First up, the fortress we spent almost a full day at. Again, a very small sample, but this gives you an idea of how pertty it was. It's on the UNESCO world heritage list for being the largest and best preserved example of European naval military bases.
John standing at attention as we watched a very large contingent of Finnish Forces go marching buy unexpectedly. It always creeps me out when I see kids 10 years younger than me carrying semi-automatic weaponry.
The 'beach'. This is John, Aussie-Ben and his sister in law in the water. If you could see their faces, you'd have a good idea of how cold the water is. I think Peta and I were standing on the sand again, having already given up due to the frigidity, but a few moments later, John and I were back in, stupidly swimming all the way out to that dock in back ground. John bit the bullet and went first, and almost froze up half-way and stopped swimming because his lungs stopped taking in air. Thankfully his survival instinct kicked in and he got going again. I'm not entirely sure what we would have done if he hadn't. In hindsight, probably not the smartest thing we've done on this trip, and I've been feeling like I'm fighting a cold since. Instead of learning a lesson though, I just followed suit, but at least now realized you had to go fast and not stop no matter what. I felt like I was moving pretty quick, and even Ben commented afterward that he had never seen someone swim on top of the water before.
One of the most famous churches in Helsinki, and perhaps the only one of this entire trip who's interior I can still recognize when looking at photos. The Church Of The Rock is built out of an old rock quarry, and that roof top is something like 1500 meters of copper strip. A modern service was just getting underway, so it was a little awkward doing the touristy thing, but it also felt a little bit like home, at least in comparison to the Catholic and Orthodox proceedings I've seen thus far. I even knew the song they were singing in English. Scandanavia was apparently pretty big on the Reformation bandwagon, and something like 90% of the population are Lutheran, although most aren't practising.
A quick shot of the archipelego (sp?) outside Helsinki as we set sail in our overnight cruise for Stockholm.
Another picture, taken moments later. I have no idea how the color turned out like this, but had to share it.
One final shot of some silver head shot of some famous composer who's music apparently helped create the Finnish sense of nationalism which eventually helped lead to it's independance after being tossed back and forth between the Swedes and the Russians like a ping-pong ball. I didn't catch his name, it was difficult to hear much of what was being said like this.
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