Day 10

Helsinki

A lot of people visit grave yards or battle fields or buildings that have some history or family significance and find themselves strangely moved by place. Well here we are in the land of my ancestors, Finland, and it really is amazing…this connection with my roots. It is an absolute joy to be in the snow and cold – I feel I belong in it; The Finns like to be quiet – now I know why I don’t like the small-talk thing; none of the Pellas clan I’ve met are morning people – hELLoOOo!

The only gene I seemed to have missed altogether is the culinary gene oh well I can work on making up for skipping that one.

So here’s the view from the window this morning…

After brekkie (which I;m not a fan of but everyone else seems to really enjoy) we took a bus into the city and then a tram around the city.

The main street looking left and                      

         and right  

 

kids will play anywhere. Here they are 
making a game out of the snow-ploughed
  snow. There was a lot of snow on the
  streets. It was –15 when we set out in the
  morning.

 

We wandered down to the frozen harbour. This shot is looking up at the distinctive red Catholic Cathedral which, unfortunately was closed.

Below is the harbour market

                  

Where we had a little Finnish snack…

salty, lightly crumbed, slightly sardine-ish fish called Muikku.

not exactly yummy but well worth the experience. It’s always good to add a new flavour to one’s repertoire.

The Lutheran Cathedral, below, was not only open but there was a choir in rehearsal, glorious. Doesn’t it look wonderful in its all-white-ness with the snow all around? That’s MGM standing out in his bright red, borrowed jacket . We are lovely and warm thanks to a loan from Pernilla and Christian.

            

Allans Abroad rule #1. always look up…

Helsinki university library                                       Train station

            

We covered a lot of ground looking for a Russian restaurant for a late lunch. I was so skippy-happy just being in the snow, didn’t really matter what we saw or where we ate but, as so often happens when you’re relaxed, we ended up having the most wonderful Finnish meal ‘cause we couldn’t find the Russian restaurant to eat bear meat. Mine was the local whitefish y-u-m! Monica and Evan had salmon soup, another traditionally Finnish dish – there’s just not enough room for all the good things!

With batteries re-charged we went in search of The Temppeliaukio Kirkko – The Church in the Rock, the most visited tourist sight in Helsinki (according to our guides) and such a stark difference to the other Lutheran church we visited today. What wonderful symbolism to build a church by blasting it out of the rock. Inside the rock has a physical and metaphorical presence. There’s usually signs asking for silence when you’re gawking at a church and this church was no exception but the musician in MGM jus wanted to clap a couple of times to check out the acoustics (he didn’t he’s way too respectful to do that).

It was dark outside and the dome was covered in snow anyway but I don’t really like taking pictures with a flash in a church – it seems so crass, so here’s someone else’s pictures so you can see what we saw…

       

remember rule #1?

looking up you see the most amazing coiled copper wire.

        

Weary but happy we journeyed home to warm up with delicious coffee and pigs, a favourite cake from Monica’s childhood that she picked up from the Harbour market this morning. Kind of like a sugar twist but not so donut-y.

Time for bed…love you my cherubs.