Wow! I honestly can't believe it really happened...actually sometimes I question if it really did. It is strange finally going somewhere you have dreamed about going your entire life. It is definitely surreal when you're there, and just as surreal when you get home.
So...here it is...my trip to Finland...I'll start with Helsinki:
Everything went pretty smoothly on our first LONG day of travel...well, all except picking up the rental car...and the not sleeping.
We all got to sit in one row on the way to Amsterdam...of course my TV wasn't working for the longest leg of the flight!! I managed to get a small selection of movies to work luckily, and the rest of the flight went smoothly, just hard to sleep as always on a plane. We had a quick layover in Amsterdam and then on to Helsinki.
We arrived in Helsinki at at around 1pm. Walking through the airport we saw "slippers" (Karjalanpiirakka) which was super neat since my Dad had taught us how to make these when we were kids (they were not nearly as yummy as the homemade ones we have had)
It was also fun to see the rye bread selection at every grocery store.
Definitely not something you see in America.
After the rental car debacle (first, we thought the rental car company was actually at the airport, but it was an offsite location so we had to take an Uber--with four adults and all our suitcases it was a tight fit! Then once we got to the car rental (which was super hard to find), they tried to upsell us like crazy, then Mike's credit card had been cancelled because of fraudulent charges and they wouldn't allow us to switch cards. We probably stood there for literally at least 2 hours trying to figure it all out. Then we finally got our car and it was too small to fit all our stuff--haha. So we had to upgrade to the bigger vehicle--oops. What an ordeal),we drove straight to the Helsinki temple.
It was raining SO HARD. But it was serene and beautiful and the gardens were all bright reds and yellows (snapdragons, begonias and sunflowers)
After Daddy Greens pizza (which was so yummy) we checked into our Airbnb (which was super hard to find again--oh and trying to read and understand street signs in a different language was tricky! there was a lot of googling and hoping we didn't get a ticket) and got some much needed rest. There was construction right outside our window that started at 7am every morning, so there was no sleeping in for us...not that we really wanted to sleep in since we were excited to explore.
(Our Airbnb was a little more sketch on the outside than anticipated...but super cute on the inside. And we quickly learned that the elevator was called a Hissi:)
Tina and I braving the Hissi
We stared the next day at Suomenlinna (the sea fortress)
Then onto Market Square. Everything in Helsinki was less "city" like than I was expecting. Very few crowds and lots of understated buildings (except a few impressive churches). I was just surprised by it's "small-town" feel.
It was fun to try some of the famous Finnish foods...although not the dried fish that was everywhere (Mike sampled that -yuck). We had some reindeer and reindeer sausage, meatballs, and of course the salmon soup (which was a little too fishy for me, but the reindeer sausage was delicious)!
It was fun to see the souvenir shops stocked with all the sauna staples.
One of the things we noticed being in Finland was that the language was really interesting. Just about everyone spoke English, which was a lifesaver for us! But we couldn't help but wonder how so many Finnish words were SO LONG! Here's one example I just had to take a picture of (and listening to the GPS voice pronounce some of the street names was hilarious):
Tuomiokirkko or the Helsinki Cathedral was impossible to miss. As we walked into the square where it was located, I smelled something that took me back to my Grandma and Grandpa Kurkis house. I wasn't sure what it was, but there were some pop-up bakeries/coffee shops near by, so I am sure it was something they were baking (but it wasn't cardamom, because I know that smell)
Uspenski Cathedral (Eastern Orthodox) was another impressive church in Helsinki. It was up on a hill and really stood out as different from all surrounding architecture.
Since we really only had one full day in Helsinki, we had squeeze in a lot:
The Oodi Library
The Rock Church
The Fazer Cafe
And the Jewish Cemetery
We found the graves for Ben-Zion, Salomon, Rasche & Fischel
The train station
After we were done in Helsinki, we headed north to Vaasa.
We stopped at Pori on the way for a quick sauna on a house boat!
(We were planning on going to the famous Loyly Sauna located right on the Baltic Sea in Helsinki, but didn't realize you had to make reservations. So when we showed up, they were full. I was really disappointed because that was one of the things I was most excited about doing. After a bunch of research, we found this cute little floating sauna and thought it was worth checking out. When we showed up, there was just a code to get in and that's it. We started a fire and we had our very own sauna:) Ted was the only one brave enough to jump in the river.)
After our sauna we finally tried Hesburger (they are everywhere in Finland). We were not big fans...all their burgers had a type of tarter sauce instead of mayonnaise, which was interesting.
Look at those Finnish names of the hamburgers!!
And...on to Vaasa...the real reason for the trip.
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