Day 10, Friday Aug 4th, Helsinki Finland
Posted by Max Dunn Sat, 05 Aug 2006 10:12:00 GMT
(Suzanne) We woke up this morning with the port of Helsinki outside our window. It’s a beautiful day so far, a lot different than what we had left back in St Petersburg. Since we had a successful day with the kids in St Petersburg, we thought we try again. Besides, not very many people go to Finland and the only time we really hear about them is during the Winter Olympics. I was actually excited to see it because I studied a lot of buildings built there in an architectural history class and it was the home of Alvar Aalto (Finland’s version of Frank Lloyd Wright).
After dragging the kids out of bed (once again), we took another Hop On Hop Off sightseeing tour bus just like the one in Estonia. This time I was determined to get to more than one stop! We visited Senate Square and it’s cathedral (the tallest building in Helsinki), Temppeliaukio Church which was blasted out of solid rock, Sibelius monument which looks like a giant pipe organ, Olympic Stadium, Lasipalatsi which is Helsinki’s city center with a lot of shopping (and an Internet cafe), the flea market and Market Square where you can buy fresh produce. The best thing about this tour is that we made it to all of the stops and the kids enjoyed it (I think)! Actually, what I really liked was the Temppeliaukio Church. It was very impressive just by the way it was built. It’s more unusual than beautiful, but beautiful in it’s own right. This church (and the church on the hill in Sedona, Arizona) would have to be one of my favorites of all time but in a different category than, let’s say, the old churches that you see in Europe.
Compared to the other countries we have visited so far, Helsinki is pretty modern. It has a lot of beautiful buildings, nicely mixing the old with the new. There are no skyscrapers. The streets and sidewalks are nice and wide. Mostly everybody can speak English. It’s also pretty homogeneous—blonds everywhere. If I can remember correctly, approximately 90% of the people here are ethnic Finns, 6% are Swedish and the rest come from elsewhere (mostly neighboring countries). It is my favorite stop so far…
Dinner tonight was good, but not my favorite. Because Max and I are eating wheat-free, it limits us to what we can have on the menu. I chose the pork tenderloin which was very moist and tender but had it plain (the sauce had flour in it). Speaking of food, I did have a little of Max’s grilled seafood skewer that he had for an afternoon snack an it was SO good!