If It's Tuesday, This Must be Belgium - 5/27/08

Welcome to this week's edition of If It's Tuesday, This Must be Belgium.  If you haven't already, please come by and join the group so you won't miss the weekly installments (published every Tuesday).  The very first article I wrote for this series is spotlighted at the group site, so if you're new to "Tuesday" you can find out why I've been publishing.

http://tuesdayisbelgium.gather.com/

Last week I documented the move into my apartment (finally).  In short, I'm still living out of boxes.

Part of the reason is because I did some traveling for work during that time.  Following a day trip to Paris for a client meeting I flew to Helsinki, Finland to attend a conference.  Whereas I've been to Paris a couple of times before I had never been to Helsinki.

Coming into the airport in Helsinki it struck me how flat things were:

Interestingly the weather was quite nice.  Very sunny and cool (actually, it was cooler than it had been in Brussels, but they considered the 11 degrees Celsius to be warm compared to the -5 degrees it had been the week before).  In some ways Helsinki was like Brussels, most notably the extensive tram system in both cities.  But Helsinki seemed much less congested and brighter.  And the center of the city is right on the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea so there was a nice dockside area that was quite appealing.  The city also was very well set up for bicycling around, with dedicated bicycle lanes:

Of course, I was there for a meeting.  There were 580 people in a big auditorium, and the whole thing was recorded and flashed up on the big screens.  Actually, they had three cameras and a director that periodically changed angles.  I felt like I was on TV (well, maybe).

Usually in these meetings they have a big reception at least one of the nights to give people a chance to "network."  This one was held at City Hall with the Mayor of Helsinki presiding (he and his wife even did a greeting line as we entered).  City Hall had some interesting artwork and sculptures in the main lobby and throughout.  I'm still not sure what kind of metal this was, but it had both the raw ore and shined up portions and stood about 12 feet tall (the huge painting in the background was pretty cool too).

There also was this very tall sculpture of...well, look closely.  It stood at least 25 feet tall.

But the centerpiece of the downtown area in Helsinki is the famous Cathedral, which is the seat of the Evangelical Lutheran church.

I also saw some amazing modern architecture on my way down to city hall, but didn't have my camera.  Luckily the conference was related to REACH, the new chemical control law in the EU, and the reason I'm now in Brussels.  They will have this meeting annually so I'll be sure to be back next year (though I suspect I'll be going there more often).

That's all for this week.  Next week will be my last column before leaving for Rome, Boston, Spain, and back to Paris, so I'll have lots of new photos to show everyone.

Cheers