Today we woke up to a very cold morning - 9 C (46 F)!!! To our surprise the ship ended up docking in a completely different part of the port than we anticipated (at least what was listed in port reviews) so all the maps, bus schedules and info I had was all out the window before we even started the day. But we are adventurers and we sorted it all out.
We at first thought we might try to walk into town but we finally found a bus stop outside the port and with it being so cold we sorted out how to get a ride into town. The fun part was trying to talk with the bus driver to sort out our bus fare. After a minute or so I figured out that we only needed to pay for one person (2.50 Euro) as the other one of us who had the pushchair was free to ride all public transport....sweet!
Since everything seemed a bit off kilter we decided to find the closest Tourist Office to sort out how to do the things we wanted to do while in Helsinki. We had run out of Euro so we needed to get some cash. It was totally cool but weird that to gain access into the bank to use the ATM we had to swipe our ATM card in a reader outside the building as the door was locked.
Next Addison decided she needed to use the toilet and of course the city hall who has free toilets was closed for yet another hour. The TI office sent us down a half block or so to a public pay toilet that we didn't have any change yet to pay for. Luckily it was unlocked, so I had Kevin hold the door open while I held Addie up to go and we found a way to get the water to run so we could wash our hands. The kids were a bit wound up as they were up at 5:30 AM today and not being in the best of moods with us.
Next we walked up a block to Senate Square which is dominated by the amazing Lutheran Cathedral.
In the square as well was the International display of Tolerance Bears. They were all painted in themes of all the different countries taking part. The bears make their way all around the world and are quite a site.
Next we headed on a ferry over to the Suomenlinna Island which is Europe's largest sea fortresses.
Not being super touristy, the island still had it's quaint charm about it and had it's unique features like this massive anchor on display.
You could tell by the remains of the barracks and buildings and the massive stone structures that still exist that this place was pretty sophisticated for the 17th century when the island was in it's glory days.
The terrain was pretty hilly so navigating the pushchair was a bit difficult at times, but it cool seeing all the hidden bunkers right on the water's edge.
We love "shoots" (canons to all of you outside the Dea children's lingo)!!! Still in pretty good condition these large canons we stationed all along the waters edge.
We loved the view back at the city as well!!!
As we made our way back to catch our ferry we let the kids have a little play time. We felt kind of bad because the other little kids were all decked out in winter gear with hats, gloves, boots and winter trousers and our poor kids had spring jackets and hoods to keep them warm...didn't expect winter conditions though in August, but I did not take in affect far north were we exactly getting, did I? To make matters a little worse, poor Harrison smacked his head straight into the door jam as I was letting him out of the baby changing room. Poor kid was scream-ing at the top of his lungs and to top it off he got a horribly big bump on his cheek.
We made it back by lunch time to explore this massive market right on the water's edge. Yes, we were in Finland home of the reindeer and Santa (way up in Lapland that is), so you can get your antlers, fur hats and posh carrying bags all at one place!
At this stand we did find Harrison's souvenier knife that encompasses his whole trip to the Baltics as it is a hard type of souvenier to find in every country. We picked out a really nice one that was made of reindeer antler and also has a flint stone attached to it so that you can spark up a fire. (Now for all you animal lovers - don't worry - the antlers come from the ones that have already fallen off the deer).
We had brought along sandwiches and nibbles for the kids but Kevin and I wanted to try some of the lovely food we saw being cooked up in the market. We stopped at this place.
They had lots of yummy food to pick from...
We sat next door at these lovely tables...trying to avoid the black birds who loved to share lunches with the people who sat at the tables.
And this is what we ate - grilled butterflied salmon with potatoes and veggies with a large side of breaded calamari with a can of Coke - only cost 19 Euro!!! Whoa doggies...expensive for a bit of lunch that could have really fed one of us, but oh so yummy!!!
One of our final destinations was the Temppeliaukio Kirkko (Rock Church). We navigated our way on the Trams the best we could but were uncertain to which stop to get off on...like a true man Kevin made me ask someone directions. There were two girls chatting away in Finnish on the tram and like a super-tourist I asked if they spoke English and they replied "Yes" in clearer English than most Americans.
Now apparently on Saturdays the church hosts several wedding each day. So a sign posted outside said that the church was only open for 15 minutes between each wedding that seemed to be scheduled every hour on the top of the hour. So we had to wait 30 minutes for the current wedding to finish up. So while the kids napped, Kevin and I explored around the church and climbed up on top.
Well, no wedding goes right on schedule and people slowly filtered out as the wedding party finally made their way out to a crowd of hundreds of tourists trying to get in to see the church.
And while we waited we ended up striking up an odd conversation with some Texans who were on our cruise with us. They had obviously recognized us with the kids since we did stick out a lot...the one guy kept threatening to make his wife leave since he didn't want to wait 30 minutes, but I stuck up for her and said "you may only get this chance once and I heard it was pretty cool." He perked up then and didn't mind waiting...I felt like Superwoman helping out my fellow female travellers!
Finally I made my way in with about 200+ other people trying to steal a glimpse of this amazing church built into natural granite rock that exists right in the middle of the city. We weren't allowed past the glass as another wedding was to start in about 15 minutes. All the shoving and pushing people did really put a downer on my whole experience and I lost the ahh factor, but it was still well worth the wait to see it.
But for another amazing site, Santa's Minimarket was just across the street from the church!
As we made our way back to Senate Square we happened to make it into the Lutheran Cathedral about 15 minutes before it closed...those darn Saturday schedules really threw me for a loop from my plans.
The inside of the church was elegant, but smaller than what the outside lets it on to be. We thought it was kind of funny but at the end of the pews there are little doors with latches on them, guess they really want to make sure you stay in church when you get there.
Outside one of the tourist shops on the square was a stuffed reindeer and kids were just fascinated by it and said that it looked like the ones that Grandpa Jeff has on his wall in America.
We rushed down to the market again quickly as we finally made up our mind on which things we wanted to get - a doll for Addison, the knife for Harry and a Christmas ornament for our family. Then again, Addison had to use the toilet during the not best time as we needed to catch the last bus back to our boat or we weren't going to be on it. We rushed to a different pay toilet that we could figure out how to pay for but again the door was unlocked so Kevin held open the door. This time there wasn't any toilet paper as it was a men's toilet and Harry had to walk in the wipes for me to clean things up...what craziness!
We made it to the bus stop just as a bus pulled off so we got nervous, but then after 10 minutes or so we saw a few more people we recognized from our boat so we figured we were okay. We ended up making it back to the ship with 20 minutes to spare. We obviously had to check our knife in at security, but instead of returning it to the bag we had it in the guy taped the paper directly to the nice leather case of the knife which ended up scuffing it up when they pulled the tape back off...it's the little things that count you know.
During our dinner we came to the realization that our plans to take the trains into Stockholm the next morning were not going to work very well. You see the ship doesn't actually dock right in the port in Stockholm, we have to tender at Nynäshamn which is a good hour drive south of Stockholm. Plus if you didn't have a booked tour you were last to get of the boat and when tendering it's a total hassle. NCL wasn't the most accommodating or helpful in finding alternatives, so we hooked up with a couple of other people we had met and all decided that we should probably book the "on your own" bus to make sure we get see Stockholm.
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