Sauna Gnomes

Helsinki, Finland

Today’s blog will be relatively short, as we haven’t had a very eventful day. We slept in a little (not as easy as you’d think with the sun rising at 3:00 a.m. or so) and checked out of our cabin. A sad moment for both us because we enjoyed our time there so very much.

After that, we made the 2.5 hour drive from Mikkeli to Helsinki (a little shorter this time, because we didn’t have any stops along the way). Josh dropped me and the luggage off at the train station and then returned the car to the rental place a half mile away before joining us. From there, we took the metro and a tram to our hotel in downtown Helsinki.

We arrived around 4:00 in the afternoon with plenty of time to go to the Helsinki City Museum. It was a surprisingly well done city museum (especially for having no entry charge). The permanent exhibit took patrons through a history of Helsinki with a few unique collections (like a crime scene photo exhibit from the prohibition era, a recreated studio apartment from the 1950s and a skateboard exhibit from the ‘90s).

Upstairs was a fun lounge with swinging chairs and an temporary exhibit called “Objections,” which featured exhibits on rebellious acts and people in Helsinki’s history - right up my alley.

After the city museum, we did our own walking tour of Helsinki - which has proven much smaller than I expected. We visited the big white Helsinki Lutheran Cathedral and the brick Orthodox Church (Uspenski Cathedral) and a few public squares.

We ended the evening out with dinner at a Tex-mex restaurant that was surprisingly good and a visit to The Fazer 8th Floor Champaign Bar. I enjoyed a champaign tasting while Josh had a delicious French 75 (that I ended up drinking most of, anyway).

We’ve started to worry that Helsinki may be a little too small to keep our attention for three more full days and the weather is supposed to be cold and rainy tomorrow and Sunday. So. . . Josh is looking into flight deals for Stockholm, Sweden and we’re thinking of checking out early and ending our trip in Sweden instead.

I’ll end tonight’s post with a little fairytale we read about and found creepy yet charming. In Finland every sauna propertedly has a Sauna Gnome who looks after the sauna and watches to make sure people inside exhibit good behaviors (no drinking, no sleeping, no clothes and no sitting your naked booty directly on the benches). Those who fail to have good sauna manners face the wrath of the sauna gnome - though it is unclear what power or authority to issue punishments said gnome actually has.