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| Unisex urinal |
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| Sibellius monument |
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| Sibellius park |
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| Trams and busses |
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| Another pretty park |
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| Bike lane by my apt |
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| Sibellius monument |
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| Another nice park |
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| Yup says unisex urinal |
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| Nice part of town |
OK well now at least the blogging and photos are somewhat coming together, i think from what i can tell people mostly like the photos lol... and i also think i should keep my face out of them, i know i don't particularly care to have my face in front of whatever the subject is, why? just to prove i was there lol lol.... geez ok...
now i'm trying a new format that will allow bigger photos and hopefully the captions and explanations that go along with them will upload too we will see....
A busy and full day, i made good use of the bike share program today i must have ridden 3-4 hours all around the cruise port and stopped in to prep for Saturday morning cruise to Tallinn, the 5 tram goes right to the port building and once inside they have self check in kiosks where i will receive a boarding pass then the long walk to the ship and up to the 7th deck there is a luggage check room.
Then i rode around the harbor separate bike lanes most all the way, a few places shared with pedestrians there was a craft fair going on with lots of food tents too (it was windy and cold by the shore had a wind advisory) almost stopped at the reindeer burger tent lol... reindeer fried rice anyone ? reindeer stew ? i say no thank you deer and rode a while more came to a really nice park a higher rent district than i've seen before lots of well dressed people walking designer dogs of all type, and the nicest outdoor fitness equipment you have ever seen, so i parked the bike in the nearby kiosk (you only get one hour at a time or they charge extra so i rode and docked about 5 times today) ... then did abot 15-20 minutes of light stretching and weight lifting for my shoulders and it was pretty good... then back on the bike went quite a ways til i got tired then went back to the apt for lunch and more work on the blog...
As i'm working on this i get the idea to look up the hockey team and the Helsinki pro hockey team has a home game tomorrow night, so i figure to go if i can get all packed and ready... it's a 730 game should be done by 10ish back by 11 should be ok for a 730 wake up Saturday morning, so hey look up transit and it's right on the 3 or 7 tram line way up by Toolo... so why not go up there take a ride see what it looks like, i mean i try to buy a ticket on ticketmaster no i'm restricted for some reason, either french number or usa number i guess ? so ride up there an it's right next to the olympic stadium (they had the summer olympics here in 1952) so i can look at both maybe, well the tram stopped right before the stadium but i'm looking for a bikeshare station and none there so i'll ride on, well it was a few more stops and a few tram turns before i spot the yelo bikes and jump off, well then i start off what i thought was the right way but you know how that goes, a mile or so later down a couple big hills it's check the map oh yeah i went 180 the wrong way.. so back up the hills well this time i overshoot it again and i'm by the harbor again right about where i turned back today from the other direction, by the nice park... welll now i see another park going up the hill again i think i'll cut through on the gravel paths it's shorter by the map... well this is where i see the porta potty's in a row there about 4 of them but like none you have ever seen before made of steel with electronic locks you push a "open" button, and it opens, lights come on and it's all stainless steel inside, it says "urinal" on the outside but shows a pic of both a man and woman... well see the pic craziest thing you ever saw big stainless steel bowl and you go then theres a button you push and water gushes out both sides and washes down the bowl clean. amazing... later i saw a few more of these around town now that i know what they are and no charge they are free and open to the public, and... no vandalism, no garbage nothing like what we are used to...
Continuing up the hill i come to the Sibellius monument which is the silver tubular bells picture, he was a famous composer from Finland/Sweden back in the day... that's another thing all the signs here the names of the tram and bus stops have 2 names a finnish and a swedish i guess ? Cuz Finland used to be Sweden way back when before the Russians took over for a while and then the Finns got it for themselves so both languages are common here.
Finally i get to the hockey rink and it's nothing special and the olympic stadium neither i mean they are just stadiums right ? from the outside you can't see much so... its only 2.4 km home i'll just ride lol... well you know what happens i get sidetracked wrong way end up downtown well i know my way from here i thot, i see a sign for Kallio that's where i am but it's a big area and i go up more big hills and overshoot it by a mile... hell with this i see a Lidl i'll stop there get a snack and take the metro down to Hakaniemi the next stop down from the apartment, well it's jam packed with people waiting in line i swear you never saw so many grocery stores either so i figure i'll just go to the Lidl by the apt, well the metro has 3 cops standing in front of the door so i don't know what's going on there so hell with it i'm walking... and i do for a while but it's 800 by now and i'm tired my feet are a little sore i come to a yelo bike stand well they won't unlock? tried 3-4 all the same, take my number and pin and ok but then an error message comes up in Finnish... only flashes on for a second or two. What does it matter it's not unlocking a bike for me so i look at the map and see i'm a 15 minutes walk this time i'm walking and checking the map at every turn and finally get here a good thing i saw a fast thai food kitchen just around the corner up a block or two so i may go there tomorrow...
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| Dressed for the windy chilly weather |
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| My ship sails Saturday morning |
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| Pretty harborside park |
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| Tram 5 comes right to the ship |
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| Have to look her up |
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| Tram 5 stop |
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| Craft show and... reindeer dog lol |
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| Looks lived in |
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| At the port |
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| Fried rice with Reindeer ? |
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| My ship across the harbor |
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