Helsinki, Finland
Wednesday, June 30: Helsinki, Finland.
Nevermind that the word "Finland" means "swamp land." Nevermind that it rained the entire day we were there. We really did enjoy our visit to Helsinki. Thanks to Dr. Christina von Mayrhauser, Professor of Applied Sociocultural, Psychological and MedicalAnthropology at California State University at Northridge, better known as CSUN.
Dr. von Mayrhauser -- or Christina, as we'll call her -- is married to Adam Fratto, one of my colleagues at the office. One day when I mentioned to Adam that we would be visiting Helsinki during our cruise, Adam told me Christina would also be there doing a summer study course in Anthropology at the University of Helsinki. So he hooked us up.
When we arrived in Helsinki, Mom, Dad, Deb and I were the first ones off the ship. Christina was there waiting for us, ready to give us the grand tour. We left the dock via taxi and headed toward the center of town. We stopped for breakfast and enjoyed visiting with Christina for a while. After breakfast she took us on a walking tour in the downtown area. We visited a book store and a department store. We also visited a grocery store, which is one of my favorite things to do when traveling overseas. Later we took a trolley train over to the Uspenski Orthodox Cathedral. The weather was rainy and cold -- and windy!
After visiting the Cathedral, we took another trolley train on a tour around the city. We looped through the various sections of town and ended up in the downtown area again just in time for lunch. We found a nice place to get in from the weather -- and took time to prepare postcards for friends and family back home, a daily ritual in every port of call.
The weather seemed to get worse after lunch, but we walked down to the Lutheran Cathedral and took a few more pictures. We walked through an indoor market at the waterfront and later visited an outdoor market where we bought some fresh cherries and strawberries. Christina took a picture of us under our umbrellas next to the big fountain near the waterfront, but regrettably we didn't think to take any photos with Christina! (Fortunately, the Westerdam photographers got a nice group photo of the five of us before we left the dock that morning!)
The cold and rain put a damper on any more sightseeing in Helsinki, so we said our "thank yous" and "farewells" to Christina and headed off via taxi back to the Westerdam. Back onboard ship, Deb and I spent he rest of the afternoon in the Thermal Spa!
Later that night we experienced some rough seas and gale force winds. It was a pretty nasty storm. A man in a wheelchair and his wife got stuck outside on the Promenade Deck because the air pressure was creating such force they couldn't get the doors open to come back inside. I went to help them but could barely push the door open myself. The man stood up and got blown into the door I was trying to hold open. We finally got them inside and they were fine. A little scared, but no worse for wear. The Westerdam is so huge we really didn't feel the wind or waves from inside the ship, but we did start to list rather sharply for a period of time before the Captain announced he was changing course to right the ship. The rest of the voyage was pretty much smooth sailing.
No comments:
Post a Comment