Friday, June 19

Today the locals are celebrating "mid summer" and all the stores are closed. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. We're in Helsinki. Lilacs and white britches are all around us. 

We missed out getting onto the countryside excursion and Linda really wanted to do that. To try to make it up to her we decided on an adventure all on our own. The boat's excursion went to a town named Porvoo so, we decided to go there too. 

There was a shuttle bus run by the city that took you to center city for 6 euros each. We found a regular city bus for 3. The driver drops us off  couple of blocks from the station. Linda asks a young woman who must be 6 foot 5 in high heels which direction we should walk and off we go. Once inside the station, we wonder around a bit to find our bus and a schedule. A nice young couple sends us downstairs and another person tells us we can buy our tickets from the driver. Almost instantly we find our bus that is leaving in minutes. Off we go to the countryside. 

After about 10 minutes, we're out of town and on an "interstate". Not a lot to see but what look like small farms, white birches which remind us of Aberfeldy, Scotland, and lilacs. We pull into Porvoo and try and decide what to do for an hour or so. 

The first thing we notice is that almost all the stores are closed. The second thing we realize is that we all need a toilet. Across the street is a hotel and off we go. The four of us ask the nice woman behind the reception desk everything we can think of. She gives us a town map and some guidance. 

We decide to walk down to the river just because. Besides boats to look at, we find a charming bar/cafe. A drink and a French chocolate cake and a chocolate roll with cream and coated with coconut and a carrot cake worked just fine. Cozy little place. 

Two cool and crazy guys.

Our map showed an "old town" up the hill. Here we found some open shops and a small craft fair that needed to be investigated. 

This young woman's headdress was all flowers - for summer. 

Then over to a church at the top of the hill. A young man was singing, accompanied by a pianist. Good baritone. 

We're still learning how to take a selfie. We saw "selfie sticks" everywhere we went.

Then we all walked back down the hill to the bus station and off to Helsinki. Along the way, my wife needed to smell the lilacs.

Our next goal was to visit the church built into the rock. After showing the bus driver our map and where we wanted to go, he dropped us off close. As we got off the bus we saw a large rock and thought we were on the backside of the church. Not exactly. Some more wandering and we got to the front entrance. 

There was a female pianist playing and it was a great thing to just sit and listen and enjoy this special space. 

The church is built into part of a huge boulder with the congregation sitting "within" the rock but the upper walls are above the rock surface to let the light in.

Back to the center of town was all downhill. There were a few souvenir shops that needed to be investigated.  Some of them had silly stuff on the sidewalk.

It was time to get something to eat and I thought I knew where to go. I was remembering a park ringed by cafes from our previous visit. But, after walking toward several sets of trees and also knowing that because of the holiday, most places would be closed, I gave up. 

Eventually, we found ourselves at a stop for bus #14. Heidi and Doug hopped on but Linda wanted to walk back to the ship and I decided to be a good supportive husband. It only took us about 45 minutes. There was one point where we needed to make a decision on which of two streets to take, but 4 people were right there to point us in the right direction. 

After all of that, we needed some time in the hot tub. 

For dinner we decided to eat in the main dining room and were seated at a table with a good view of the ship's wake. That was nice. 

I had the daily event schedule and we decided to watch again The Second Best Marigold Hotel. The only problem was we were a day ahead of ourselves and ended up seeing a pretty good comedian. A bunch of laughs. 

Its 10:30 at night and we need to shut the curtains to cut out the bright sun.