Thursday, May 28th
Our last port stop was in Helsinki, Finland. I had not done much research for Helsinki, and I was going to pay the price.
Helsinki doesn't have much to offer as far as major tourist attractions. They have a market, and about 4 churches. I decided to visit the church that was farthest away first, Temppeliaukio. (I'll call it the "T" church."
We boarded the bus into Helsinki from our boat. They dropped us off at what seemed like a random location. We stood at a tram stop for 5 minutes trying to figure out which way it was heading, and if we needed to go that direction. We walked 1 block and discovered we were right in the heart of town, where there's good transportation everywhere. Ha!
Instead of taking any of that transportation, we ended up walking. We walked 25 minutes only to discover that the church was closed! It didn't open until 10am and we were there at 8:30. Boo.
We didn't want to waste any time, since we only had between 8am-2pm in Helskini.
We jumped on a tram and headed back to the main square.
We stopped in a cafe to get some free wifi, and a drink first. Then we walked for about 30 minutes around the Esplanade.
We came across the Lutheran Cathedral first. In the summer, these steps are where the sunbathers go to catch a few rays.
Nearby, is the Uspenski Orthodox Cathedral. Nick wasn't interested in seeing inside more than one church, so we kept that for the T church.
Next, we walked through the market to Market Square.
We hopped back on a tram (in the wrong direction), switched trams, and hopped on the right one to get back to the T Church. (That was a 12 Euro mistake. Oy!)
It was free to enter. The ceiling has a 13-mile coiled copper wire!
It was certainly one of the most interesting churches I've ever seen.
On our way back, I spotted this church from a tram. It's called the Kampii Chapel of silence. It's intended to provide a quiet place, in one of the busiest squares in Finland.
I talked Nick into walked inside.
We found it was too quiet! We were trying not to make any noise, but every sound was magnified by the silence.
We were "churched" out by that point, so we caught a bus back to the boat.
We decided to take up a round of golf while the boat wasn't moving. We tried to keep track of score, but lost count. I think I won; Nick think's he won. :)
Each night we were seated with these two gentlemen. They were so fun and entertaining. We gave them big hugs on our last night together.
Friday, May 29th
The last full day of the cruise was spent on the boat. We started off with a sushi class. Nick was going to do the class as well, but it was $25/person. He wasn't that excited about it, so it wasn't worth it to him.
The class was hysterical. There were only 5 of us. There were 2 Chinese women, a loud American man, a Scottish woman, and me. The Chinese women were terrible at making the sushi. The man thought he was an expert at Sushi because he'd made it once before. The Scottish woman and I were laughing through out the whole class.
We got to take the sushi back to our rooms, and eat it for lunch. It was so good!
We wandered around the boat after that. The wind was howling, so it made it difficult to do a lot of outdoor activities. We'd hoped to climb the rock wall, but that didn't happen.
We jumped in the outdoor jacuzzi at one point. We were then joined by about 6 young guys. They seemed like they all knew each other, but they had all just met on the boat. We had a lot of fun talking to all of them. Some of them had just graduated from college, and others were in their 30s. It was a funny age range, but it all worked.
Nick went to bed because he wasn't feeling 100% and I walked around the boat to see what activities were going on. An older woman, Karen, stopped me. She said she had seen me standing in front of a church in Finland. Someone pointed at me and said, "Oh, that's Joey!" And the back of the bus started commenting on my outfit, and how it all matched. I just died laughing!
That night I finally got Nick up on stage! The jugglers performing asked for 5 male volunteers. I immediately threw my hand in the air and pointed at Nick! And they picked him!
They each took a turn sitting in a seat at the front of the stage. Each time the juggler would walk behind them, they would jump up out of the chair like it had shocked them. Nick jumped up and pretended like he was going to walk off the stage. The last gentleman acted like it didn't hurt him at all. They let everyone else sit down, and then proceeded with a juggling routine with the man in the middle. They gave him a long cigarette, a hat, and glasses. They were able to knock all the items off his head without touching him! It was very impressive!
They had one small show in the centrum, before the night was over. It only lasted about 10 minutes, but it was impressive. They had arial dancers swinging through the air.
Later that night, we went to karaoke. We'd heard that it was pretty entertaining from the group we met in the hot tub. I finally met just about every young person onboard while we were listening to the singers. I was so sad that we hadn't gone to karaoke before that night! And that we hadn't met them sooner. There were so many good people onboard!
Saturday, May 30th
We had to disembark around 7:30am. I was SO sad. I kept pouting all the way to the bus stop, and then into the city. It was fridgid that morning and slightly rainy.
We stopped in the main square for some coffee to warm up, while we waited for our free walking tour of Copenhagen.
This is how excited Nick was for the tour. :)
I was still pretty pumped for the walking tour. Haha!
Our guide met us at 11am in front of the City Hall. He was very informative, but he kept foaming at the mouth. I couldn't watch him talk it was grossing me out.
Notice the clouds. It poured on us the first 5 minutes of the tour...
And then we had beautiful, clear skies!
We walked all over the city.
At the half-way point, we took a bathroom break and grabbed a hot dog. We decided we'd heard enough history for one day. We were pretty pooped. We'd hoped to do the walking tour and then the zoo; but we were okay with calling it quits.
This hot dog was delicious, but not as good as the Hairy Pig in Sweden.
We made our way to the airport so we could enjoy our Lounge Passes from Amex. We slept, and enjoyed some wifi for a few hours before our flight.
We had the most amazing cruise experience ever! We met so many amazing people, saw some amazing cities we might not have ever seen before, and had such a relaxing time.
I can't wait for our next one!
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