Arrival in Helsinki

Our Ferry pulled into Helsinki at about 8:00 AM local time, under drizzly and gray skies. We had decided to take the train to Kiira's family's house in Pori (check out this map to see the locations of all of our stops in Finland). We wandered around Helsinki for a few hours, having only enough time to see the major sights such as the Helsinki Cathedral and the Dormition Cathedral. After a few hours we got on a train to Pori, which had some of the neatest bike racks we encountered. The rack extended down from the roof, hooked onto the handlebars, and was spring-loaded to automatically lift the bike vertically against the wall. Then, a key on the lock could be turned and kept until the end of the train ride to ensure no one walked off with our bikes. The train also had special enclosures for cell phone use, which are ubiquitous in the country that is home to Nokia (much more prevalent than here - there are many more cell phones in use than there are people. In fact, the public payphone is essentially non-existent in Finland because of this.) Otherwise, the trip was unremarkable and we watched the countryside slide by on our way to Pori...