Tuesday 29 July 2014

Day 4 - Porvoo


Today we went to Porvoo. We took a Bus from the modern art to the Porvoo Bus station. Lily prebooked the tickets for a VERY cheap price, thus it was only 2€ each for a 45 minute drive. 
When went to a Cafe / Restaurant just by the bus stop called "Cabriole", I had a Feta Sandwich with some aubergine, salad and melon plus a tea to refill as much as I want for 11,80€.  It was very delicious! They also have awesome looking cakes, which are too pretty to eat :3




 We went to the old city of Porvoo to see some shops. Everything looked really old and pretty! There were a lot of nostalgic and antique shops but of course also souvenir shops!
I went to buy postcards at "Sadunhenki" near a marketplace, they have nice and cheap ones there and also some other souvenirs!







The road lead us to a Lutheran church. The roof was rebuild in 2006 after a fire, this is why not everything is painted from the inside. The entrance is free.




















Near the church are the "devil steps", it doesn't even look like a proper way all the way through, but it was nice and calm, without any other tourist, and the houses were all very pretty!

Porvoo is the 2nd oldest town of Helsinki, which is why a lot of people go there :)
 



We walked down the hill to get to the river. It all looked nice and calm.


For lunch we went to the restaurant "zum Beispiel" (German: for example) we all had a freshly made Tomato soup wit sheep cheese for 9€, bread with oil and acetto was free. 
After we went to a sweet shop to buy loads of chocolate, my favourites are "orange" chocolate drops and rice-chocolates, the last one is made without milk and sugar and still tastes wonderful!



 We went back with a slower bus which went around the countryside of Finland, it was 12€ per person and took 1hour and 15minutes.

For dinner I got some lemonade, a cheese sandwich and a heart filled with a chocolate - milk cream. YUMMY!
 


  Lisa~

Monday 28 July 2014

Day 3 - Helsinki

This is going to be really picture heavy!!

Kamppi - Chapel
Chapel from inside
Today the 3 of us met at Kamppi Centre around 10 am. We first went to the Kamppi - Chapel which is located right there.
The Chapel of silence is supposed to be a place of silence in the capital city. There are no services or ceremonies held inside, this is only for individual people wanting some silence. 
It was planned by the architects Kimmo Lintula, Niko Sirola and Mikko Summanen and it won "The Chicago Athenaeum International Architecture Award 2010". 
It is opened every day, Mon - Fri 7am - 8pm and Sat + Sun 10am - 6pm. The entrance is free.


Lutheran Cathedral

View from top

Inside the Cathedral

Inside the Cathedral

inside Cathedral

inside Cathedral - Martin Luther

inside Cathedral
 We got a bubble tea to cool us down and right after we went to the Lutheran Cathedral.






















The Cathedral is opened every day from 9am to 6pm, from June to August even until midnight.
There is no entrance fee but there is no sightseeing allowed during services which are: Mon - noon, Tue - 10pm and noon, Wed to Fri - noon, Sat - 6pm, Sun - 10am.





Market at Harbour

















We went through some small streets and went to a market place in a building with delicious looking foods inside. I got some green tea.
We then went along the water, to get to the Orthodox Cathedral.




















The orthodox church is sadly closed on Mondays, thus we couldn't go inside, but the outside view was also great and there was a mini waterfall on one side of it.








We had a small lunch (me : strawberry-banana smoothie and a cheese sandwich) at Kamppi centre in "Beanie". It was really great, and they press their apple juice directly which tastes wonderful!












 We went to a cathedral which was build in Stone, it looks great and from the inside you would never think there is a church inside. There is also a "normal" piano inside, and the sound is awesome!
The entrance is free (WC is 1€) and it is opened every day.






Near Kamppi centre we found a small Japanese store "Tokyokan" and we got some Ramune there :D
After we sat down near the Chapel of silence and we wrote some postcards.















For dinner we had Sushi a little outside of Helsinki, the 3 of us had a medium menu with tea. It was really yummy, my veggie menu was great too! The train tickets in Helsinki for one hour were 2,50€ each.






