Helsinki, Finland

On Sunday, we arrived in Helsinki, Finland. Much to our surprise, the beautiful weather held up - and we had another gorgeous day shoreside.

We took another boat tour - this time, around the Soumelina Fortress and the surrounding islands of Helsinki. As we were passing all of these beautiful lake homes, I remarked to Jay that I was ready to move here. But a few seconds later, our tour guide reminded us that the 19 hours of daylight turns into virtually 7 hours of daylight in the winter, and told us a joke that went something like this. A man said to another Helsinki-an, "Oh, what a beautiful summer we had." And the other man said, "Yes, it was lovely. The only disappointment was that I had to work that day." So, in short, I guess we were lucky to have the beautiful weather - and the city truly was gleaming that day.

After our boat tour, we had a short time ashore to visit some local vendors (Kate got a gorgeous Finnish dress - and Jack selected a wallet).

It was a lovely city - and I will be anxious to share our experience with my Uncle Buddy and Aunt Geri, who lived here when Bev and Kathy were just little ones. Uncle Buddy still returns frequently - and it was nice to be able to picture this place that I had heard about for so long.

When we got back to the ship, we took advantage of the great weather to swim again with the kids. We had an early dinner at the casual buffet, and then got everyone to bed early - in preparation for our next day's arrival in Russia.