On my way to the museum du jour, I walked by the Helsinki Parliament building. I'm not sure what was going on, however, lining the stairs were thousands of potted flowering plants, mostly Gerbia daisies. It was attracting a lot of attention and was just set up yesterday. A news search hasn't helped in finding explanation, but I'll keep my eyes peeled because it was such a curious and large display.
The aforementioned museum du jour happened to be the
National Museum of Finland which is a museum of the anthropology, history and culture of Finland. I thought I would mix it up a bit here, foregoing the botanical garden and the natural history museum. The stained glass window in the stairwell celebrating
archaeologia, historia and ethnographia like saints in a cathedral. Within the halls of Finnish furniture was a line of grandfather clocks. Amidst them exists a nightmare, clearly one of them will come to life in the night!
I enjoyed the signs throughout the exhibits asking, "find the odd one out?" a "which one of these is not like the other?" scavenger hunt. Like a cell phone hidden in with neolithic pottery and sherds. Not tricky stuff, but when only half the exhibits had English explanations, it was entertaining none the less.
This evening we were treated to a boat tour. Two of Mark's work partners in Helsinki offered to give us a tour of Helsinki and parts of the surrounding archipelago on their motorboat. This was an amazing way to see the city and that corner of the Baltic Sea.
We envied the chalets hidden on the wooded islands. So many people out sailing made us miss our catamaran which has sat neglected. The kayakers, fishermen and swimmers in the channels. The water clearly an important part of Finnish recreation. They get seals as the only large sea animals in these waters, the occasional dolphin but only when they are quite lost.
What was particularly striking was the amazing geology we were seeing. We saw this on the fortress island we were on too. Finland is made of granites and gneisses, great boulders and layers showing fantastic deformation patterns right up to the waters edge. Apparently the water can have depths up to 25 meters right on the shore's edge.
We capped the night by boating right up to a restaurant on the water's edge. We couldn't have planned a better night and are grateful to our hosts for offering a great boat ride in the Baltic.