Monday, June 25, 2012

Eurotrip 2012 - Day 10 (6/24) - Helsinki

We woke up in time to get a quick breakfast at the hotel before taking a taxi to the Linda Lines terminal at the port. I also found out that the sole of my right shoe was coming off, but it thankfully was not too bad just yet. We took the 10 AM boat (the same catamaran) back to Helsinki. It was pretty cold (perhaps 50 °F) and windy out when we arrived, but we braved the weather to walk to the Uspenski Cathedral. After that we walked to the nearest metro station, with a stop at the Helsinki Cathedral so Steffi could go inside this time, and took that 2 stops to Kamppi before walking back to the hostel.

After freshening up in the room and eating Joe's leftover pizza that was in the fridge, Steffi and I asked at the front desk for a nearby shoemaker/cobbler and we were directed to Kamppi again. We walked over there and found the place (Kamppi Suutari), and the guy there was able to fix my shoe in about 20 minutes for only €11. We swung by the movie theater and decided to return in about an hour for the 5:15 showing of Prometheus in 3D. We went to the nearby frozen yogurt place (JoGo) and then walked up to the Rock Church, just like Joe and I had done a couple of days prior. After checking out the church, we wandered in search of (Sokos) Hotel Torni, which has a bar that afforded some great views of Helsinki. We couldn't find it, despite getting directions from a souvenir shop worker who seemed excited about the place. We eventually asked some police officers, who gave us directions again, but had to return to the theater for the movie (which was super expensive - €29 for both of us - and had assigned seating). After watching the movie we did eventually find the hotel, and we went up to the Ateljee Bar. We checked out the balcony view and then Steffi also checked out the women's restroom, which was hyped as having a similarly spectacular view.

The next order of business was finding dinner. We looked and asked around for a Finnish restaurant, but we couldn't find one that was open. So we settled on a Nepalese and Middle Easter restaurant - I went the Nepalese route with the butter chicken, a misleading name since the sauce is tomato based. After dinner we walked back to Elmo Bar,which was packed this time, to watch the England vs. Italy quarterfinal game despite their €3 cover charge. The match went to penalty kicks, with Italy triumphing, so we didn't get back to the hostel until after midnight.

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