Just one of the views from Suomenliina
One of the great things about a vacation is escaping your usual routine and getting away from the usual places. The farther you go from home the better. Right now I’m about 5,400 miles from home. It’s fantastic. In truth it doesn’t feel that far because I’m in Finland the land of my ancestors. I grew up speaking Finnish and English and hearing a lot of Finnish among all the Finns in the area who were either relatives or family friends. I feel quite at home here. Of course, everyone under fifty speaks English and most fluently. Truthfully, many over fifty also speak fluent English. My cousin Jorma is over eighty and he doesn’t speak much English at all and I’ll be seeing him tomorrow when the missus and I take the train to his city, Tampere, which is now Finland’s second biggest. So I’ll be called upon to translate for the wife, a challenge I feel up to.
We’ve been having a marvelous time. Yesterday was a designated “chill day.” We strolled around the city, mostly in the downtown area and near a wharf. Nice to be by the water. We ended the day by having a traditional Finnish dinner: sushi. Okay, not traditionally Finnish but it was excellent and that’s the main thing.
Today we took the ferry to Suomenlinna which is a sea fortress spread across a cluster of rocky islands just off the coast of Helsinki. It’s a world heritage site in which you can explore history and nature at the same time. It was built by the Swedish in the eighteenth century to defend against Russian expansion. Like Finland itself the fortress later passed into Russian hands before becoming part of independent Finland.
The ferry ride over was enjoyable. As one often is on such trips, we were surrounded by groups of school children. The wee tykes can be cute and the older teens obnoxious and self-satisfied. There were also, naturally, regular old tourists such as ourselves.
There were two different museums on the island and as has been documented on this blog numerous times, I love a good museum and don’t even mind an average one. These were both above average. But we spent the majority of our time on the island strolling about, enjoying the views and chatting with the barnacle geese, which, among other birds, make the island their home. It was a lot of walking. Our vacations always consist of a lot of trodding about which is a good thing considering that our vacations also consist of good deal of eating large quantities of food. We jump far off our diets and indulge in deserts along with big meals.
We returned to our digs in the late afternoon for a quick rest before heading back out in search of dinner. We found dinner and ate contentedly.
Another aspect to our vacations that I enjoy is meeting people and chattering away with them. This is much more natural to my darling wife who is infinitely more comfortable in conversation with strangers and will chat up anyone and everyone. It’s a marvel for me as a mostly-silent-around-strangers Finn to watch her in action. On the minus side she does have a tendency of leaving behind her scarf. I’ve run back and retrieved it three times this trip and in a fourth instance this morning, the proprietors of the cafe where she left it held on to it and a jacket for her. We’re at the halfway point of our vacation so I imagine I’ll be tracking it down again…and again. I love her no less.
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