Day 3 Helsinki

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After not going to bed until 3:30am and being woken up at 8 by people leaving I wasn’t happy. I turned over and snoozed until my alarm went at 9:30am ok ok time to get up. After slugging out of bed it was off the market for a fresh fruit breakfast then off to the hop on hop off tour to see a little of what I had missed yesterday when the rain was coming down. I had planned to hop off at the furthest point and take pictures on my way back but I got tired of the traffic and the accent of the women narrating cus, ones is enough. It was also a bright sunny day so what the heck. I got off at the third stop and walked towards Temppeliaukio (the church in the rock) Snap! snap!snap! Awesome you can see the blasting lines in the rock, there’s even a part that bleeds water after it rains. The 24km of copper wire that makes up the roof is quite spectacular. Along with many jagged edges it’s surprising it has such good acoustics. Upon leaving three tour busses of Asian tourist mobbed the door, needless to say I was happy to get out. Taking a left towards the city I noticed a plack stating that the original design of a classical cathedral which had been planned but the construction was halted due to ww1. Walking a little further I found a place to walk up the rock and closer to the roof of the church, nothing special really except you could really see the massive rock face which surrounds the church.

12pm and starving!!! I waddled down in to the Forum restaurant bonanza on the basement, got some better than average ‘Indian food court’ food then almost fell into a coma, so it was back to the hostel I waddled. Got some extra internet time and sorted out my phone troubles. FYI for anyone from North America coming to Europe with any old unlocked phone and expecting to be able to get a cheap phone card, think again. The phones here use a stronger, different signal system (GMS I believe) this being your phone will recognize texting the service provider so you can set it up but then when you try to phone someone it automatically goes directly to emergency, even though you clearly dialed a different number. Having just texted Marco about getting together using my Canadian sim card, it seam to stop working (which was a good thing as it forced me to sort out the phone trouble). It was then off to get a new cheap phone I could use here in Europe. What I found was that all phones here are unlocked!!!! And 19euro late had myself a little samsung which worked with the sim card. 5 min later it was off to get warm and wake up with a big cup of coffee and meet Marco.

After yapping about this and that, he had to go off to see the misses, and me being cold and still in trainer damp trainers I had just enough time to get back to the hostel change, talk to a few of you on FB. Get the after teast of coffee out of my mouth and of to meet Mina and a friend (I’ll get back to you on his name) for dinner. Ok so I was a little late but 2 min it’s not like I was cooking a stake. We went to a nice finish bistro where she sometimes works as a waitress, had a nice three hour 3 course meal. It was then decided that we meet on Sunday, and possibly go for sauna!!! With that my finish experience will have almost been completed, all that was missing is Lapland which will have to wait for another time.
Tomorrow I’m looking forward to a local market, finishing the tourist stuff and walking through a normal housing district outside of the city center (by the market).

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Photos

Plaque
What the church would have looked like if it was built to it's original pre ww2 plans

Organ
With all the jagged rock and he copper it's amazing there's so good acoustics