Helsinki ... finally!

Oh, boy. We're finally in Helsinki and I am finally able to get on the Internet. My computer needed to have some settings changed, but it took two days for me to figure out which settings. It's nearly midnight on Monday and I must go to sleep, but before that, a quick overview of the last three days.

Saturday morning we went back to the old town in Stockholm and had a closer look at the place without the cold wind and the jet lag. We visited the King's armory, which has some amazing pieces of Swedish history, including several Kings' bloody clothes (they often met their demise in war), swords, and armors. It's definitely worth seeing. Then we got our luggage and took the red line to the Silja ferry. We started with a dinner buffet on the boat and then admired the karaoke of some not-so-musically-talented fellow passengers. Lucky for us, the Eurovision song contest was broadcast live from Belgrad, Serbia, and for the following three hours, the ship's Idol wannabes had to stay quiet (Russia won, by the way, and will host the next year's contest). Others in our group decided to see the Ironman movie on board and got to bed a tiny bit earlier than the Eurovision group, a fact evident the following morning when we arrived in Helsinki.

So far, Helsinki's weather has been great, and we've seen quite a bit of the city, mostly riding on trams. This morning we visited the Parliament of Finland and a 250-yr. old island fortress, Suomenlinna, outside Helsinki. Our health care visits start tomorrow at the Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia, where we will learn about the training of midwives in Finland. After that we will visit a maternity hospital. Pictures and more comments coming up on Wednesday. Moikka!