Oulu day 2: Stars, rapids & little flies

I love towers. I love cafes. So it wasn’t surprising that number 1 on my list of cafes was a café in a tower. Tähtitornin kahvila (“The Cafe of the Star Tower”) is built on the remains of the ancient Oulu castle, the last of which was destroyed by lightning in 1793. The tower was built in 1875 for astronomy students to watch the stars from, and in 1912 it was made into a café.

By the time we got to the cafe I was a tad grumpy from hunger, BUT ALL THAT CHANGED WHEN I SIPPED THE ICED COFFEE. It was truly PHENOMENAL. The ice wasn’t water, but coffee. And there was some sweetness to it, but it didn’t taste like the artificial sweetness of sugar (I’m not a fan of sugar in coffee). Fabio’s theory was some kind of brown sugar. Dunno. Anyways, it was INSANELY GOOD. And I am gutted we didn’t get extra ones to go, because the next day we returned, and the iced coffee was significantly less phenomenal (still better than average, but the mysterious sweetness had disappeared).

The café itself is also a bookshop and artshop, and I bought a postcard. The views at the moderately-heighted tower (how do you say that??) were pretty and gave a nice overview of the area.

On our list of to-dos were many parks. Ainolan Puisto and Hupisaaret as the main ones. Turned out they were at least sort of the same thing. In our chats with Fabio and L, it also went by the names of Keskuspuisto (Central Park) and Koskipuisto (Rapids Park), though now with google searching I realise they are not official names. It was confusing.

Anyhoos, let’s go with the name HUPISAARET (“amusement islands” is probably the most accurate translation) as that is the most HUPAISA choice of words. Hupisaaret is a large park complex, with amusement indeed, with rapids and a dam, with a funky outdoor summer theatre, a nice-looking café, bridges, greenhouses with tropical plants, bridges etc.

It is a “green oasis” consisting of “several dozen small islands in the Oulu estuary”, separated by “picturesque streams” (thank you for poetic language visitoulu.fi).

We walked through the scorching islands, and it was indeed picturesque and exquisite.

Last month there was a huge storm in Finland, which was exceptional and exciting for Helsinki, but a bit more devastating for Oulu. So, around the town we kept seeing storm damage and large trees rooted up.

At some point we noticed two girls far away, making their way through the river, except it looked like they were walking on the water. Interesting. First I thought of an abnormally shallow bit – like shores have, for example, but figured it must be some man-made structure. “Let’s walk on it?” suggested Fabio. Sure, I figured, but was not hugely disappointed when he seemed to have forgotten the idea (it would’ve required retracting our steps anyways). (Heat makes me unadventurous. :’’’D)

We headed towards a place called Tuira (clearly a very difficult place name, which I frequently pronounced “Tiura” and Fabio “Turia”) , where there was meant to be a day-long summer festivity going. We walked for a decent amount of time next to the river, which was funky as the water was literally higher than the ground we were walking on. On the other side of the river was a packed, long beach which I proclaimed was “very much not my thing”. In the end, once we were nearing it, we figured we’d stop at the un-glamorous beach café for a coffee (me), a pulla (him) and lots of water.

Somehow then we ended up then at the beach (at my suggestion), and after what was meant to be a quick swim (in the HEAVENLY water, which got deep at exactly the right inclination) we lay in the sun and I dreamt of rollercoasters.

One of the most EPIC things about Tuira beach were the little salads they sold at the cafe. Affordable, simple. YUM.

We didn’t see much of the festival, but we found an accurately named bar “Joku Paikallinen Pubi”, translated as “Some Local Pub”, true story. We had one drink and then headed homewards past the fancy waterworks.

We returned more or less the same way, through the Hupisaaret park but from a different side. Then suddenly, on our left, in the river there was a long, winding, elevated, er, concrete path. Forgive my English, but anyhoos, long mysterious story short, it was the thing the faraway girls were walking on earlier, looking as if they were walking on water.

You can see in the picture that the water is levelled with the path on the left, but a lot lower than on the right.

Fabio suggested we go, and tho I consider myself old and wise by now, I figured why not, would be exciting. Not so much EXCITING as SCARY when I translated a sign for him which said that the dam can open without warning, BEWARE. But, well, we were on our way.

