TheOdom4 : Long Journey Home (3rd and Final part)

So one of the problems of waiting so long to actually write about our long journey home is that it all gets kind of fuzzy... where are we exactly? What was this beautiful place? Who is that guy? Yikes... I'm not 100% sure... but I will try my best. Luckily there is this fake background that we took a picture in front of to help a little bit.

We take the train from the port into the downtown area of Helsinki. One compliment to the citizens of the Baltic countries: You guys really know how to do public transportation. We used busses, subways, trains, and monorails all over the place and it was so easy, cheap, clean, and safe. Nice job!

From the train terminal we took a walking tour. This building looked photo worthy. I think it is the Senate Building, or some other government type gathering place.

This guy was the first head of state of independent Finland. He also seemed photo worthy.

This picture is for perspective as to how big the building is. See Pooks?

Saw this moose and decided we needed a picture with him. I just always thought that moose were New England dwellers, but I guess they are all over.

We're on the move.

This is Sibelius Park, a park and lake in the downtown area, which was a tribute to the composer Sibelius.

This is the Sibelius Monument, an abstract art thing having something to do with his music.

I am not sure what this building is, but it looks pretty cool, right?

This is a statue right in front of the Lutheran Cathedral. I think it is a statue of Nicholas I, but again, not 100% sure.

That is the Lutheran Cathedral in the background.

It is so hard to look cool with a bird on your head.

At the top of the steps.

Inside is kind of plain, but this organ is just HUGE!

Behind the kids is the Uspenski Cathedral, another stop on our walking tour.

To get there you have to cross a small waterway.

with a kissing bridge... who doesn't love that???

Inside is really beautiful!

Now to the good stuff... shopping!

An open air market with everything including fruits, veggies, fish, stuffed animals, leather products, and of course, jewelry!

The cute train!

One last beautiful place....

before we hop back on the train and head back to the ship. On to our next port.

Welcome to Stockholm, Sweden. Really what we know about Sweden is basic: Ikea, Abba, meatballs, Pippi Longstocking, Absolut, Volvo. What else is there? And while we are here, we are looking for Ikea and the brand new Abba Museum.

Here we did one of those hop-on hop-off buses that follows a specific route to all of the things to see, and when you see something that you like, you can hop off and visit, and then hop back on and go to the next place. I took this picture of the first place we hopped off so that if we got lost I could pull it up and hopefully show it to someone, and they could get us back here.

One thing we loved about Sweden is that everything is named after some furniture from Ikea! So you can visit the Vasa Museum, Gamla Stan and Kulturhutset... who doesn't love a city with a famous museum named after a couch?!?

We walked upon this place looking for a bathroom. No such luck. One thing the cities we were in were lacking is bathrooms. And when you find one you have to pay a euro to use it. At the time we were there one euro was about $1.31, which seemed to me like a lot to use the bathroom. Another interesting thing is that only women are charged. Men can go for free (I guess because if you don't let them they could just pee on the sidewalk). What we wound up doing... well, never mind... this is just getting too weird...

Pooks in front of the National Library. She wants to be a librarian when she grows up so she can spend all day reading.

Behind the library is the Humlegården a park in Östermalm in Stockholm. It is the location of the Royal Library and in the center of the park is a large statue of Carl von Linné, better known as Linnaeus.

Later on down the ride is the Kungsbron, or King's Bridge, which has these two columns on either side of the road.

Walking around the historic area.

This is a direct quote from the website visitstockholm.com: Old Town (Gamla Stan) is the Stockholm’s original city centre and consists of Stadsholmen island and the islets of Riddarholmen, Helgeandsholmen and Strömsborg. The Old Town dates from the 13th century but most buildings are from the 17- and 1800s. It’s a glorious labyrinth of charming cobbled streets, alleyways, faded mustard and rust coloured town houses and meeting squares reflecting north German architecture.

On our way back to the hop on bus we passed this marching band.

The Nordic museum, and museum dedicated to all things Swedish. But this is not where we were headed.

We were headed to the Vasa Museum.

The Vasa was a Viking ship that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628.

The boat remained somewhere in the waters off the coast of Stockholm until 1961.

Most of the artifacts were salvaged and preserved.

This is the back of the ship.

Different decorative pieces.

This is a recreated model of what the boat looked like when it set sail. The paint had all come off, leaving the wood exposed (see 2 pictures up).

http://www.vasamuseet.se/en/

This is the website. It was truly amazing to see!

At this point we decide to hop on the bus one final time and head back. We are heading home, to New England the next morning and are anxious to get home.

And so, we never did make it to Ikea, or to the ABBA Museum... oh well, I guess we will just have to visit Stockholm again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-crgQGdpZR0&ob=av2e