After living in Finland for close to five months, Adam, Tea and Talia have finally made it to Helsinki. I've been to the capital several times to visit schools, meet with Fulbright Finland and attend conferences, but this week was the first time the girls and Adam got to check out the largest city in Finland. Adam's parents are visiting so that added to the excitement of seeing the sites for the first time.
The girls have put in over 20,000 steps each day. Adam's FitBit has hit the 20k mark each day and the girls take at least as many steps as him, but probably more since they have littler legs and run around a lot more. We have tried to mix in playground time with seeing the sites so we don't totally burn them out and face an epic meltdown in the middle of Europe. Traveling through a different country and seeing things through a child's eyes is quite interesting. While we marvel at the beauty of an ornate Orthodox cathedral, stare at an impressive castle or take in the atmosphere of a street market the girls notice the different dogs walking with their owners, ask us to stop at every park to try out a new piece of playground equipment and notice things like ice cream stands, good walls to climb, dandelions to pick and rocks that they simply must carry around. When we ask them to tell us their favorite thing they did all day the answer is usually something rather mundane - playing in a park, petting a big dog, eating raspberries outside or playing hospital with Opa and Nana. However, when we are at the sites they have done a great job of asking us questions, noticing the differences between the rather spartan Luthern churches versus the rather ornate Orthodox churches and posing for the many pictures we force them to take.
On Monday we stopped by the three big churches in Helsinki: the Orthodox Church, the Lutheran Cathedral and The Rock Church. While the first two are very impressive from the outside, I most enjoy the interior of the Rock Church. It was built right into the rocks and is mostly underground. The walls are all the exposed rock and it is cool and has a small, intimate feeling. The girls counted the steps to get up to the Lutheran cathedral (52, if you are interested) and we found that the inside was much smaller than it appears from the outside. We couldn't go into the Orthodox church, but the girls loved climbing in the lilac trees and sliding down the hill!
On Tuesday we hopped aboard a cruise ship and took the two and a half hour boat ride to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Tallinn has a much more "European" feel. The Old City is surrounded by a thick wall and a large central square feels like many other European cities I have visited, though Tallinn's Square is noticeably smaller. Cafes and restaurants surround the square and all the streets that radiate from the center are filled with souvenir shops. Remarkably we made it home without buying anything for the girls! The Orthodox Church has many onion domes and looks very Russian, while the Lutheran Church is stark but still impressive. It is possible to climb to the top of the Lutheran Church tower, but no one was too excited to climb over 250 rock steps so we passed on that option. We did get impressive views from the top of the town by climbing up and over one of the rock walls of the city and the girls thought that was pretty cool.
Yesterday we explored Suomenlinna, an island fortress just fifteen minutes away by ferry. The girls were able to climb in and around the old fortress walls and old cannons. We had a nice picnic and found a park where the girls could play on the swings and in the sandbox.
We have enjoyed absolutely lovely weather this week and were safely inside during the one storm that hit yesterday afternoon. Today we are headed west to the original capital of Finland, Turku. We are looking forward to more exploration and then will bid farewell to Adam's parents on Sunday and my parents will arrive in just over a week. The start of our amazing summer of European travels is under way!