Helsinki Finland

 Today we visited Helsinki Finland

Things that I noticed today:

Ludafisk - Fried whole fish you eat bones, tail and all. The street vendor at least cut the heads off. I tried it. It wasn't as bad as I thought but most likely not something I would eat on my own. 

The boat docked at 7:15 in the morning but things didn't open until 9:00 or 10:00. The dock times at some ports have seemed early and short in my mind. 

We visited 3 churches:

The Russian orthodox church was very ornate with a lot of gold and candles. The shapes are boxy and tall and the people in the paintings often look like typical medieval people. 

The other two churches were Lutheran. One church was simple and clean with a really nice organ. The other was the rock church that was literally built into a rock and is called Temppeliaukio Church. It was very unique and peaceful. You can also hike to the top of the hill that the church is built in and get a view of the city. 

Lutheran churches are much more simple with clean lines and do not have all the statues and paintings that we have seen in other churches. 

We went on a boat tour while the Shahs went to go visit their daughter who is serving a mission. We went to the grocery store before they left and got some candy. It's fun to check out the different food options in the grocery stores in different ports. The boat tour was hard to hear so we were basically traveling along the coastline without knowing what we were seeing. It was a beautiful view and reminded me of Big Bear. They mentioned an area where people could stay in luxury of yesteryear which ended up being houses with no electricity or running water. Doesn't sound like luxury to me, ha ha. We ate at the farmers market and other than the churches and boat tour that's all we had time for today. 

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