Today was our first full day in Finland. Even thought it is Friday - and we left for Finland on Wednesday the 28th, we didn't get here until the evening of the 29th, and just ate dinner and crashed. This morning we were feeling more like ourselves and ready to tackle the day. We are 7 hours ahead of our home in Massachusetts so it will take a few days to right ourselves.
First I want to state that this trip was completely set by Finley. This is her 16th birthday trip, and even though she is about to turn 17, we wanted to wait out Covid one more year before we traveled. So this summer she is cashing in that trip. She picked coming to Finland and all the activities that we are doing.
Today we started our day at an outdoor museum. It was pretty great. We had visited one of these in Switzerland, and this was very similar. They take houses from all over Finnland from different time periods, and move them to this museum where they can be preserved and visited. It was huge and we spent several hours walking around and exploring. The weather today was beautiful and quite hot for Finland.
After the museum, we headed back into the city (we took an Uber to the location to make getting there faster, and took one back) of Helsinki. We went to the National Library of Finland which was really neat to see. We saw a big beautiful church (but could not enter because there was a wedding taking place), and a town square that reminded us very much of the ones in Germany and Switzerland.
This evening Finley wanted to visit some shops to explore, so we found a very large 4 floor mall. We also went to a Moomin Shop. If you are not aware of this very weird show, it is very popular over here in Finland (they actually have a Moomin amusement park and a museum - the museum we are seeing at the end of the weekend). We had some dinner and came back to the apartment to relax for the rest of the night.
It was a great first day. There is English everywhere, and everyone speaks it. Not that I am surprised. Well - a little surprised about English being on every sign considering that was hard to come by when we lived in Basel. But here it is very easy to get around.
Houses that were in Seurassari Open Air Museum. It is on an island. It costs to go into the buildings (but the cost is minimal). Or you can just walk the grounds (which a lot of locals do) for free.
This is the church
