The unexpected

WRITING AND PHOTOS BY MONIKA CSAPO

They say you should always leave room for the unexpected when travelling. But sometimes you do not invite the unexpected at all and it still arrives. If I should make a statistics about it how often something unplanned has happened during my trips I would put it to about eighty percent..

I was planning to visit Vallisaari since May after I have seen photos of it on Instagram. It is a new island in Helsinki in the sense that it has been open for public only since 2016. There is beautiful nature, silence, peace..Two companies are operating boats to the island, the return ticket is eight euros. Boats are running from Kauppatori (Helsink centre), from next to the dock where boats are going to Suomenlinna.

There was even a famous Finnish actor travelling on the same boat with me! But..before..and after the boat trip I had some funny surprises. The first surprise was that I got attacked by a giant seagull while waiting in the harbor. I was enjoying the sunshine and eating a slice of pizza when the seagull came from behind and grabbed on the pizza with that force that it kicked out the paper bag from my hand to the ground. When I turned back a whole army of seagulls followed just like a frozen scene from Hitchcock's Birds. But luckily they dissolved when I quickly put the paper bag away. Of course there were lot of people around to wintess this scene but later the seagulls attacked also some of them- so, conclusion shortly: look around when you feel like eating in open spaces in Helsinki harbor!!

After this when my boat came I had to realize that I was standing in line at the wrong dock the whole time and my ticket was valid for the other companie's boat. Which meant an other half hour of waiting.

When my ride finally started to go I felt like being part of a miracle..

and was very happy when we reached the island. But when I got off and looked around I realized that no one else got off there besides me. So basically I was alone on an island and the next boat going back to Helsinki was in an hour. In the harbor there was an empty brick building, a shed behind it and some mökki toilets for tourists a bit more far behind. Soon I started to have flashbacks from my favorite Scandinavian crime series like Wallander or The Bridge with an imagined episode called "Alone on an island"..

Anyways since I had time to spend I started to walk the route and take photos to take off my mind of being a bit intimitated by it all and after half hour or so I met the first people. It turned out later that the island is quite big and what happened was that all the others coming earlier were already on the other side of it walking the hiking route.

It was a relief to meet the first people and a cute dog and after this I felt a bit more comfortable even when they left. I went to the lake and took more pictures of the surroundings and the beautiful autumn-nature.

In my upcoming wiriting I wil share some of these photos and pics from my second visit to the here.