Day 1 - Helsinki, Finland

Well, we are off! I am writing this on the iPad as we sit in the Helsinki airport after a day of sightseeing here. We left Milwaukee at about 11 AM on Tuesday and took off from O'Hare at about 3:30 PM. Our plane was pretty nice but ahh, the smell of international travel.

We landed in Helsinki at 8:30 AM local time (which was 12:30 AM CST). We set off on a bus for the short drive to the city center. It was a very nice day in Helsinki and was about 60-65 degrees and sunny.

Pretty Building

We went down to the Oceanside market and visited the Upsalanskin Cathedral, the largest Orthodox cathedral in western Europe. Ironically, we lived blocks from Aleksandr Nevski Cathedral is Sofia, which was the largest Orthodox cathedral in Eastern Europe. I guess we can check big orthodox cathedrals off of our list.

Orthodox Cathedral

We spent some time in the market and had lunch. We had a traditional Finnish summer dish of fried fish (sardine-like sized), potatoes, and salad. Of course I had to get a Fanta because they are better in Europe (trust me, it's a different recipe.). Cathy bought a funky hand knitted stocking hat too. There were lots of fruits like blueberries, cherries, strawberries, raspberries, and root or bulb vegetables of all kinds. The cold weather has to make everything ultra-sweet.

Seaside Market

Lunch

We then went to the largest Lutheran cathedral in the world. It was quite The contrast from the gaudy orthodox one.

Largest Lutheran Church in the world.

Have to have an organ.

Marty

We spent some more time walking around and looking at some of the must see sights but seeing as we were kind of running on no sleep we were starting to feel it. We headed back to the airport where we are currently waiting for our flight to Singapore. We get in there at about 4 PM local time on Thursday which will be like 4 AM I think. We en catch a pretty quick flight to Jakarta. At least we get in late Thursday night so we can go to bed.

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