Almost every day I went to the city centre. Although it was 5 km. away, I went on foot.
Walking in Tampere is so pleasant, not least because of its many parks. They are as big as forests!
The parks stretch along the coast of the Pyhäjärvi lake all the way to the city centre. The coast is inhabited by a multitude of ducks, which are almost tame. You can see many people biking and jogging on the gravel-covered paths (in Québec everything is asphalted). Halfway to the city centre lies a beautiful botanical garden — Hatanpää arboretum. There are also many other parks in Tampere, especially in the north-east of the city.
Plan of the city (the location of Anya's house
is marked with a red flag)
Not far from Anya’s home there is a small beach. In the evenings, on the way from the centre, I went there to bathe and get a suntan.
What I like most about Tampere is that you can live in a city and be close to nature — take a walk in a park or bathe in a lake when you like. Finland is one of few countries where it is possible.
In Québec forests and beaches are not easy to find and reach (I do not mean national parks with paid entrance), especially if you do not have a car.
Feeding geese in a park near the university (Sorsalammin puisto)
Tampere is a clean and calm city with beautiful architecture.
I usually went along the main street Hameenkatu, but have also walked all over the central area of the city.
I visited the University of Tampere, located in the city centre, and picked up brochures about studying in Finland. I wanted to find out how to enter a Finnish university. It turned out that there are significantly fewer places in Finnish universities than applicants, and, what is more important, although the tuition is free, one is required to have 6000 euros per year for living expenses. At present I cannot afford it.
I also dropped by the multi-cultural centre Unipoint on the Central Square. I was told that there were few activities in summer and these activities (e.g. various courses) were mainly for people who permanently live in the country.
Among city attractions I should mention a magnificent cathedral with interesting frescos. I also passed through the territory of the former factory Finlayson, which is now occupied by shops and a cinema.
Cathedral (Tuomiokirrko)
In general I liked walking about the city. It was much more pleasant than in Québec, because, as other European cities, Tampere is built primarily for people and not for automobiles.
First of all, it's the central city library called Metso ("wood grouse"). It has an unusual design and from above it indeed resembles a bird of a snail. The library building won several awards and broke new paths in Finnish architecture.
The library houses over a million of books. Films and CDs are lent free of charge. That is why not many films are available at a given moment (Anya says they can be reserved), but there is a lot of music CDs. The library has a large selection of books in Russian.
I was especially attracted to the numerous books and audio courses on Scandinavian and the Finnish languages (the main library of Québec City has only one Swedish textbook and no books on Finnish at all!). Using Anya's library card, I borrowed books and films to see at home. Unfortunately, there was little time to read. I could only choose a good textbook for searching it in the Internet later.
I found an excellent book by a Russian émigré from Estonia, Sergei Soldatov, which is a story of his fight against the Soviet regime in 1960s — 80s. I was able to read it entirely.
Photocopying books was too expensive — 0.20 euro per page (five times more than in Québec). It was same with blank CD and DVD discs.
The Metso library
I also visited the Sampola library with its Net Square (computer centre), where everyone can use Internet 3 hours per day.
There was yet another library which I frequented — a small one near Anya's house, where I could read my e-mails.
I spent considerable amount of time on the Internet, because I started to look for a girlfriend in Finland. By the way, Anya helped me register on several Finnish dating sites, since I had difficulty in understanding the language.
There were not very many second-hand bookshops in Tampere and I checked almost all of them. I think the best is Ormhole, located near Metso.
For some reason the city has many sex shops — they probably outnumber bookshops. I dropped in there as well. :)
Among other goods I bought summer clothes (a T-shirt with the inscription "Suomi", etc) and a few Finnish films on DVD with subtitles (in North America they are very few and far between).
Central Square (Keskustori)
Non-food goods cost about 1/3 higher than in Canada, but it was to some degree compensated by better design of the shops and lesser amount of stuff from China.
As for food, I bought it near Anya's house, mainly in a German grocery Lidl. This shop is inexpensive (Anya said that Finns do not go there much, supposedly because it is not prestigious), but sells food of good quality. It had many things that I missed in Québec: cottage cheese, smetana (sour cream), kefir, hard bread. In Québec this food is either not available or contains preservatives. Besides, Anya brought Russian foodstuffs from Vyborg — fish, pelmeni (ravioli), sweets, cakes, halvah... By and large, for the same money one can eat much better and healthier in Finland than in Canada.