- Packing
- A week of extremes
- Preparation
- Dress Rehearsal
- H6, #13, and Bo
- Vlotho
- Stockholm
- Tallinn
- Helsinki
- Helsinki II
- St. Petersburg
- St. Petersburg II
- Moscow
- Beijing
- Beijing II
- Beijing III
- Beijing IV
- Xi’an
- Xi’an II
- Shanghai
- Nara – Halfway plus one day
- Kyoto
- Back in the (Former) USSR
- Muroran
- 180th Meridian
- Seward
- Ketchikan
- Vancouver
- St Paul
- Chicago
- New York City
- North Atlantic
- 78 Days and 9 Minutes
- London
At last, a proper keyboard!!!
Today finds Helsinki to be sunny and still on the chilly side. I like to consider that I am built of stronger stuff than someone from Iowa or Delaware but the combination of wind and temperature makes one less inclined to do outside things. Around noon today, the temperature was -6 centigrade with the wind from the northwest at 5 meters a second. That makes it about -80 F with the wind blowing about 67 miles an hour. No wait, that’s right. I need to divide something here. OK, it is about 22F with the wind at about 11 mph. Doesn’t seem so bad when you put it like that, I guess.
Yesterday, we went to Suomenlinna, a fortress built by Sweden on islands in the Helsinki harbor. It is another one of the many UNESCO world heritage sites we are hitting on this trip. The construction of these fortifications is tied to the growth of Helsinki as a city. Prior to this, it was a town of about 1500 persons. Less than 60 years after construction on Suomenlinna began, Helsinki became the capital of Finland.
Ice still covers the harbor here. The boat out to the fortress pushed its way through the ice with a low grinding sound like putting Brazil nuts in a coffee grinder. Looking out the back of the ship, you could see the ice floes fill in behind us, removing any indication that the ship had ever passed through.
Our families would be very impressed by our productivity this morning. We got up, saunaed, showered, ate, mailed things from the post office, got our Russian customs forms, and exchanged money – all before 10:30am. In some ways, it is a practice run for tomorrow. The 6:30am train to St. Petersburg is painfully early.
The sauna was quite a nice way to start this day. Felt really good after a shower. I also felt warmer from the inside, instead of just warm on the outside (if that makes any sense). Good preparation for hitting the outdoors. Saunas are very popular here. Supposedly Finnish troops with the UN build saunas wherever they are stationed – even in the desert.
Another good remedy for the cold here is coffee. Finland is one of the biggest coffee consumers in the world. What makes it especially nice is that they serve it in soup bowl sized cups almost big enough to bathe in.
I have a whole page of trivia to share, but I will spare you. Tomorrow, we are off to Russia!
p.s. Finland is the only country to fully repay its World War One war debt to the US.
This entry was posted in Around the World
