Before visiting Finland, I imagined it a place that was big on fish and small on daylight (at least, in every month other than August). Being one of the northernmost countries in Europe, it lies dangerously close to the Arctic Circle for a sunshine-loving girl like me. Nonetheless, I was game for a try.

So after an investigative weekend in Helsinki, I figured out what all the Finnish folk must be doing when the sun goes down at noon (or so). They’re going SHOPPING! Heck, what else is there to do?! (They apparently go to church a lot too, based on all the churches we visited). I most enthusiastically joined the Finns in my own dubious interpretation of their ‘venerable’ shopping & churching traditions.

Our Finnish day started with a tram ride down to the main harbor, which offers both outdoor and indoor markets. (Obviously, we hit both.) Outside, the touristy booths sold plenty of *real* fur accessories (seems that the PETA movement hasn’t caught on there), hand-knit scarves and gloves, leather and fur boots, handcrafted knickknacks, and stuffed reindeers. The locals’ booths sold a surprisingly wide variety of fresh produce, including piles of a fabulously rich-looking red berry. Inside, we had kitchen tools, local sweets and breads, reindeer sausage, fresh and smoked fish, canned fish, dried fish, jellied fish, baked fish, scrambled fish, poached fish, and fishy fished fish.

With bags full of market treasures, we enjoyed a quick breakfast at Kappeli on the main square, then headed over to church #1, the impressive brick Uspenski cathedral which overlooks the harbor. With a nod to the Russkies’ previous ‘occupation’ of Finland, the church sports incredibly-shiny, gold onion domes and a grassy hill perfect for napping (which we looooove….).

A leisurely stroll brought us to the big Senate Square and the squeaky-clean, white-and-green #2 church….great for admiration and a few photos, but even better for the nearby shops filled with groovy stuff made by local artisans.

With Soenke now in fully-laden pack mule status, we dropped our bags of goodies at the hotel and checked out church #3, the Temppeliaukio Church, otherwise known as the “church-in-the-rock”. Two Finnish dudes had a unique idea to build a church right into the bedrock, with some pretty cool results. The walls of the church are beautiful colored rock, also providing amazing acoustics for the church’s fancy pipe organ.

Another one of the city’s many convenient trams delivered us to the well-situated Hotel Torni just in time to catch the gorgeous sunset from the hotel’s small rooftop bar. Positioned specifically for sunset appreciation, it was packed with highly appreciative visitors and locals alike. We gazed in awe at the fiery pinks and oranges which blazed over the horizon as the sun vanished. I can say with some confidence that this was one of the finest sunsets I’ve ever seen.

By now it was about 1:00pm. Ok ha ha, not really. But it WAS dinnertime, and we knew we had to sample the country’s specialty: REINDEER. An intimate, corner restaurant called Restaurant Kuu had a good-looking fixed menu with reindeer prominently advertised. Now I was caught a bit offguard when I ordered a glass of wine and the server asked me “8, 16, or 25 centiliters?” You could practically hear my eyelashes bashing against each other as I blinked blankly and hoped for more choices in a measurement system that I recognized (no such luck).

Our first course arrived in the form of smoked salmon and chunky potato soup, simmered in a buttery milky broth. YUM. Our main course of barely-dead, broiled reindeer wrapped in bacon proved to me a bit much too much for me (Soenke loved it). I chowed down instead on my green beans and red potatoes, then on Soenke’s green beans and red potatoes, and left the meat to the real carnivores. A tasty cold cheese course followed, then a peculiar dessert of baked cheese with an orange-colored berry sauce.

Hours later, we were deep in happy-belly REMS back at the hotel when my cellphone rang…. sigh, the biggest tax deadline of the year and one of my Fed-Ex’s bearing a two-inch-thick tax return didn’t arrive at the client destination. With my new chilled-out Euro attitude, I just said “ah yeah, just print out the PDF file and fax me the signature page. You can file it with my fax signature. It’s cool”. So I trotted on down to the huge reception area in my pink pajamas, conducted a little fax business, got some weird stares, and wandered back up to bed. GOD BLESS TECHNOLOGY. My ticket to freedom!
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Here are some Fine Fotos from Finland:

A view of Helsinki’s central harbor:

I scope out the market stalls:

What are these glorious Finnish berries?!

Cutting-edge local cell phone technology (cheeep, too!):

Soenke takes a turtle break:

Church #1 - the Uspenski Cathedral with the super shiny dome:

Church #2 at the Senate Square:

Church #3 built into the bedrock:

A parade of some of my shopping finds, including smoked fish, reindeer sausage, chocolate fish cigars, Finnish spectrolite jewelry, and more:

A truly breathtaking sunset!