August 8, 1998, Saturday

The buffet breakfast included with the price of the room had a great variety of choices, such as three kinds of lunch meat, three kinds of cheese, fresh fruit, soft boiled eggs, several hot items including stewed mushrooms and three kinds of juice. The Russians on the cruise boat could learn a lot from these Fins. Their meals were on the skimpy side.

The Helsinki city tour started from Market Square by the water front at 11:00 a.m. One stop on the metro got me within a couple of blocks away. There were coin operated WC’s (toilets) by the square. The door opened when I put in two one mark coins. There were supposed to be self flushing but the one I was in was not working very well.

At 11:00 a.m. I boarded a sightseeing bus with a guide who spoke English and Finnish. All the seats were full. There were two notable places we visited. One was the rock church which was Lutheran. The walls were natural rock in a circular grotto. A striking room had been built in a circular dome shape, the center of which was solid with a copper ceiling. The remainder of the roof was skylight. It was a pleasant building to be in.

The second worthwhile sight was the Sibelius monument, a memorial to the composer. It was an outside sculpture to represent a pipe organ constructed out of stainless steel. Off to the side was the stainless steel head of the composer when he was a younger man. The whole was extremely eye-catching and spectacular. The rest of the tour was the usual view of public buildings and embassies.

In the evening I returned t the dance hall where the three piece band played waltzes, polkas, jive, and slow music and played them well. There were many more single women there than men. There was a long bar on a raised platform behind a railing. Many of the men lined up along the railing. It was really like an old fashioned stag line. It was the closest thing to the dance halls we grew up with. Many of the men were extremely rude on the floor. They pushed the other dancers out of their way with no attempt at an apology.