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FINLAND: Helsinki day 4
After we both got up rather late -- apparently yesterday tired us out more than we had imagined -- we decided that today would be the day of cheap eats and lots of wandering. Our first order of business: Finnish McDonald's! Since yesterday's dinner was so expensive, we unanimously agreed that this was pretty much all we could afford. Neither of us know how to ask for "no pickles and onions, please!" so we had to scrape off the lettuce (or pickles and onions, depending on the sandwich). It was delicious! Much better than American McDonalds, if I do say so. Though we weren't quite up for trying the Finnish "El Maco Jr." or "Jalapeño Burger," and sadly the Finnish McFlurry is made with Toblerone. Which, while delicious, would also kill me a la nut allergy. So we stuck with what we knew best.
After lunch, we wandered away from the shopping area of Helsinki, towards the Finnish National Cathedral. It's an impressive structure that we first thought was some kind of government building -- our American architecture sensibilities betrayed us! Just because it's white marble does not a government building make. We couldn't get inside today, but we peered in through the windows, and it was truly beautiful. My only regret is not being able to get pictures. After we snooped around the cathedral for awhile (and climbed up a HUGE amount of steps to get there), we wandered away from where we had ever gone before, into the more residential and business areas of Helsinki. We got pictures of the Helsinki National Archives (which I had to read Latin to decipher, thank you Mrs. Tate) as well as the beautiful Lithuanian Embassy. We wandered down some roads littered with beautiful apartment buildings that looked more like works of art than anything people should be living in. Finally, we arrived at the bay again; we wandered around it until we found ourselves back at the Suomenlinna ferry stop -- somewhere that we actually knew! Then we made a quick detour to do some shopping; Zae bought her dad a cute shot glass, while I made my token item Big Purchase and bought a hand-made hat. There were some very pretty fur-lined ones, but in the interest of not getting scolded on my return to Oberlin, I settled with a hand-made fleece hat. Besides, fur gets itchy, and all of the hats looked like something I'd wear on a Finnish hunting trip.
We watched a Rubik's Cube installation light show after that, and it's very pretty -- a youtube video of it can be found here but I'm not sure if it's got sound or not, my computer is acting funny. It is really awesome! The light show is fun to enjoy, even if we were wondering why in the world there's a giant Rubik's Cube in the middle of the square....
Tonight, we decided to eat good ol' Tex Mex, which is really kind of horrible when you come from South Carolina and have been spoiled by Anita's for your entire life. Needless to say, it wasn't exactly what we were expecting; I had to get a meal that didn't have meat in it (because the meat was marinated in some sort of nut sauce) and Zae's burrito was more bean than beef, which was odd. It was pretty good, but I think I'll wait to have real Mexican food when I get home. Well, realish. Now we're just taking baths and sitting back; we're going to try to get to bed early today, so that we can have breakfast before our big excursion tomorrow. We're a little too scared to try using the trams -- we can't make sense of the map, and it has no street names on it -- so we're going to walk to Temppeliaukion kirkko, or the Rock Church. If we have time, we'll try and find the Sibelius monument, but the walk might take a little while...if we don't get lost!
Pictures forthcoming in another post. I don't want to kill anyone's slow web browser by overloading it in this one.
After lunch, we wandered away from the shopping area of Helsinki, towards the Finnish National Cathedral. It's an impressive structure that we first thought was some kind of government building -- our American architecture sensibilities betrayed us! Just because it's white marble does not a government building make. We couldn't get inside today, but we peered in through the windows, and it was truly beautiful. My only regret is not being able to get pictures. After we snooped around the cathedral for awhile (and climbed up a HUGE amount of steps to get there), we wandered away from where we had ever gone before, into the more residential and business areas of Helsinki. We got pictures of the Helsinki National Archives (which I had to read Latin to decipher, thank you Mrs. Tate) as well as the beautiful Lithuanian Embassy. We wandered down some roads littered with beautiful apartment buildings that looked more like works of art than anything people should be living in. Finally, we arrived at the bay again; we wandered around it until we found ourselves back at the Suomenlinna ferry stop -- somewhere that we actually knew! Then we made a quick detour to do some shopping; Zae bought her dad a cute shot glass, while I made my token item Big Purchase and bought a hand-made hat. There were some very pretty fur-lined ones, but in the interest of not getting scolded on my return to Oberlin, I settled with a hand-made fleece hat. Besides, fur gets itchy, and all of the hats looked like something I'd wear on a Finnish hunting trip.
We watched a Rubik's Cube installation light show after that, and it's very pretty -- a youtube video of it can be found here but I'm not sure if it's got sound or not, my computer is acting funny. It is really awesome! The light show is fun to enjoy, even if we were wondering why in the world there's a giant Rubik's Cube in the middle of the square....
Tonight, we decided to eat good ol' Tex Mex, which is really kind of horrible when you come from South Carolina and have been spoiled by Anita's for your entire life. Needless to say, it wasn't exactly what we were expecting; I had to get a meal that didn't have meat in it (because the meat was marinated in some sort of nut sauce) and Zae's burrito was more bean than beef, which was odd. It was pretty good, but I think I'll wait to have real Mexican food when I get home. Well, realish. Now we're just taking baths and sitting back; we're going to try to get to bed early today, so that we can have breakfast before our big excursion tomorrow. We're a little too scared to try using the trams -- we can't make sense of the map, and it has no street names on it -- so we're going to walk to Temppeliaukion kirkko, or the Rock Church. If we have time, we'll try and find the Sibelius monument, but the walk might take a little while...if we don't get lost!
Pictures forthcoming in another post. I don't want to kill anyone's slow web browser by overloading it in this one.