Helsinki, Finland

 Helsinki                                                                                        Friday, May 27

I remember my first visit to Helsinki.  I was frosty and foggy and drizzly in early May.  It seemed to be the dullest drabbest place I had ever been.  We went to the USSR(1977) for a month, and when we returned to Helsinki (the sun was shining) I thought it was the most colorful , happiest, most energetic place I had ever seen.  Interesting how experience can shape your recollections and your impressions of a place.

My experience this time was somewhat similar although it had to transpire in a day.  We came in in heavy fog.  You could not see anything.  It was drizzly.  It was cold and dreary.  If I could have seen anything It would have been one of the drabbest places I’ve seen recently.  We were scheduled on a ship’s tour in the morning.  It was a harbor cruise.  This is good and bad when the weather is like this.  The good is that you can be inside and sheltered.  The bad is that it is really not a great time to see anything from the harbor when it is foggy and drizzly.  This was brought home to us by our guide who’s heart was not in it.  There are three basic ways to approach tour guiding in this type of situation.   Guides can do the basic standard script pointing out points of interest and treat the tour as normal.  They may also try to vary the script to make the day interesting and exciting through sheer force of will by becoming the show and the point of interest in the bleak actual landscape.  The third variation is the opposite, where the guide capitulates to the situation and disinvests in the tour because they know it is not going to be the wonderful experience the participants were hoping for or that they would like to present.  As you can guess from the preamble, we got number three.  This was the first trip our guide had narrated in two years, she was not at her sharpest, forgetting things she once knew, and telling us how nice this or that would be on a sunny day.

The tour began by bus to get us to the launch point.  We loaded up, waited for everyone to arrive, and drove two blocks to the pier.  Someone who was leaving by walking through the gate as we started rolling actually beat us to the pier.  We got on the boat and off we went.  There are lots of itty bitty rocky islands in the harbor.  It is quite a maze.  300 islands in total.  Many of the larger islands had buildings, many quite large and elaborate.  We were informed of what we were seeing at the start of the trip, along with the comments of what it looked like when sunny, but those comments dropped off the further we went until most of the ride was done in silence.  It was still interesting to see the various anchorages and buildings.  The fort was built in the 1800’s to protect Sweden from Russia.  Apparently Sweden and Russia fought over Finland for quite some time and the idea of an independent Finland is a somewhat newer idea.  There were also a number of saunas visible.  There are five million Finnish people, and over three million saunas.  Sauna was also the only Finnish word we learned to pronounce.  Elongate it and add a syllable, Sa ooh na and you are speaking Finnish, sort of.  The port freezes in winter and we saw the ice breakers they use to keep the port open.  I would include a picture of the ice breakers, but they look like ships.  Not exciting.  Finland is the only country in Europe where every port is prone to freezing and they build 60% of the world's ice breakers.  

One of the oldest working dry docks for boat repair in Finland

Submarine and fortifications of Suomenlinna five interconnected islands that are now a recreational area

When we arrived back at the pier there was an open market along the shore where we had half an hour of free time.  We walked the market, found a glove seller with gloves being one of the things we failed to bring, and bought Jen some gloves.  We hopped on the bus at the 27 minute mark and found out the guide had extended the time.  We sat for ten minutes with nobody else coming on before leaving  on our 3 minute drive to the boat.  Should have walked this one.

We took a short break before heading back to the city.  There was a large white Lutheran church on a hill so we went that away.  We found a small procession exiting a large building across from the church.  Men in top hats and tails, women in long black dresses.  The small procession got larger and larger as more people kept coming out and down the stairs.  Looked somewhat like a funeral procession but no casket.  The parade turned and walked up the steps to the church and entered.  Guess that means we weren’t going to see the inside of the church.  We found out later that this was graduation and the procession was heading to their baccalaureate service. 

Lutheran Cathedral

Graduation Parade: Nicole is supportive of America changing to top hats for graduation

After watching the procession we tried some shopping but failed.  Some days are like that.  Back to the ship and an afternoon of social bridge before dinner and a comedian for evening entertainment.   The sun came out in the afternoon and a more colorful and less mournful place emerged.  Although the entertainment overall has been great,  comedians are generally not our favorites.  This comedian was no different. 

Orthodox cathedral (large dome represents Jesus, and the smaller domes represent the apostles)