Goodbye to Finland, I love Finland

I went to and from Mariehamn aboard the Silja Symphony (sorry the picture is so dark). It was full of "moving cargo", (Captain Piotr's least favourite kind of cargo!), and after dropping some of us off in Mariehamn it headed to Sweden. It was a very glamorous ship with shops and restaurants and entertainment. Mariehamn and Godby are on the Aland islands in the middle of the Baltic Sea. Although Aland is a Finnish territory, everyone speaks Swedish and it is Swedish culture there. I loved the red soil. All the roads were pink like PEI. Very pretty.

Mariehamn and Godby, both very pretty towns
I arrived in Mariehamn on Sunday morning at 4:15. I walked into the deserted town and when I got cold (about 7am) I found a 24 hour Shell station where I went in and had coffee and warmed up. I went in again later for a warmup and then found a coffee shop open at 10. I went to the library at noon and stayed there until my bus left at 1:55 for Godby.

In Godby, I stayed at a very interesting hostel, in a dorm room that has 24 beds. I was the only one though!

The hostel was the old school, and I enjoyed having breakfast in the "staff room". I went into the town of Godby and saw the 'new' school which was closed because it's Winter Break! I saw evidence of kids though when I walked around their beautiful playground.

I went into the library which is attached and spoke to the librarian. She told me that there was a factory that made medical gauze and that many of the people worked for the shipping industry, and ferry, She was quite sad about the warm weather, finding the weather very weird. She told me that last year was weird too, snowing in May. I found pussywillows and snowdrops on my ramble.

I came across an interesting cemetery. It was a pre-Christian burial ground, where the person's ashes, put into an urn and their other tools and belongings were buried and covered by a huge mound, like little hills.

I also went to a second hand store called Emmaus.

I saw another "Emmaus" in Mariehamn yesterday. In the schoolhouse hostel there was a hard cover book all about the thrift store, the people that run it and the charity it provides. I bought a pair of earrings for 1 euro since I had lost one from the pair I bought in Pachacamac Peru!

I wandered into the supermarket too and stopped myself from buying this giant fish pillow for my brother Keith

I was reminded in the toy section about "Moomin" which is the character I now see everywhere--Anna told me about it when I was in Rovaniemi, and you know how once you've been introduced you see it everywhere? Also, Angry Birds was invented by the Finns, so that's everywhere too.

Back in Helsinki 

When I got back to Helskinki this morning, I first went to the Eurohostel where I've stayed each time I've been back to Helsinki and it feels like home! I spent the afternoon in Suomenlinna.   https://www.suomenlinna.fi/en/

Suomenlinna is a Unesco World Heritage Site on an island which I got to by ferry (or what they've called a water bus). The buildings there are so beautiful and the barracks too, all made of stone, so beautiful.

The church was very interesting too. After the Russian revolution, when the Finnish people claimed the fortress, the Byzantine Orthodox trappings were removed and the church was renovated into a Lutheran one. The church claims the biggest bell in Finland and is a functioning lighthouse as well.

I spent a lovely sunny afternoon there in Suomenlinna. I had my last Finn baked good in honour of Mailiis, 

I also stopped in at the Sibelius monument.

Tonight, I shall have my final sauna. The sauna here in the hostel is really nice. Early tomorrow I'll be on a ferry to Tallinn, Estonia where I will catch a bus that goes through Latvia and Lithuania to get to Poland where I will visit Krakow.