My first HEL-SEA flight

A route that I have not flown before, HEL-SEA. Finnair has been flying these on and off for a long time. Travel starts by the traditional praying of the sauna gods in the lounge. Maybe that will help with the short connection on the next leg. Relaxing, at least.

At the airport lounge I also took again one of the "beyond meat" burgers, really good! Really enjoy the Finnair non-Schengen platinum lounge, sad that I won't be able to use it much longer as I can't maintain my status with current number of flights I'm taking.

I managed to get a (small) upgrade to an economy extra seat in the Finnair plane. Nice, the seats are slightly wider so that I can actually fit in. Used my two last Finnair European vouchers to do that. To my surprise we also got one of the Finnair's Marimekko pouches with earplugs, eye covers, etc. on these seats. Nice touch.

I happened to be sitting also next to the captain's spouse, who was both fun to talk to, and had all kinds of goodies brought to her by the crew. Nice :-) 

SeaTac, or the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport is a wonderful, large airport serving the two cities and a major hub for a number of airlines. Such as Alaska Air that I took from Seattle to Vancouver. Vancouver's airport is also quite nice. I was struck by how easy immigration processes and security checks were in both. Very efficient. 

Both airports have also significant on-airport commerce, shops, etc., far more than what one is typically used to in North America. Well done!

But ... no sauna. What's up with that? Don't you see the benefits of having a sauna in your lounges???

Helsinki:

Seattle:

Weirdly enough, with all the effort of getting from Seattle to Vancouver, I rented a car and immediately drove across the border: The goal was to get to a cave and ski hill visit on the US side. Surprisingly, it was super smooth to cross the border again. Nice artwork also on the US side, in sunset light:

For more flying stories, check out the planetflier.com website! or more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot and TGR! The photos and text (c) 2024 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never take photos of other saunagoers or swimmers. and try to visit at times where there is simply no one else around or the facility has been booked only for me.