Hehehe. Sorry.

Well, it is, for the most part. I might run out for a snack, but my camera battery is charging and since I don’t really go anywhere without it, I’m at least a few hours before venturing out again. It is still raining and the temperature has dropped a bit since this morning, and I did manage to get a ton of stuff done today, so the incentive to head out again right now is a bit low.

So, the round up. I was up mega early and I probably could have started my day a bit later, but that’s okay. Tomorrow. I managed to get to the site of the Helsinki Olympics (1952), went up to the top of the Olympic Tower, visited the Finnish Museum of Sport, and took some city photos from the top of the tower. Incredibly high winds, slashing rain, completely open top of the tower (and it’s tall!), and I was up there with a tripod and my camera. Ask me if anyone else was dumb enough to go up. (No.)

After that I mostly walked around Töölönlahti lake, near the Opera House and Finlandia. Visited the Church of the Rock (very cool — there was a high end video company setting up shot for a filmed concert later that day, in high def), went to the National Museum, the City Museum, the Helsinki Cathedral, Stockmann’s, the Helsinki Railway Station, the Kallio Cathedral, and the University of Helsinki bookstore. So, most of what I wanted to see in the city proper, I have seen. Because most of those things were indoor, the weather wasn’t really a factor.

I had a late lunch at Silvoplee, a fantastic vegan/vegetarian buffet restaurant. I really gorged, and I’m still pretty full now, almost 5 hours later. I did hit up a grocery store and picked up peanut butter (hi Katheryn!), because the breakfast I had this morning was a little light on protein, I think. Peanut Butter is a staple for me when I travel. Mmmm…

A few observations on the trip so far.

• Helsinki is incredibly clean for a city with roughly 600 thousand people in it. Very little graffiti, almost no trash, and not many cigarette butts on the street despite a high number of smokers. I’m not sure if those smokers are Finns, or Russian visitors.
• The streets are paved with a mixture of asphalt and cobblestone. Most of the streets have two divided lanes, with a dedicated tram lane in the middle. Sidewalks are split down the middle with marked bike and pedestrian lanes. Yes, that is correct. Cyclists don’t ride on the street, nor do they ride on the sidewalk. They have their own path, separate from both.
• This isn’t about Finland, but the Frankfurt airport has the dumbest way ever of boarding planes. Most airports board by row now, with the people on the back getting on first. In Frankfurt, they bused us out to the plane, and everyone got off and went into the plane at either the front steps or the back. A few people knew enough to get on at the end closest to their seat, but a lot of people got on at the absolute wrong end which meant that a lot of folks had to haul their carry on luggage past people coming the other way. Utter chaos.
• This should be obvious, but electronics are insanely expensive here. Not that I am shopping for it, but when I was in Stockmann’s I priced out some camera gear. A “kit” Nikon lens that would have cost $150 CDN in Canada was almost twice that, in Euro. Nuts. Blu-Ray movies are about 25 Euro here, and a CD in a music shop is about 12-15 Euro. Even if you forget the conversion and just deal 1 to 1, that’s much more than what those things cost home.

If the weather breaks at all, tomorrow is either Helsinki Zoo or Suomenlinna fortress day. I really want nice weather for the Fortress so I am going to put that one off until I know that I’ll have nice weather.