After dinner we got some sweet drinks "King Kong Coffee" and "Banana Cowboy" if I remember correctly.






The last thing we did today was going to a K market where I got Moomin Tea, Liquorice from Moomin and Angry Birds (which I will share with some of my pen pals) and Angry Birds chewing gum.

Lisa~

Sunday 27 July 2014

Day 2 - Helsinki


This night, I couldn't sleep at all. You might not believe it but temperatures got around 30°C today, which was just too hot to sleep.


Well anyway, today I met up with Lily (without my mum) at Kamppi centre around 11:30, we both were early though >.<
It is really great to know her in person now and I was very glad that she would show me around!






Our first priority was getting some cold bubbletea which was super great for me, because all the stores I know in Germany, are closed by now - what a shame!





Next we went to the Ateneum which has a Tove Jansson exhibition right now. The usual price for each ticket is 12€, if you have a student ID you can go in for 11€ and under 18-s are free of charge - lucky them.
The Museum is opened Tuesday to Sunday, on Tue and Fri 10am - 18pm, Wed and Thu 9am - 8pm and Sat + Sun 10am - 5pm.
Sadly no photos were allowed to be taken, thus I can't show you how great it looked from the inside.
For those of you who don't know Tove Jansson: she lived from 9th August 1914 to 27th June 2001. She was both born in Helsinki, and died here. She was an artist, writer and illustrator  best known for the Moomins, I hope you know them!
Not only did the Museum show Paintings and Illustrations be Jansson, they also had a couple of three-dimensional Moomin tableaux' by Tuulikki Pietilä.
If you'll be in Helsinki until 7th September, this exhibition is really worth a visit!!




We then went to a Moomin shop, the prices are very high, but I decided to get a reusable tea"bag" for 9€. I am tea addicted, thus I will use it a lot!
Postcards and an envelope
Moomin Postcards and Stamps
Postcard

We then did some postcard + book shopping. I got 3 Moomin postcards, one for my 7 year old (girl-) cousin, one for a Japanese pen pal and one for me, plus 6 Moomin Stamps. Then I got 4 really well designed postcards by Putinki Oy (Badland) and a cute envelope plus a "normal" stamp.
In another store I got this round postcard for myself and in a bookstore I got "Clockwork Angel" by Cassandra Clare, the prequel to "City of Bones" (which I haven't read yet, I'll just start with the prequel xD).



We went to have a very late breakfast around 3pm at a small breakfast-restaurant inspired by Tintin (the comic), where it also got it's name from. I really liked how they had a special Veggie breakfast plate. For 10,80€ i got 2 bread rolls, 3 slices each of cheese, tomato, salad and cucumber, some apple, a red juice, which I thought might contain cherry, a smoothie containing pineapple and as much tea /coffee as you want. Also you have free Wifi inside and even a washing machine for your clothes if you like! It is located outside of the city centre though.












We then went to the Linnanmäki park by foot. The entrance is free, you only have to pay if you want to go on the attractions, and that leaves you with a couple of choices: you can get a ticket for every attraction you want to go to, they are 8€ each, no matter where you want to go to, you can get a day ticket for 39€ allowing you to go on as many rides as you want, or you can take the afternoon fee for 30€ from 5pm until the park closes at 8pm.
Inside the park there are also touchscreens with a map of the park, which show you the attractions, and there is a Sea life inside (you get the tickets for half the price if you already have a day ticket for the park).




Lily and I decided to go on 3 rides because we were tired already from all the walking. We went into the Fun House, and on 2 water rides, on one we only got a tiny bit wet, on the other we got soaked!







We walked back to Kamppi centre and went to a groceries store, I found my favourite teas: "Strawberry Cupcake" and "Blueberry Muffin" from Lipton, and also some cool Lemonade from Moomins and Angry Birds which I just had to buy! So yummy!





Lily also got me some GREAT presents!
Towel and cup of the Moomins, a selection of teas, the 3rd book of the precious stone series (I am just reading the first) and postcard of Camilla d'Errico, who I love as an artist!
I really can't thank you enough Lily!

I hope my presents could just give back a little (after all it was HER birthday only 4 days ago!) .




Lisa~