After a fun night on the Silja Serenade, we had a delicious buffet breakfast, complete with miniature Swedish pancakes, and disembarked in Helsinki, Finland at 10:30 a.m.
Not wasting any time, we mt our tour guide Violet at the bus and headed off to learn about the city of Helsinki and the culture and history of Finland. Our first sight was Suomenlinna, a fortress built off the coast when Finland was ruled by Sweden. We are taking a tour of the island and the fortress tomorrow. Another interesting sight included the 1952 Olympic Stadium. Unfortunately, we were unable to tour it since it was under construction for Finland’s celebration of its’ 100th year of independence this year. However, we were able to view the famous statue of Paavo Nurmi, the famous Finnish long distance runner who won nine gold medals during his time as an Olympic Athlete.
Another interesting stop was at the Sibelius Monument, honoring Jean Sibelius, widely recognized as Finland’s greatest composer. Sibelius helped Finland establish a national identity through music when the country was controlled by Russia. Some viewers describe the monument as a representation of an organ, but others believe it is more metaphorical and resembles a Finnish forest, as these cover more than 70% of the country.
Some fun facts about Finland that our tour guide told us today included: New mothers can get up to three years of maternal leave and 60% of that time is usually paid. The government guarantees a place for children in a kindergarten classroom and school is completely free, even university! Boys go to the army or civil service after their education for at least one year. Some choose to stay and continue and others decide to pursue other passions. Children learn to be independent from a very young age and often move completely out of their parents’ home at 18. But, the government gives students money to rent houses or apartments while they are in school. Taxes are high in Finland, and help support the education and health care systems. Finland was the first country to give women the right to vote, and women continue to be highly involved in politics. Tarja Halonen was elected the 11th President of Finland in 2000.
After our tour, we had to drop a few of our friends off at the hotel due to some serious motion sickness! We had been on the boat and the bus for quite some time in constant motion, so a few of us were a little sea sick to say the least. From the hotel, we departed for our tour of the Kisakallio Sports Institute, about 45 minute drive from where we were. We had a short class on the bus on Finnish culture. We learned that Finn’s are 89% Evangelical Lutheran, more coffee is consumed in Finland than in anywhere else in the world, Finland elected the first female president in the world, and some popular sports here include ice hockey, handball, rally driving, sailing and windsurfing. After class, nearly every single person on the bus fell asleep on our way to the sports institute. Brandon has a video of almost every single student passed out in their seats. Many of us were exhausted from a fun but late night on the boat!
When we arrived at the Kisakillio Sports Institute, we had (another) delectable buffet lunch of chicken, mashed potatoes, salads, and more, topped off with oven-baked apples with a vanilla sauce for dessert. After stuffing our bellies, it was time to do the unthinkable…the polar plunge! Polar plunging in Finland is a common practice, and is thought to be good for the immune system. Finland has 5.5 million inhabitants, and 3 million saunas. Even frozen lakes or harbors don’t stop the Finns from warming themselves up in the sauna and then taking an icy dip. They simply cut a hole in the ice and do what they need to do.
All of us changed into our swimsuits to get ready to jump into the freezing cold lake, that was mostly covered in ice. One by one, us crazy Gusties ran barefoot down the icy stairs, ran down the dock and plunged into the frigid water. It was a total shock to the senses! After jumping, each student quickly got out and ran soaking wet and barefoot back up the steps and into the hot sauna to warm up so that the next student could plunge. Many of us cussed repeatedly while screaming about how cold it was walking up and down the icy steps, and we all agreed that the most painful part was the burning cold ground touching our bare feet. We all stayed in the sauna for a very long time after plunging, but some brave souls even went back into the water a second or third time!
After warming up in the saunas and showers, we changed back into our clothes to get ready for our tour of the sports institute. Our guide Jenny showed us all the awesome facilities that were on the campus. She told us that the Kisakillio Sports Institute is a non-profit foundation that offers sports, education and facilities for amateur and professional athletes. It is one of the biggest training and education centers in Europe. There are even dormitory and apartment like facilities for the athletes to live. She first showed us a beautifully waxed blue and tan court used for Finnish basketball, a popular indoor sport here in Finland. We saw some senior citizens practicing their curling skills on the ice for the Championship this weekend and we were all impressed with the skills we saw. Jenny showed us a few more courts and arenas that the facility uses for all the sports athletes train for- handball, beach volleyball, gymnastics, orienteering, curling and wheelchair curling, ice hockey, and figure skating, to name a few.
We all enjoyed the tour around the sports facility, but from the boat to the bus to the plunge, we all had a long day. Most of us napped again on the way back to the hotel and were ready to go out and explore Helsinki’s downtown shopping area. Groups went their own way and found souvenirs, gifts (looking at you, Mom), and dinners, whether it was a pomegranate, goat cheese and arugula pizza or a sandwich to go from a cafe. We’re all ready for a good night’s sleep (especially one where we’re not rocking back and forth) and a fun day tomorrow!
To sum it all up, we had a great, but busy and exhausting day. Finland is so different from any of the other Scandinavian countries. The language especially sticks out as something new, that we haven’t experienced before. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish all have somewhat similar sounds, as they come from the Germanic language family. Finnish stems from the Uralic language family, and so looks and sounds starkly different. It should be interesting figuring out different words in this country as we have in the others! We’ll use one new Finnish word we learned today to sign off for tonight:
Moi moi!
(Goodbye!)
-Sarah Bale and Sarah Vanyo