Claire de Lune“ by Debussy: so, so beautiful. It touched my heart. I had goosebumps.
  • Papadakis & Cizeron – „Belvedere“: surprise, surprise, another contemporary program.
  • Jason Brown – Jamiroquai: it’s just so much fun to watch him. And never boring. I looove his over-extended Russian splits. More of this, please.
  • Sui & Han – Andrea Bocelli
  • Evgenia Medvedeva – „Meditation“: what a talent, doing triple-triple combinations during the exhibition. She makes one feel kind of blessed to be allowed to watch her. I know, there will be more difficult times coming for her (maybe a growth spurt, injuries, a time she realizes the pressure she is under) but right now it’s just pure joy to watch her. I hope everyone around her takes good care of her.
  • Virtue & Moir – „Sorry“ by Justin Bieber: I missed the moment when Justin Bieber became a bing thing in figure skating. Nevertheless, kind of a cool program.
  • Yuzuru Hanyu – „The Swan“: he looked so much like Johnny Weir in this costume. An elegant, classical program.
  • The grande finale – „Light Up the Ice“: the offical song of these World Championships is really cool, I think. It has a stirring beat, perfect for such a final. The skaters were having a lot of fun and it was a sight to remember seeing Medvedeva do a triple-triple-triple combination – just for fun. She beat Hanyu here hands down – who was struggling to do two quads in a row or a combination with a 3 axel.

 

Exhibition final
Grande finale of the exhibition

That night, we wanted to eat something Finnish and had reserved a table at restaurant „Zetor“ which has a connection with the „Lenningrad Cowboys“. The restaurant itself is kind of bizarr with a lot of old stuff hanging around and some tractors standing inside and in front of it. The food was good. I had a pearl barely risotto (something I had always wanted to try) with chanterelle and some roasted blueberries with a cookie dough cover and vanilla ice cream for dessert. This was very, very yummy. A nice and relaxing ending to our fabulous trip to Worlds in Helsinki.

Graupenrisotto
Risotto

April 03, 2017

The next day, we had to get up really early as our flight was leaving before 8:00 in the morning. I was wide awake when I couldn’t find the second keycard to our hotel room. It had accidentally fallen into the bin standing in front of the desk in our room.

We took a taxi to the airport and the security check went much smoother than in Frankfurt with the exception of K.’s jacket being deemed „explosivly dangerous“.

The flight was unproblematic and I had a very nice moment when I left the plane and the stewardess told me she liked the way I had braided my hair and that she had been looking at it all flight-long. What a nice compliment.

And this is also the end of my travel diary from Helsinki. I hope you had fun reading abut my Finnish adventures. We plan to be back with a review from Nebelhorn Trophy in September. 2018 or 2019 Euros would have also been an option (we are so motivated to watch some more live skating right now) but Moscow and Minsk seem to be too complicated to reach.

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