Finland Fun

After our first stop in London, Matt and I got to travel and do things together, which was nice.  We went to Helsinki, Finland on July 4th.  "Why Finland?" so many people have asked.  Matt had an exchange student, Anna (Ah-nna), live with his family during high school.  Matt and his family came to Finland years ago to visit Anna and her family.  I first met her when we studied abroad in Copenhagen in 2006, and ever since then we've kept in touch and become great friends.  Anna came to NC in 2010 and that's the last time we'd seen her.  So, it was our turn to see her at her home.  Hence, Finland. 

She and her partner, Rasmus, had a little girl, Ada (pronounced Ah-da) who is 2 now.  We were really excited to meet her.  She's already ahead of us in that she knows 2 languages - Finnish and Swedish.  We tried to learn a few words to be able to talk to her, but couldn't really communicate with her much.  But, she was very sweet and precocious.



Mostly, this stop was about visiting and catching up with Anna and family.  We enjoyed seeing the city of Helsinki, which is nice.  There is a lot of water, lots of alpine trees, and evidence of the history between Finland and Sweden and Russia.  We ate reindeer and lingonberries, a traditional dish, as well as fish, which is a staple of Finnish diet.

The pictures below are from a church that is built out of rock with a cool copper wire ceiling.  It's a popular tourist site.  It kinda looks like a UFO landed on top of the church or something.

The second day, we took a boat tour of the harbor and saw more of the landscape.  It was pretty and a little chilly.  The temperatures were in the 50s, which was nice after the heat in London.  Since Helsinki is so close to the Arctic Circle, the daylight lasts for about 20 hours.  It never got very dark, more like dusk, and there was bright sunshine at 4 am.  It made sleep a little tricky.

We also joined in with the sauna culture which is huge in Finland.  There are something like 2 million people in Helsinki and 3 million saunas.  They are serious about saunas.  Most homes and apartments have their own or there's a community sauna in other apartment complexes, etc.  The custom is to go in sans clothing and have a beer to drink while you're sitting there.  Usually sexes separate, I think, at least that's what we did.  The idea behind sauna is that while your skin is opening up, your thoughts and soul can open up too and share a deep kind of moment with the people you go in with.  Matt and I  both experienced this and it was lovely.  Who knows, maybe we'll install a sauna in our next house : )

On our last day, we went to a small village about an hour away called Porvoo, which is an old community with quaint houses and a very old church.  We sampled some good chocolate and did some window shopping.

I enjoyed seeing a new, different country...one that a lot of people don't go to.  It was great reconnecting with Anna and meeting the rest of her family.  We wish we didn't live quite so far apart!  Anna is expecting another little girl, so I suppose we'll have to go back another time to meet the newest family member.

Hej hej, Helsinki! (Goodbye, Helsinki!)

London adventures

Righto, well, there is so much to report about our fabulous European adventure.  Our travels began in merry old England - London to be precise.  I flew in by myself because Matt had already been there for a week and a half for work.  This all worked out swimmingly, as he was flown over in business class on the company's dime (how nice for Matt!).  He mostly worked while he was there, but he did find time to do some fun things too: he went to the Tower of London, stood at the Prime Meridian, went to a Fleetwood Mac concert (I was so jealous!), and even played golf with a coworker.

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I took the red-eye and arrived early on July 2nd after sleeping about 0.5 hours (I did not get to ride in business class and I don't sleep well on planes, even with sleeping pills and little sleep the night before leaving.).  When I got to London, after sleeping for about an hour, I ventured out into the city to do my own exploring.  I started at St. Paul's cathedral.  

I toured the cathedral and climbed the hundreds of stairs up to the top of the dome to get a 360-degree view of the city.  While I was there, there was a "heat-wave" going on - weather in the 90s and it was sunny, quite rare for England, but quite typical summer weather for me.  It was beautiful.

The rest of the afternoon, I was walking around and seeing what I could see - Trafalgar Square, Twinings Tea Shop, 221B Baker Street, Covent Garden area, Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus, St. James Park.  This was the day I walked something like 12 miles.  Needless to say, I was exhausted by the end of that day.

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The next day, I got up and headed out again to do more tourist-ing.  I started at the Tower of London.  I enjoyed seeing and learning about the formidable and historic grounds for imprisonment over the years.  One of the most interesting, and funny, parts was the exhibit on the royal menagerie.  They kept a polar bear on a leash so it could swim in the Thames; they had a room of free-roaming monkeys (until one of them killed a little boy...no one guessed that this might have happened?!?); they had an elephant and several lions and lots more that seems completely unsafe in downtown London.  Londoners would come to see the animals on their weekends - and get this - would bring cats and dogs to feed the animals.  Oh my.  John Wesley even came as a visitor at one point and played music to the lions.  

 (Sir Walter Raleigh's quarters while he was a guest.  His wife and family came to live with him here while he was in prison...that's dedication, I suppose.)

As you can see, it was another beautiful day, so I continued on to other parts of the city after this: across the Tower Bridge to Borough Market (awesome!) for lunch.  I got a steak and cheese pie and some cherries and sat on the Thames to eat and enjoy.  

Then, I went to the Churchill War Rooms museum.  I cannot say enough good things about this museum - it was wonderful!  We got to go see all the bunker rooms under the city where Churchill and staff directed the war from.  Everything was left pretty much the way it was when the war was over. They did a masterful job in showing the operations of everything.  Plus, there was a large portion devoted to the life of Winston Churchill, whom I did not know very much about.  What a fascinating man!  I loved this museum.  If you're going to London, you should check it out!

After the war rooms, I had to check off some other musts-when-in-London: Big Ben, Westminster (didn't go in this time), and, of course, Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station!

I rounded out the day with fish and chips and a pint.  Yum!

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For 1.5 days, I packed a lot in.  I love London.  It feels like the older brother to New York City.  The people are classy, fashionable, a little more reserved, and very culturally savvy people.  There are always more things to see and do and I hope to go back again and again!