Helsinki on a Saturday

This morning we accidentally slept in and barely got breakfast before it was closed. It was a good breakfast and a full breakfast and held us through the day as these free hotel breakfasts are best utilized to do. No pictures of it though. The hotel we stayed at for the two nights of the conference did not have breakfast but I supplemented it with snacks from the conference and the free lunch we received both days in the University Cafe. It was not pleasant food. Makes me happy I’m not in college any longer. Here is a picture of the building at the Univ. of Helsinki where the conference was held.

Pretty non-descript and sits right in the middle of the city. I walked past it the first evening without a clue I would be spending two days there. It is best known in my world for being the locale of the New Finnish Interpretation of Luther initiated by Tuomo Mannermaa. And you thought Finns were just pretty faces.
So after that tangent we headed into Helsinki from our spot in Espoo which is next door to Helsinki. We wandered the city for a bit as we window shopped and tried to find some finds. It is an expensive city soit is hard to want to spend money while at the same time you want to buy all kinds of things. Lucky for the pocket book many shops were closed on the weekend.
Helsinki seems to exhale design on so many levels that you simply breathe it in while walking the streets. It makes you feel good about life and future it holds even when Mr. Putin is right next door.
Time for some pictures

This is a chapel in one of the main squares called Kamppi (both the square and the chapel go by the name). It was purposed with providing a quiet place for prayer and meditation in the midst of the city bustle. In tourist season I don’t think it succeeds but I hope for the rest of the year that it might. It is dramatic in its effect and I think is also a nice counterpoint to the steel and concrete which surrounds it.
I showed the picture before of the boy peeing near the main harbor market and found the title for the sculpture so I thought I should share it again.

In the afternoon we met an old friend who lives in Helsinki. He is not old, just a guy I haven’t seen for over 25 years. But that will have to wait till the morning as I need to fall asleep in order to get early in order to fall asleep on flight across the ocean in order to not fall asleep on the drive back up to Duluth tomorrow. That’s the plan anyway. So is a flight free of Icelandic Ash.