Nautical lesson for the day

Today was our day trip to Tallinn, Estonia.    But first, the juice shot of the day was cranberry......

So the day trip was billed as a ferry ride across the Baltic Sea to Tallinn, Estonia.  I'm thinking ferry, as in ....

Imagine my surprise to board this instead!!

This my friends is a "ro-pax" ferry, complete with shopping, restaurants, WiFi, and a capacity of  2,080 passengers and 450 passenger cars.  If you don't believe me, check here for verification
http://www.tallink.com/star

And I'm sure you are wondering what a "ro-pax" ferry is, right? 🙄🙄🙄

A"ro-pax" ferry can carry passengers, freight, and cars, thus avoiding issues where passenger business might be seasonal (but freight can provide revenue all year).

You're welcome. 😇

Traffic update

Helsinki is a great city for walking. But, be warned, there are lots of bicyclists - they even have their own pathway in many places. However, pedestrians seem to be fair game - they stop for no one.  I almost got wiped out, but Linda saved me!

They operate under the motto, so many tourists, so little time 😈

Meet Otto.

Otto. is the Finnish ATM - Otto means withdrawal in Finnish. It is apparently important to use the period although I have no idea why; I do have to say that adding the period does tend to mess up the technology assumption that we are starting a new sentence.

And even the ATM has a big red period 🙄🙄 so they take this seriously.
I met Otto. today.
Otto. was very helpful.

Quite a walk

We finished our "three hour tour" in time for a lunch break....not too shabby....

A few more interesting finds on the walk

So I got my hopes up....

.....and then the guide explained that this is a color, not my favorite vegetable 😔

And Santa runs a convenience store here, guess the elves got bored....also filed in the good to know category.....

At the Music Center, the guide explained that this statue was supposed to inspire creativity.  Gordy says it just encourages us to go fishing....

And speaking of fishing.......they appear to have good walleye fishing here; I'm envisioning a return trip....

Temppeliaukio Church

Say that three times fast, or even say it once!  The Temppeliaukio Church, known as the Church of the Rock, is built into the side of a hill. The architects even discovered that leaving the rock walls uncovered made the acoustics great.

Apparently, the neighbors didn't want their view spoiled, so building into the side of the rock was the solution. The official online version is that the church was built this way to "preserve the original character of the neighborhood."  😉

Interesting concept....

Yayoi Kusama

Yea, me neither.... It seems that a Japanese artist is traveling around Scandinavia with her "trademark polka dots".  Who knew!?!?  Anyway, as luck would have it, some of her polka dots are on trees in the center of Helsinki....

For more on the subject, check http://scandinaviaonmymind.com/yayoi-kusama-comes-helsinki/