Mark and I spent our second week in Finland exploring Seinäjoki, Oulu and Rovaniemi. En route to Oulu we stopped off in Seinäjoki to explore the Alvar Aalto-designed city centre, the Aalto-keskus. The train station had no lockers to store luggage, yet at one point it must have since we saw signs showing luggage icons which had been papered over. We asked someone at the R-kioski if there was anyplace we could leave our luggage. I spoke to her entirely in Finnish, explaining that this was my second time in Seinäjoki and we were stopping there this time because my husband was an architect and wanted to see the Alvar Aalto Centre on his first visit. In spite of the flattery I paid the city she was abrupt and said no, which meant that we’d have to lug our suitcases behind us the whole time unless we found somewhere else to leave them. As we were about to leave she called out to us to say we could leave our bags in the store near the lottery desk. I had complete faith that they would be safe. I was ebullient in thanking her.
On my first trip to Finland in 1999 I spent some time in Seinäjoki. Twenty-six years later I return. Mark and I looked around city hall and went upstairs to an area where the council sat. It was the angled peaked area seen below:
We spent most of our time in the two libraries, the newer Apila (from 2012) and then the original Aalto (from 1965 and renovated in 2012-2015). At first I had trouble finding any books on architecture in the Apila library. The call numbers jumped over the 72 series. I had to ask (as did Mark) to find out that all books on architecture were housed in the Aalto library (makes sense). Two two libraries were connected by a long underground passageway. I felt a sense of déjà vu when I walked into the Aalto library because it reminded me so much of the Rovaniemi City Library by its fan design and separate sunken areas.
The older Aalto library is reflected in the glass of Apila.
These pictures are from the Aalto library. All the architecture books at Aalto are housed in this separate sunken area, above.
The Aalto-keskus was undergoing much construction and we did not have access to the Lakeuden Risti church, but when we walked over it didn’t look as if anyone had set foot inside the building in a very long time.
We were spending the next three nights in Oulu so returned to the train station and got our luggage. To express his thanks, Mark gave the kiosk worker a chocolate bar for allowing us to leave our bags there.
I was last in Oulu in 2016. We were staying at the OuluHostel AlliMaria. Mark mapped the directions from the train station on his phone and it wasn’t that far a walk, just under half an hour. On our way there we passed the Höyhtyän Grilli, which is named after the Höyhtyä area of Oulu where we were. Even for a fennophile like me who is used to Finnish pronunciation, it’s words like Höyhtyä that are the most difficult for English speakers. The öy diphthong + preconsonantal H + yä diphthong are a mouthful to get out in one go. Little did I know it (because Mark held the phone) the hostel was right across the street from this grill. We buzzed to get in and the owners came out. The woman was admonishing us not to touch their dog, almost accusing us for having touched it, but neither of us did. Even before we entered the place we noticed a sign on the front window warning guests in two languages not to touch the dog. The dog, a large breed I could not identify, would always approach you and get close, spurring more warnings from the woman owner. Of course I wondered what would happen to guests if they let their fingers stray too close.
When we walked in the gentleman owner gave us a look that worried me. He told Mark that his reservation was for only one person (even though Mark had reserved a room with a double bed). Mark did say that in booking the room he had given my name as the second person, but the reservation was ambiguous in confirming how many people would in fact be staying there. He was willing to negotiate a price for us and when we didn’t answer right away, I got the feeling that he was worried he would lose our business. He offered us a price that, in my opinion, was far cheaper for two guests than if we had made the reservation properly the first time. We agreed to it immediately.
The hostel had other guests but we rarely encountered anyone. I only saw one man in the hallway and two women as they checked in. We never saw anyone else in the kitchen or dining area. The library had a vast collection and I enjoyed perusing the shelves, which to my amazement and delight were sorted by subject matter.
We each ordered a pizza at nearby Göreme for dinner. The salad bar was included so we had a plate while we waited for the pizzas to be ready. The individual-sized pizzas were so big we ended up eating only half of it and had the leftovers for dinner the following night.
We walked around downtown, eating the lunches we had made for ourselves inside the Kauppakeskus Valkea. We took a self-guided sculpture tour of the city in the early afternoon of September 27.
Outside the Danske Bank on Pakkahuoneenkatu
Inside the kauppahalli (market hall)
Sanna Koivisto sculpted 32 small figures in bronze, depicting everyday life in Oulu. The piece is called Ajan kulku (The Passage of Time). In researching the sculptor I see that she also created Iijoen uitolle which I saw in Ii.
Construction on the Oulun teatteri and main library shut down both buildings. Fortunately I had visited the latter in 2016. I browsed in two second-hand bookstores, situated around the corner from each other. One was like a bibliomaniac’s hoarder house. It had no name, despite the two names I have since located for it on-line. I noticed it only by a hand-written sign that was stuck outside the door saying that books were for sale inside. I accessed the store from the side of a building on Kauppurienkatu. I thought for a minute that it might be a side entrance to another bookstore I wanted to go to, Antikvariaatti Ale-Kirja on Rautatienkatu, but it was too small a place to extend that far. Ale-Kirja, however, was organized and dust-free. I didn’t buy anything yet had my eye on a couple books on Petsamo. One was a publication from this year, far cheaper than what it was going for in retail stores. I will look on-line for books on the subject, perhaps in English.
Mark leaving the hostel, before walking to the station to catch the train to Rovaniemi