With such an early start in the morning and with a 2.5 hour drive, we decided to spend the night in a hotel. Well, a hotel now.
It was a jail.
It was in service from 1853 until 2007 and after being a museum for a while that took tours through, it has now been converted into a hotel with a restaurant and little bar. I am not sure if it is exactly cozy, but it is interesting and since many hotels resemble prisons anyway, it seems fit for purpose.
We will only be staying here a few hours really, so after checking-in, we walked around a little and I took some photos. My wife actually did a tour here over a decade ago, not long after it shut down its service as a prison, but she says that thankfully, it has changed a lot. She didn't want to stay here at first, because she didn't like the feel of it when she toured through back then, but now, she is glad we booked it.
They have kept some of the original furniture from the prison and dotted it around the hotel to connect the past. There are also other bits of memorabilia, like shackles and keys to the rooms from different periods of its lifecycle. And of course, the carpet matches the history, with gate markings counting the days.
This particular room was used for people who were newly brought in but were psychotic or, very high on drugs. There was nothing in the room at that time, because it was a place to freak the fuck out a bit.
However, the rooms themselves are nice and comfortable and surprisingly large considering that it is a prison. Granted, it probably wasn't "quite the same" way back when, but I like the touches of freedom that they have added around the place, like the birds on the cupboard. Looking out the window, there is a very high brick wall, but I don't know if anyone ever managed to escape. Though, Finnish prisons these days are more like getaways and for most prisoners, there is weekends off where they can go home to family.
It is kind of like having a job.
And speaking of jobs. I did bring my work laptop and as soon as I started it up in order to write this post, a few "must do" tasks were waiting. Nothing too difficult or that takes long, but I should have skipped. I did them fast and even chatted with a colleague to set up some things for next week and now...
Well, I look fine.
You probably look great.
I think the photos came out quite well of the place and capture a bit of the feel. There are a lot of straight lines here and subdued colors, so I edited to ensure that I corrected the angles I could to give the feeling of structure and organization. I think the bars might come in handy for some other posts in the future too.
Very early start coming and let's see what will be captured tomorrow.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]