Helsinki, Day 3

We slept in on Wednesday since it was raining most of the morning.  Before checking out, we fixed some sandwiches to have later for lunch.  The ferry terminal was a few kilometers from the hostel, so we chose to take our bags to the train station closer to the ferry rather than have to backtrack later to pick them back up.  Both of the bags fit in a locker that cost 4€/day.   The northeast section of Helsinki was an area we read about in the guide books, so we made that our destination for the day.  We had 3 hours to walk around before catching the ferry and mapped out a stroll down the main streets of the 'working class' area of the city. Our first stop along the way was the Hakaniemen Market. This was an eclectic 2-story market with vendors selling everything from fresh seafood to pastries to designer clothing to antiques and more. We really enjoyed poking around here for a few minutes.    

We also had our first kebabs here...

After 7 or 8 blocks, we stopped for a cup of coffee at a small cafe. Everyone in Finland drinks coffee, and they drink it regularly throughout the day. Additionally, there coffee is much stronger than coffee we drink in the states - after a couple of weeks of this, it will be tough to get back to drinking Community Coffee! Continuing on, we made Helsinginkatu street our next destination. We read a lot about how this street has many cheap dive bars, food places, and other places of note. One other interesting business that we read about were brothels with names like "Thai Massage"...there were actually several of these establishments across a couple of blocks on Helsinginkatu.

As we continued our walk around, we happened upon a small but quaint park. We relaxed for a few minutes & took a couple of pictures.

At this point we were just about back to the area near the train station and it was almost time to check in for our ferry ride, so we cut through a large park around a lake. There were lots of great walking and biking trails in the park, and no vehicles, which made for a very pleasant walk back to the station.

After grabbing our bags at the station & heading to the Viking terminal, we checked in for our ferry ride and boarded the ship. Our plan was to stay up most of the night, so we booked the cheapest private room available. This was called a C-Class Suite and our room was located on Level 2, which was the lowest level on the boat (just below the garage for cars being ferried across).  We were prepared for much worse, but the room was nearly identical to any interior cabin on an American cruise line.  There was capacity in the room for 4 people and we had a private bathroom.

We dropped our bags off in the room, freshened up a bit, and then checked out the rest of the ship. On board, there were 2 restaurants, a buffet, 2 clubs/bars, a pub, and a duty-free store. It was nearly departure time at this point, so we went out to the top deck on the back of the boat.

After we had fully pulled away from the port and Helsinki was slipping out of sight, we ducked into the duty free store and picked up a few food items and a couple of drinks.

We walked up to the "Sky Bar", which had tables set up and good views out of the windows. We munched on a little cheese and crackers while acting silly and people watching.

The "Fun Club" was on the level below us and contained a small casino (2 tables), a stage, and a band which David adequately described as "a misplaced indy punk band forced to belt out senior-friendly songs to pay the rent". After witnessing someone's grandmother attempting to dance like Beyonce, we decided to return to the Sky Bar to check out the music and dancing scene up there. Unfortunately, karaoke was on tap and the singers were mostly Russian or Asian middle-aged men. As if that wasn't enough, every song was slow and sappy, and the singers were awful. We bounced back and forth between the 2 bars and the pub until around midnight, when we had finally had our fill of mingling with the elderly crowd and we returned to our cabin to crash for the night. While somewhat fun, it was definitely not the experience we expected...

However, morning brings Stockholm & a whole new city to explore!