Living in London

Helsinki from a bus window	Pilot boat

One of our tour guides told us that many consider the Nordic summer to be three months in length - May, June, and July. She joked that the seasons are "nine months of anticipation followed by three months of disappointment." 

Today we had a brief stop in Helsinki, Finland where winter may have already begun .The weather was intensely stormy, so we spent only a few hours in the city. We hopped on a shuttle bus provided by the ship to the city centre, where we visited the Museum of Contemporary Art (waaaaay too post-modern for us) and managed to purchase a newspaper - a real treat in spite of the little one page summary of news we receive on-board ship each day. Back to the ship to enjoy the storm, and our departure from Helsinki, from deck 11 where tea and cakes were served. 

We also observed a phenomena we had noticed before as we were leaving port - a small official-looking boat would come tearing up to the side of our ship, and a man would jump over from our deck 4 to this small boat. Today we learned that we have to have a port "pilot" on-board to guide us out of the harbour until we are a certain distance out. Presumably this pilot knows all the nuances of exiting through the channels, etc. Once his work is done, his ride home is that little boat.