Helsinki

Alright time to start the Liz and I's trip around the old homeland, in Scandinavia. Liz landed in Amsterdam really early, as our flight out of Amsterdam was at 10 am, I also had to get to the airport early. So for both of us is was an early morning, but Liz especially. Anyways after making an easy flight from Amsterdam towards Helsinki we arrive to a beautiful scene in the afternoon. We arrived in the middle of a snowfall leaving the city truly a winter wonderland. It reminded me of home walking around that day in the snow, while it was kind of cold it didn't matter because it wasn't much worse than anything back home. The first thing that we see is the picture that you see above, it is a memorial to the poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, he is quite possibly the most famous poet in Finnish History. He is famous for writing the Finnish National Anthem, ironically he originally wrote it in Swedish not Finnish. He did in fact help bring about a revival in the Finish language, and helped bring about national pride for the Finish people. After stopping to see the statue Liz and I made our way to have lunch at the small little Food Market called Vanha Kauppahali, a local market with some pretty cool restaurants, and one pretty amazing little shop

  Robert's Coffee. Liz and I stopped at a soup shop and some really good warm soup. After walking back to the hotel to get some things ready and grab some warmer clothes. 

From there Liz and I walked around the city to get acquainted with the city, our first stop was walking past the Market as we attempt to go the Lutheran Church in Helsinki, and the Senate Square.

 This Church was originally Built in 1852 (it was Renovated in the 1980s) and is one the Biggest Lutheran Church in Finland. It is a beautiful building One of the more interesting things about the Statue is that there are 12 statues around the top, they are for the 12 apostles, and they are the all made of zinc, making them the largest Zinc Statues in the world.

  This is the Senate Square and if it looks like I am in Russia right now, that is the point, these building were built when the Russians were in charge of Finland. So the Russian Government commissioned the City of Helsinki to become the new capital of Finland because the old capital Vaasa was to close the Russian historical rival the Swedes. So the Russians had the Senate square built and it was built to look similar to St. Petersburg. 

The Finns for the most part saw their occupiers in a positive light not a negative one, and this is shown by not only the architecture in the city, but with statues.

This statue is of Tsar Alexander II, the Finns remember him fondly because he granted the Finns many freedoms, as well as coming to Helsinki to give a speech to the Finns. Alexander is remembered by history as a fairly benevolent ruler the nickname he was given was the Liberator, as he was the Tsar that finally freed the serfs in Russia. That action would inevitably get him killed, but is still a good thing that he did, and helped the Russian move forward. 

Liz and I next took a stop inside of the Lutheran Church, a church that is a typical Lutheran Church it is very reserved, outside of the Altar

 And the organ 

and the three statues the first of Martin Luther who of course is the founder of the Lutheran Church. 

The second Statue is of Mikael Agricola who is credited with bringing the reformation to Finland.

 And the Final statue is of Philip Melanchthon, who was the teacher of Agricola, as well as one of the leading intellectuals of the reformation. 

The next stop on the day is to the Upsenki Cathedral, which is the Orthodox Christian Church in Helsinki. The Cathedral was finished in 1868, and is the biggest Orthodox Church in Finland. It is sustainably more extravagant, just on the outside

With the gold tops to the building, and the fancy architecture. Sadly the Cathedral isn't open on Mondays and we were there on a Monday so we couldn't go inside, but just looking at the Cathedral on the outside was enough to get the Awe inspiring nature of the Church.

That was our last major stop of the day, in the picture it may look late but it was actually around 5:00 when the last pictures at Upsenki were taking, Finland in the winter only gets a few hours of sunlight and the sun usually goes down around 4/4:30 in Helsinki.

I'm going to lump in Day two here because well day one was short, and day two doesn't have many pictures because the museums we went to frowned on pictures being taken.

Day two started with some great breakfast in at our hotel, I mean who doesn't love croissants. Sadly that was the only good thing to happen in the morning, as we got news that our guide for the day had broken his ankle the night before and wouldn't be able to show us around the city. So we had to think quickly, that night we had a hockey game to be to, so we had to decide what the plan was for the day. So we decide to make our way to the Finish Natural History Museum. Which was underwhelming to say the least, there were some part of the Museum that were very cool and I enjoyed, the majority of the Museum wasn't very original. That said it did lead to our next stop the Rock Church. Temppeliaukio church was built into to a rock and is a beautiful church, it is crazy to think that the entire church was built into a rock.

It is an incredible building, and it really makes you think what people in Minnesota are doing with our boring looking churches in comparison. This church was completed in and opened to the public in 1969.

After leaving the Church of the Rock we took off towards the Finnish National History Museum, and holy cow, this Museum was amazing (again no pictures here). This Museum took you on a trip through Finnish History, starting with the ancient founding of the country, and then moving on to the their time under control by the two major powers in their area Sweden and Russia. I don't think that I could do it justice, but it had everything, from rooms on how the ancient up until the Swedish occupation people lived what they would have eaten, and what their houses would have looked like. The next area was a look at the Duchy of Finland under control of the Swedes and how the Finns were conquered via a Crusade bringing Christianity to Finland violently (who would have guessed). To how their culture, population, and cities developed under Swedish rule, the next part was on the Change over to Russian Rule, and how much the Finns respect and admire Alexander the 2nd and hated Alexander the 3rd. Also my personal favorite part, a historical telling of the History through maps, most of the maps being originally being from the time period that they were showing. It was super cool and I would highly recommend going to the Museum to anyone in Finland it was the best Museum in Finland and up there for the best Museum on my Trip with Liz. Sadly our time in the time in the Museum was cut short because we had to get to the Helsinki Ice Hall to watch HIFK play Ilves.

The game itself was dull the best player on either team Miro Heiskanen was scratched for the game I'm not entirely sure why because there was no English reasoning behind it. The final score was 3-0 HIFK. Oh and now that I'm remembering it this was the team with Joe Finely on it, sadly he didn't play either and I couldn't find a reason for it. For those of you wondering who Joe Finely is watch this video he is the guy on UND who pulls the gopher player out of the Handshake line Joe Finely.

I know both of the teams that we saw were bottom of the pack it still wasn't a very good game, and It makes me wonder how good the top teams in Finland actually are.

Next we make our way to Narpes, to see where my ancestors are from.