Helsinki rush

Monday, July 22, 2013
Helsinki, Southern Finland, Finland
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Well, we were woken up by room service today and when I checked the watch, it said 1:30. How could it be 1:30, when we went to bed closer to 2? Turns out, it was 1:30 PM! And we have slept, somehow, through breakfast, checkout time at noon and also most of the day… When we realized the situation, we rushed to pack, shower, get dressed and check out, so around 2 pm we hit the road again and hurriedly continued city exploration. We took the very convenient tram #3, which loops around most interesting areas of Helsinki. We saw the train station again, Finnish National Theatre, Olympic complex, opera house, amusement park, working class neighbourhoods, various buildings and people. We hopped off in the middle of the tram tour and visited the most interesting church I've ever seen – Church in the Rock, built in a hole blasted in solid granite and covered with a huge flat dome made out of copper wire. After the church we grabbed some tea and pastry in a nearby store (which was our first meal in over 24 hours) .

After the tram took us back to the train station in the middle of the city, we had to run quickly back to the hotel, pick up our luggage and run to the ferry terminal, which, luckily, was located within 5-minute walk from the hotel. We got our boarding passes and boarded the floating 10-storied mall/hotel, found our little cabin on the bottom deck, located under the car parking and next to the engine room. Then we found our way to the top deck and observed the first half an hour of the journey, which passed by the picturesque view of Helsinki’s harbourfront market, government buildings and towering white Lutheran cathedral. We also passed by the old sea fortress, Suomenlinna.

When the ferry headed out to the open sea and left the land behind, we went back to our cabin, changed into indoors clothing and went to the sauna, which is a mandatory activity when visiting Finland. The ferry had 2 dry saunas (male and female), showers, changing rooms, 2 Jacuzzis, 1 small pool for children, 1 steam sauna (so steamy that it was nearly impossible to see the opposite wall) and a tiny 1-person pool filled with cold water, which was great after a steam sauna . After sauna, clean and light-headed, we finally went to the grand finale, the dinner buffet, famous Scandinavian smörgåsbord. The dining hall was a huge room in the aft of the ship, spanning from side to side, with huge windows all around. The food was plentiful and pretty OK, but not spectacular. We spent 2 hours in the buffet, eating a little bit of every dish, from fish and beef to strawberries and profiteroles. After the dinner we walked around the ship a bit, exploring various decks, one featuring casino and nightclub, another – duty-free shop. We went back to the cabin and tried to go to sleep around 11 pm, but it’s already 4 am and we couldn’t sleep at all (maybe because of jet lag, maybe because we slept until 1:30 pm, or maybe because of the ship creaking, grunting and squeaking all around us).


P.S.: I'd like to comment on the amount of blonds in Scandinavia. It was expected, of course, but those are not just any blonds, they have hair of golden yarn, shining like amber waves of grain, like radiant hair of rosy-cheeked Scandinavian gods or proud vikings... just saying :)
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Comments

Irina
2013-07-23

Let me guess who was in the casino- Julia? And Dima was in a duty free place?

pyres
2013-07-24

No, neither of us was interested in those things. I just described what the ship had, not what we did.

2025-02-15

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