Helsinki, Finland
This is a really boring page about Helsinki. Try not to fall asleep.
The day itself was actually really marvelous, just not much to write home about. Veronica spent last winter studying film making in Spain and one of her friends, Veikko, lives just outside of Helsinki. He met us and we walked together to town. Quite a walk from the ship, but good company.
We saw Finnish buildings:
Nothing really of note.
We stopped at a used book store where Veronica immediately found a book by a Uruguayan author (she is, of course also de Uruguay) on the .50 Euro table.
Veikko works in this humongous department store where he took me so I could I buy a bunch of Finland souvenirs that made me quite happy. The store is Stockmann's and I include this photo for my daughter who just graduated with her liberrian degree. (Sort of like a Liberian, only with more books.)
I find the similarities in language amusing.
Veikko finds it annoying that all the signs have to also be written in Swedish, as Sweden is nearby. A lot like the annoyance for a lot of people with signs now in Spanish. Nationalistic things we never think about.
A beautifully warm sunny day found piles of people basking in the sun in the park, much as you find in Seattle when the sun makes an appearance. I bought an ice cream cone with the warning to watch out for assassin gulls, waiting to attack unsuspecting ice cream eaters. They literally dive for the cone so the person will drop it for them.
The park also has an installation of sculptures by a Spanish artist Veronica has seen in Valencia. Very dramatic, they marched down the escalade.
More buildings, always more buildings . . .
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That night on the ship I had my first view of the midnight sun. It actually set around 11:30, but close enough.
The sunset went on forever, too. At home this scene would last moments. Here, it took about half an hour for the sliver to slide below the horizon.
The shot of me on the index page is one from this evening as well.