It was nerve-racking stuff. We took off our shoes, and off we went. I was adamant to go first, as my swimming skills are superior to Fabio’s, so I figured it’d be safer for me to be the one to slip into the water. So it was me slip-slopping as fast I could go while staying safe, shouting loudly “SLIPPERY” at any unstable point. The whole time trying to avoid thoughts of how any moment now there may be a loud alarm and the dam upstream would open its, er, dam doors.

Once we finally got to a place sort of near the opposite shore, I decided to relax and stopped to take a few photos. If the dams broke, we were so close to the shore we could hop onto some nearby rocks and make our way to the nearby island without loss of life (though very probably loss of phone life).

We got to the other shore, and I definitely felt my dosage of adrenaline for the year acquired. I think the last time I felt like that was when I forced myself to do the “black route” at the tree-top adventure park I worked in in 2016 (it was horrific, still the most life-threatening fear I’ve felt in my life I think, yes my life has been cushy I guess).

***

It’s a weird world where there is no darkness.

We got home, I had a little nap to sleep off my headache, and then it was food time. We had found a nice restaurant to go to which Fabio’s local friend had recommended, so off we went, utterly famished. The restaurant looked nice but finding a menu was exceedingly difficult, so we queued to talk to the girl at the bar. Oh, our kitchen is closed, she told us.

It was about 9.30pm. So, legit time for a restaurant to close its kitchen. But it did not feel like 9.30pm. I felt a bit lost, a bit unused to this world where light was eternal. It DEFINITELY did not feel like 9.30.

They weren’t able to recommend anywhere nearby which was open, except to walk back to the centre (where we came from). So we did, figuring that at somewhere chainy like Amarillo the kitchen could be open till 10ish, and worst comes to worst (to the ULTIMATE worst…) there seemed to be a 24h McDonalds…

We walked past an unposh bar-vibed place called The Corner House which advertised burgers and pizzas. We went in, they had cutlery on tables and I checked with the friendly dude at the bar whether their kitchen was still open. Oh yes.

So, we sat down, ordered unposh bar food (an ENORMOUS pizza for me, and a decent burger with DIVINE sweet potato fries for Fabio) and watched the first half of the England Ukraine match in a practically empty bar (I guess it wasn’t central, or outdoorsy enough, to be popular). Our waiter dude was a charm, checking if everything was ok and chatting with us, and we really enjoyed our meal there.

(Wouldn’t have braved salmon on my pizza if it hadn’t been for that pizza in Hämeenlinna.)

Then, on to the next place. It was a bit hot inside so at half-time we went for a walk and found ourself at a top-quality place called Mango DiscoBar (2.2 stars on Google). We’d walked past this place the previous day and seen a huge outdoor TV where they were watching the football, so we figured we’d give it a go.

We went in, got Euro2020-themed Heineken beers, and found some seats amongst the fellow Mangoers.

Well, let me tell you, the oldest person there (not counting us) I swear was 19, tops. So maybe you understand the type of place Mango DiscoBar was.

(Ok I feel bad swearing something which is not exactly true, since we did see a couple who seemed to be minimum middle-aged who entered with some younger girls, not sure where THEY thought they were…)

After the game we popped in to look around, but neither sweaty dance floor sparked much disco vibe in us, so we left.

So instead of partying the night away with sweaty intoxicated teenagers at Mango Discobar, we went for a walk. And that walk was gorgeous. We found ourselves in Pikisaari which was on our to-do list due to its quaint architecture and art-themed walk. I doubt the tractor was part of the art trail, but it was possibly my favourite part.

The sun was dozing but it was still light, and the atmosphere was magical. Then the sun was starting to rise. And we were seeing all these beautiful bits of art etc. without anyone else around, with no scorching heat, what joy.

Until we did get company. The smaller, whining, little-siblings-of-Edward-Cullen kind.

We renamed Pikisaari Mosquito Island, and although they did nothing than buzz annoyingly around Fabio, they utterly devoured my legs. (Truly, the only person I know that mosquitos may enjoy more than me is my brother, and even that one’s a close call. If you personally want to be mosquito bite-free, have a walk with me. You will be completely ignored.)

But forget the buzzy pals (they don’t buzz though, do they. What do mosquitoes do? Squeak?) (I looked up mosquitoes on Wikipedia to find the right term, but got distracted by the fact that the word “mosquito” comes from the Spanish for “little fly” NOW ISN’T THAT JUST ADOOOORABS innit). It was beautiful.

And a magnificent, breezyish way to end the day.