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I love Helsinki Airport. Straightforward, practical, efficient, elegant. I walked with Megan to immigration and drew her aside into a central hub where there were padded lounges for sitting, resting, or sleeping. In a continuous screen above, surrounding the area, images and sounds of Finnish forest and lake scenery played. Birds flew across the scene, bugs crawled on the tree trunks, the leaves moved in the wind.
Hard to think of a modern airline terminal where such good prime commercial space is given over to the people.
Once we had our passports stamped and our bags collected, we dived in and put on some heavier outerwear. I had my warm jacket strategically placed on top of everything else, hat and gloves nearby.
The plan was to take the train into Helsinki Central Station, leave our bags in a locker there, and take a Red Umbrella tour around the central city. A free tour but of course one tips the guide.
The airport train station is about a hundred metres below the terminal level and there is a truly epic bank of escalators to descend to platform level. You can take the lift if you want — or have a lot of baggage — but we went down through that immense space.
