Sight seeing, part kolme (3)

Although the sun never really came out today, the snow lightened up a bit and the temperature was in the teens (as opposed to below zero), so I took the opportunity to spend most of the day outside. If I would have known it was going to be "nice" today, I would have taken a train into the country. But by the time I emerged, blinking in the outside world, it was too late. So I just explored Helsinki.

My mission was threefold (apart from just seeing the sights): Find a yarn shop so I could get supplies to make a decent hat (my fleece hat from when I worked at the Biltmore Estates is just not cutting it), find somewhere with a greater selection of brewing supplies and get stuff to make an IPA (the store where we got the other stuff only had lagers, not the most forgiving type of homebrew), and find a set of chopsticks (I know, that's not very Scandinavia, but it just feels so weird to eat some things with a fork).

Mission one was a total success! I found a really nice yarn shop in the "Design district" of the city.

The design district:

 

The Design Forum of Finland (I don't really know what that means):

 

And the yarn shop I found! 

It was wonderful. The Finn's really love to knit. Most of the hats and mittens you see people wearing are handmade, so their yarn shop had a great selection of  natural fiber yarns of all different colors and textures. I was surprised by how (relatively) affordable it was too. 

 

I left very happy with yarn and needles to make a hat. 

After that I went on a "walking tour of Helsinki" from my Rick Steves' Scandinavia book. It only took about an hour, and most of the stuff I'd already seen, but at least I can say I've hit most of the highlights now. And here's a virtual tour: 

Esplanade. A park with the city's main shopping boulevards on each side. Back in the 1800's this was where the city cows would graze. Imagine! 

 

Here's a fancy little coffee place in the middle of the park:

 

Havis Amanda, "Daughter of the Balitc." I'll have to check it out in the spring time when it's actually a fountain:

"Restaurant" [author's note: This wasn't part of the tour. I just added it myself]

Floating hotels [part of the tour]

Czarina's Stone. The double-headed eagle of imperial Russia. Man, the American eagle only has one head. We need to work on that. 

[I added this myself too]

The City Hall. Originally built as Helsinki's first hotel.

The Lutheran Cathedral. The grandest thing I've ever known a Lutheran to build.

But still not quite as grand as the Russian Orthodox Cathedral:

Thanks Rick Steves! That was a good time.

I still had two tasks left to accomplish. Finding an IPA kit turned out to be a complete failure. The chopstick mission is debatable. I ended up going to Stockmann Department Store (the Finnish version of Macy's or Harrods) and found a deli where they were selling ready-made takeout sushi, and swiped a pair of those disposable chopsticks they have setting around like plastic straws. Maybe I can sand them down and oil them or something...