Day 6: The rest of the cruise and many a tour of Helsinki

The boat cruise provided many more exciting adventures. After my last post, we had an amazing buffet dinner complete with all the beer/wine you could drink. Ridiculous. Then, we headed to the night club to hear some international music. It was there we met a young Finnish woman and her brother. The Finnish woman was super fascinated with Jeff. She thought he looked like the lead singer from Muse. She was also likely wasted and drinking even more while she was with us. She discovered that Jeff and I were only friends and that made the brother very happy. He thought I was very cute. Oh boy. So, I got some dancing time with drunk Finnish dude and he continued to tell me I was cute and beautiful and how he liked my brown eyes. Oh and he loved me. Haha.he was trying to get his sister to go to our cabin with Jeff and for me to go to his cabin, but I declined. He was sad. Good stuff.

I slept pretty well on my tiny bunk bed despite the night club music above us and the vibrations of the boats. Then it was time for giant buffet breakfast and departure in Helsinki. Fun cruise. And Jeff's first cruise experience so that was fun. He has no idea what a legit cruise would be like.

Then, it was time for tour 1 in Helsinki. We opted for the Panorama bus tour that left from the ship terminal. This took us all over the city and stopped at the waterfront market, Church in the Rock, and the Sibelius Monument (a tribute to their greatest composer). There was also an audio tour as we drove around. It was a good way to get acquainted with the city.

After that, we checked into out hotel, Sokos Solo Torni. Awesome! Apparently Torni stands for tower and it is the 2nd tallest building in the city center. Our room was huge compared to other places we stayed and we got free breakfast. Deal!

After we were all checked in we headed out to the market and got some crepes/meat pies for lunch. I bought a few treasures in the market and then we were right at the beginning of the Rick Steves' self-guided walking tour, so we downloaded that to my phone and were off. We saw a lot of the same things as the bus tour, but they were up close, so that was better. 

Rest time. Then, it was off on our Sauna Sunset Nordic Walking Stick Tour. So, apparently it's a trend for people to walk with ski poles in this area. I had to try it. So, that was our mode of transport. We walked all around this big lake. Just Jeff and me and the tour guide. He told us lots of good stuff about Helsinki and the area. He was super helpful. We even stopped at a sauna so we could do it up like the Finnish do. The sauna was a bit awkward for me. There were like 25 men and 3 women. The saunas themselves were single sex, but I guess in between the crazy hot sauna time you come out to this open area and hang out. In just your towel. It was weird to me because it was mainly men in their towels. I eventually got enough courage to go outside and hang a bit, but Jeff wasn't out there at the time. I did about 3 5 minute visits to the sauna and then it was time to finish up our tour. Good stuff. I'd recommend this guy. Happy Bike Tours of Helsinki. Yes, they also do bike tours. But, I wasn't going there.

After that we had an awesome dinner at Zetor, a Finnish restaurant with tractors and cows and other things inside. Think like Cracker Barrel with a farm theme. The menu was this giant newspaper and inside was the menu in like 20 different languages. Recommended by our tour guide and we loved it.