Day 9

Greetings from Helsinki, Finland.........
Before I get started on our day in Helsinki I wanted to tell you about last night. Kirah and me were on the newleywed game show on the boat. It was fun but Kirah related me to a VW bug can you believe it. (kirah: I was trying to make it funny!!) Oh well I guess I have the rest of my life to forgive her. Anyways we lost, the couple that had been together the longest won, but we got a concilary prize package so it wasn't too bad. Okay back to our day in Finland. We were scheduled to go see the Soumenlinna Island Fortress. So we jumped on our tour busses again and were off to the port. Just as a side note I was suprised at how many of these towns use boats to get around. In fact St. Petersburg is called the Venice of the north. Also as another side note I cant believe how many American made cars are here. Kirah laughs at me cause I look at all the cars while we are touring. But anyway back to the story. When we got off of the bus a cold wind started blowing off of the ocean. Since neither of us had a coat poor Kirah had goose bumps the whole time. We then borded the ferry which took us out to the fort on the island. As we were riding out I noticed that there were houses on some of these little islands. I guess some people have there own island, how would that be. But as we came up to the island there was an old diesel submarine that was pulled from the water and on display. I guess it was built around WWII with seven other subs at the docks in Finland. Then our boat pulled up to the docks and we went ashore. There we grouped up and started our walk around the island. There they showed us the ramparts and took us up to the seaside to look at some old russian cannons. At the cannons the wind was blowing very hard so Kirah got cold and went back inland. I took a few more pic's then went back with her. As we were waiting for the tour to return this crazy duck came crashing in by where we were standing. It stood up and shook off looking around at me and Kirah. It then walked right up and just stood right next to kirah. It wasn't scared at all it just waited the whole time we stood there. After that we followed the tour guide to a little cafe and chatted with a couple from california and walked down to a nice little pond. It was supposed to be for officers of the old days to send there wifes to relax while they worked. Then we went through a couple more ramparts and met our little boat to take us back to shore. There we had a little bit of time to go shopping. We found these little glass birds that were blue and red and also we got a hand blown glass vase. We got our souvineers and hurried back to meet the bus. then we came back to write you this. Can't believe the cruise is already winding down I was just getting used to being a tourist. Oh well no sense dwelling on it. Oh ya I almost forgot tonight they have the chocoholic buffet. they are supposed to have everything choclate you can think of. I guess we will put a few pounds on tonight. So we just went to dinner and on our way back we started to become a celebrity for our debut on the newlywed show. One lady asked if we were bugged that everyone walking passed us smiled cause they saw us on tv??