There's More than Meatballs?

So yesterday I was on a tour of Stockholm, Sweden. Bright and early (ok, 10 a.m., but I'm still in college mode) I went to the theater to collect my tour group. We had the sweetest girl as our guide and unlike most tour guides I've had so far, she was very interesting and even funny! We rode a bus all aorund new town and old town Stockholm and our major highlight was the Vasa Museum. This was really cool. The Vasa is a ship that sailed in 1629 but didn't really make it far from Stockholm before sinking to bottom of the harbor. It is as our tour guide put it, "Sweden's most famous mistake." In 1956, though, they were able to pull it out of the waters 95% intact. So I wasn't seeing some replica of an old war ship. This was an authentic ship from the 1600s. The wood carvings were intricate and they were even able to pull pigments from the wood to figure what colors certain things were painted. So there was a scale model in front showing how colorful she would have been. I have to say I was taken aback by the lion heads on the gun windows. It was pretty interesting.

After the tour I walked around for a bit with Val. We found the shopping centers and the spots where the young folk hang out and I began warming up to Stockholm. It's a nice city with its own charm, but Berlin is a tough act to follow. After walking through some more bustling parts of town I started to think I could really like Stockholm. Not to mention the Swedish people are really friendly.

Today I was in Helsinki, Finland on another tour. I'm getting really lucky being selected for all of these tours. A bus drove me around Helsinki, stopping at certain attractions. First we were in the Senate Square, which I thought was just beautiful, and we walked down to the open air market. I strolled around with the best mint ice cream cone I've had in a while. I'm finding I really love market places. Then we went to one of the most interesting churches I've ever been to. They call it the Rock Church. It's literally within a blown out rock with a copper dome top. The acoustics were phenomenal and I felt really comfortable there. It was non-denominational, which would explain my comfort. I said a quick prayer and headed back to the bus.

I found that I really liked Helsinki. Tomorrow I'm yet another tour in St. Petersburg, Russia. I'm glad I am, since it's really the only way we can get into Russia.