Day 88: Helsinki

The day's sightseeing summary:
- market
- Uspenski Cathedral
- RS walk
- Lutheran Church
- Temppeliaukio Church

The boat gave us a good night's sleep; I just wished I'd gone to sleep earlier! We finally left the boat at 10:30am and headed directly to the TI. After getting info, booking our boat for the day-trip to Tallinn tomorrow, and putting our things down in the hostel, we headed out first to the market. It was after noon and I'd read the food merchants close up shop around 2pm.

It's the first time we've ever seen fruit sold by the liter! The produce that couldn't be sold by the liter (many veges) were sold by the kilo. The liter bit made my comparisons a bit tough actually -- is that how many cherries x-euros should buy me?

The tents are color-coded, orange for food and white for crafts and other things. Maybe the best part of the market (aside from having decent-quality produce) was all the hot food being sold.


We got a yummy half-jam, half-choco covered Liege waffle ^-^

And then, we got a mixed grill plate of different fish with veges. Yummy! The hot food stands actually had covered tables -- good thing, too, because there were a bunch of seagulls flying overhead. We even saw an aggressive seagull grab a fried small fish out of someone's hand! And the lady who handed us our dish covered it with a napkin, saying 'be careful of the birds'.

We didn't plan on visiting the Lutheran Church, but passing by was part of our walk, and after reading that the interior was 'pure architectural truth', we went in. Austere interior. K says he preferred it to all the ornateness we see in many other churches.

When we came out of the church, it had started to rain, and then rain even more. We stopped by Stockmann's department store, the Finns answer to Harrods. But Stockmann's grocery section seemed to have much more reasonable prices than what I remembered seeing at Harrods. The grocery was huge with lots of choices! In the produce section, we saw an orange tomato for the first time and bought one to try.

Coming out of Stockmann's, we realized it was already 4:30pm and the Temppeliaukio Church closes at 5pm! We rushed to find a tram stop to take us there. And then getting of the tram, we dashed through the rain to reach the church before it closed, running this way and that to find the entrance. We were in luck though. Apparently this day, a small children's choir was having a rehearsal, so the church was kept open past 5pm ^-^ The inside of the church is unique -- it was blasted out of rock and has a *huge* copper dome. We also got to hear the choir's rehearsal for a while as we walked around. I'm not religious or anything, but I like church music. Maybe not just that, I think I like choral music. The harmony of voices coming together is... well, something.


Our hostel is actually a dorm of the School of Economics which becomes a hostel during the summer months. K joked that "we've resorted to living in actual dorms!" But really, the room is much nicer than our Next House rooms -- larger, en-suite bathrooms, decent-size fridge, and in-room mini-kitchen with stoves, oven, and sink.

There are some cities that I get a good feeling from pretty quickly, and despite the rain, Helsinki is one. I can't place my finger on why it is though and we're only really here for a day, so I'm not sure how it would be if we were to stay longer, but for now, I like it.