Helsinki Apartment #1: My Temporary Home Away from Home While I Waited for My Other Home
When I first arrived, I stayed at a little temporary apartment. I wanted to post pictures of it before now, but it was so small (300 square feet, aka 28 square meters) that it was impossible to tidy up because there was no storage space for all my crap. But I got all of my stuff out of there this morning and moved into my permanent apartment, so I took some photos of the old place to share with you...
Street sign - This is the name of the street I was living on, pronounced "Tur-lurn-KAA-tu." All the street signs (even in the busy parts of downtown) are posted on the sides of the buildings nearest the corner. I can't imagine driving here, because these signs are very small and pretty hard to see...definitely no intense green hanging over the street all in your face with reflective lettering in size 13,389 font. Every sign (street or otherwise) is listed in both Finnish (Töölönkatu) and Swedish (Tölögatan):
Apartment Building - This the entire apartment building, and then a closeup of the doorway. I love the little cubes with the address numbers on them, they're like that everywhere. Like dice! Something interesting that I learned the hard way is that just because it's 26 on this side of the street, don't expect 25 and 27 to be directly across the street. They don't skip numbers for extra wide buildings, they always go in sequence so it could happen that you could be in 26 on the west side of the street and be directly across from 33 on the east side of the street.
Stairs to unit - I was on the second floor (if you'll remember from the UPS fiasco), so these are the stairs leading up to the higher floors:
Door to unit - This is the door to my little unit. And me unlocking the door to my little unit. And a close up of the strange European keys. So medieval-looking:
Living room - this is basically what you see right when you walk in the front door. No, that's a lie. The thing directly across from the door is the toilet in the bathroom, which is an odd way to welcome someone. But if you sidestep that and look left, you see the living area:
Living room/bedroom - This is just another angle of the living room, taken from the doorway of the kitchenette. This gives you an idea of how very, very small the place is. That red thing on the left side of the living room is not another sofa, it's the bed:
Living room/kitchenette - Another angle of the living room taking from standing on the bed, and now you can see where the kitchenette fits into the layout.
Kitchenette - Small, but functional. That's a refrigerator/freezer closest to you on the right, then a small stove range and oven behind that. On the left is a microwave. And check out the cabinets above the sink, I am so impressed with how clever this is...the shelves above the sink are wire racks! So you can dry your dishes, yet still have them out of sight!
Bathroom - Okay, so this is really what you see when you first walk in. Man, this bathroom spoiled me. It was spotlessly clean. It had lots of nice cabinet space and good mirrors. The floor was made of heated tiles. It had a huge towel warmer. I miss that bathroom already... Anyway, it is very common for the washing machine to be in the bathroom, and they are little teeny tiny washing machines as you'll see below to the right of the shower. (No dryers.) And the outtake hose of the washing machine just dumps straight into the shower drain!
And that's it. It's going to take me a while to get the new place photo ready, but I'll do a similar entry when I have this place in a little better shape. Spoiler...two pieces of bugle-bottomed furniture!!
Street sign - This is the name of the street I was living on, pronounced "Tur-lurn-KAA-tu." All the street signs (even in the busy parts of downtown) are posted on the sides of the buildings nearest the corner. I can't imagine driving here, because these signs are very small and pretty hard to see...definitely no intense green hanging over the street all in your face with reflective lettering in size 13,389 font. Every sign (street or otherwise) is listed in both Finnish (Töölönkatu) and Swedish (Tölögatan):
Apartment Building - This the entire apartment building, and then a closeup of the doorway. I love the little cubes with the address numbers on them, they're like that everywhere. Like dice! Something interesting that I learned the hard way is that just because it's 26 on this side of the street, don't expect 25 and 27 to be directly across the street. They don't skip numbers for extra wide buildings, they always go in sequence so it could happen that you could be in 26 on the west side of the street and be directly across from 33 on the east side of the street.
Stairs to unit - I was on the second floor (if you'll remember from the UPS fiasco), so these are the stairs leading up to the higher floors:
Door to unit - This is the door to my little unit. And me unlocking the door to my little unit. And a close up of the strange European keys. So medieval-looking:
Living room - this is basically what you see right when you walk in the front door. No, that's a lie. The thing directly across from the door is the toilet in the bathroom, which is an odd way to welcome someone. But if you sidestep that and look left, you see the living area:
Living room/bedroom - This is just another angle of the living room, taken from the doorway of the kitchenette. This gives you an idea of how very, very small the place is. That red thing on the left side of the living room is not another sofa, it's the bed:
Living room/kitchenette - Another angle of the living room taking from standing on the bed, and now you can see where the kitchenette fits into the layout.
Kitchenette - Small, but functional. That's a refrigerator/freezer closest to you on the right, then a small stove range and oven behind that. On the left is a microwave. And check out the cabinets above the sink, I am so impressed with how clever this is...the shelves above the sink are wire racks! So you can dry your dishes, yet still have them out of sight!
Bathroom - Okay, so this is really what you see when you first walk in. Man, this bathroom spoiled me. It was spotlessly clean. It had lots of nice cabinet space and good mirrors. The floor was made of heated tiles. It had a huge towel warmer. I miss that bathroom already... Anyway, it is very common for the washing machine to be in the bathroom, and they are little teeny tiny washing machines as you'll see below to the right of the shower. (No dryers.) And the outtake hose of the washing machine just dumps straight into the shower drain!
And that's it. It's going to take me a while to get the new place photo ready, but I'll do a similar entry when I have this place in a little better shape. Spoiler...two pieces of bugle-bottomed furniture!!
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