turning completely around

On my previous rant I made a passing reference to a website, 360 cities. The idea behind the site is simple; They stitch panoramic photographs together to create immersive views of a place. Their site is pretty neat (think Google streetviews) even though their navigation system is awkward and using the main map to move from one site to another is a bit frustrating.

Even though the site features an extensive network of European cities, I was still surprised to find that Helsinki, where I grew up, was included. I'm not sure if the photographs featured from Helsinki represent "the most interesting places in the world from the most interesting perspectives" but I guess I have never seen Helsinki through a pair of foreign eyes. (And maybe part of the fascination is to see what parts of a familiar landscape a stranger chooses to photograph.)

Most of the images turned out to be the obvious ones. There is the main square, the main park, the main shopping district, and there are multiple images of Suomenlinna, a naval fortress where I run around as a teenager participating in live action role-playing games (wearing a complete scavenged pseudo-medieval outfit with a cape and a wooden sword. Geeky, I tell you). Yet, some of their choices are more puzzling: Hotel Sokos' lobby is not very high in my list of interesting interiors in Helsinki. And why take photos of a lipouautomaati* (sic)? I fail to see the exoticism.

*A vending machine that sells parking passes.