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Tuesday 4 August 1998

Slideshow Pictures

Arrived back at the Kalastajatorppa around 7:00 p.m. This time we were given a room in the main building of the hotel. The room was nice but it didn’t have a view. It looked onto the round restaurant building. We unpacked and went out for dinner. On Mannerheimintie we found a Mexican restaurant. After dinner we went back to the hotel.

Wednesday 5 August 1998

After breakfast at the hotel Iiris came and we went back to the tori in our car.

We had Lihapiirakkas (fried doughnut stuffed with meat) and coffee in a tent.  Bought Dean a sweater and some souvenirs. Then we went to Itäkeskus, a large shopping center where we bought Iiris a butter dish, couple of cards, Rita bought some Q-tips and Iiris bought groceries. We had refreshments in a restaurant that was over the freeway and you could watch the traffic flow under you while you ate. Rita wanted to buy a bidet hose (common in Europe) but I managed to talk her out of it.

We stopped at Eine’s apartment who had set a lovely coffee table and had some fried cheese, cakes and pastries.

Then back to the hotel where Iiris collected her car and we followed her to Aili’s house. Her son Markku was there along with her daughter Helena and Rosemarie’s daughter Heidi. Markku was not very talkative and left a short while after we arrived.

Had stuffed cabbage after which we had cake and pastries.

We took several trips outside, to have a smoke and Aili also came out with her cat on a leash.

After dinner we said our good-byes and Heidi came with us to Kalastajatorppa. Rachel went to bed and we had a few drinks with Heidi in the cocktail lounge before we went to bed.

Thursday August 6

Had breakfast at the hotel, packed and went to meet Iiris and Heidi at the ferry terminal restaurant. As soon as we arrived at the restaurant, Iiris took out her sphygmomanometer, and proceeded to take our blood pressure at the table. The wide eyed Finns, sitting in the restaurant, must have thought we were carrying some communicable disease, possibly Infectious Canadianitus (the compulsive behavior of saying "EY?" at the end of each sentence). If you go to Finland and hear somebody say "Mitenka voit ey?’ you’ll know they have been infected. But any ways, I’m sure some of the patrons at the restaurant came down with some psychosomatic illnesses afterwards. Even we weren’t sure, whether we were going to make it back to Canada, but Iiris assured us that we were OK to take the ferry trip.

Then they gave us a short tour of Helsinki. Saw a couple of toris, churches, parks, etc. but did not get out of the car because the weather was miserable. Stopped for lunch at a restaurant on the water front. Every time Iiris reached for her purse we thought she would take out some tongue depressants, cotton swabs or other medical testing paraphernalia. At the restaurant table Rita mentioned to Heidi to give her regrets about forgetting to phone Heidi’s mother Rosemarie to say good-bye, and thought it would be left at that. Heidi promptly pulled out her cell phone, phone her mother and handed it over to Rita, who could hardly hear her over the phone because of all the murmur in the restaurant.

It turned out that Rosemarie was at the ferry dock anyway waiting with Kaj, Annika and their sons who had stayed at their place to see the Rolling Stones concert in Helsinki. So we drove back to the ferry terminal, which was close by, and met everybody there.

Received some gifts from Rosemarie, took some pictures, and soon we were on the ferry and off to Sweden.