I got up early to go to walk over to the Cathedral for early
morning mass at 7:30. The morning was bright and the air just a little cool. By
the time I had rounded the bay, the sun was shining in head on and I had to
take off my coat.
St. Henrik’s Cathedral is small but nice marriage of the
typically modern Scandinavian design with the look of a Catholic church that
isn’t ashamed to be Catholic (which is how I’d describe some modern church
design – and if you disagree, drop me a line and I’ll talk your ear off). Mass
was in Finnish, and other than the fact that Finnish seems to take longer to
say than English, it was short and sweet.
When I got back, everyone got dressed and we went down to
breakfast. Afterwards we packed up and then while Maija and Kell went out for
one last shopping trip at Stockman’s, the rest of us stayed in the room, too
pooped out after yesterday.
When noon rolled the Anni and Kai tumbled the luggage
downstairs to the luggage room in our usual calamitous way. By this time I was
already sweating freely and was not eager to go back out into the sun, but when
we walked out the front door there was a nice breeze after all. We made it all
of us together to the Kauppatori and we did some last minute shopping and had
Sausages, peas, strawberries, blueberries, and donuts from the stands.
We got back at 1:30, but our 2pm taxi was already waiting,
so we got the bags and hopped in. After the usual confusion at the airport we
got checked in and through security (I was patted down and my bag sent back
twice while all my children looked on with disdain—“amateur!”).
The kids were a little disappointed that we didn’t have
videos on British Airways, but we did all get meals (instead of just the kids
as on Icelandair). Kai and I played hangman and we finished the
choose-your-own-adventure dragon story that he had been making up for me. I
died in the very last decision. Tragic.
On the way out the door, there was some confusion and they
had to close the door and while we were waiting they invited Kai to come up and
sit in the co-pilot chair.
Anyway, we got our bags, and found the rental agency with
fairly little trouble. Europcar does things a little differently from the Hertz
and Sixt. They assigned us a zone and said take any car. I’ve always had one
assigned. So spent a bunch of time trying our luggage in different trunks and
finally decided on the Fiat 500. Then a deep breath while I gather my wits to
hopefully stay on the right side (i.e., the left side) of the road all the way
home. Things actually went a lot better making our way out of the London
airport than the Helsinki airport, (but I just realized I haven’t published
that story yet).
We rolled up to Rod and Maria’s between 8 and 9 and the kids
played a little while in the backyard. Rod showed me around the house a little,
but it was time to head to Newbold housing where we’d be staying.
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