The ferry to Helsinki was uneventful, save for a very expensive buffet. At one point I tried to find a comfortable place to sit and maybe sleep for a few minutes, but discovered all the good spots were already taken by folks who were already sleeping! That appears to be the thing to do on the early morning crossing. Pulling into the Helsinki harbor, though, I saw the most brilliant

Summer house

thing – a tiny island with a tiny house on it! I found out later this is a traditional summer house and all the Finns either have one of their own or have friends with one so they go there for several days to several weeks in the summer.

I’m learning that Finns tend to spend the winter, dark months living like zombies, annoyed at the world, locked away inside their own places and thoughts. But come summer, they light up like fireworks, enjoying the sunlight, listening to music and generally enjoying each other’s company. It is really, from my understanding, a tale of two worlds.

So anyway, off the boat, heavy pack loaded on and meet Jennica and Tommy at the dock. Jennica, as you’ll recall, I met in Prague and Tommy is her significant other. He had taken the morning off work so they could come get me in the car to take my stuff back to the house and then he was going back to the set (he makes TV/Commercials) and Jennica and I were going to wander.

Which is what we did!

We started out by taking a tram back down to the waterfront and having a traditional Finnish breakfast of meat pies and apple

Jennica at the Rock Church

donuts. The atmosphere reminded me of Café du Monde in New Orleans but the food was certainly different. The meat pies were just that, a pastry filled with a minced meat and spice concoction which was quite tasty, once I got over the fact it wasn’t a donut. The donut, though, was a donut and that was all good. The place we ate was where Jen used to work so we got the royal treatment (and considering the President of Finland, who lives across the street, has eaten there, that’s saying something).

The fountain by the harbor

Afterwards, we did indeed wander. We hit the fountain (yes I made a wish and no, I’m not telling you what it was) which is a central meeting point, we walked up the stairs to a large church and we went through a park called the Esplanade which had statues and monuments for writers and poets! We even went to a museum where, for some inexplicable reason, the exhibits all had something to do with marriage. There was a chupah set up and a chair with a crown on it (I couldn’t resist sitting in the chair and putting the crown on – I’d

King Jaq

already done the chupah thing).

Honestly though, we just wandered and talked. Every now and again Jennica would point out something or I would ask a question, but for the most part it was just hanging out with a friend. We did, however, run into The Pink One (see, I’m not the only one who gives their friends epithets). The Pink One is one of Jennica’s oldest friends and she met us for lunch and then for drinks

The Pink One (like I could resist)

afterwards. A very funny girl! And she was wearing pink (how she got the name to begin with).

I must say, though, there’s this weird fascination in Finland for naming businesses after American cities. We ate lunch at Memphis, had drinks at Texas and passed Amarillo down the street. You never realize how much of your culture is exported until you hear the Friends theme as a ring tone on a cellular phone.

The next day, Jennica had to go to work but we made a plan to meet up at the statue when she was done. This meant I had the day to myself. What did I do? I did what you do in Finland – I got on a boat and went to see a fortress!

The fortress is called Suomienlinna (which is, quite literally, Finland’s Castle). It’s on a series of six islands in the Helsinki harbor and not only does it have a rich and varied history, but it also has the only remaining submarine in the Finnish navy (they had 6 at one point but after WWII had to get rid of them all – I think there were plans to move them to SuomienDisney but in the end

The Vesikko Submarine

they were scrapped). There was also a toy museum on the island, but they didn’t allow pictures. I did, however, buy a card game where you had to collect cards to make a little blonde haired, blue eyed family and the bad card, the “old maid” if you will, was a little black boy. I had to get it.

The castle itself held a distinguished place in Finnish history. It was never finished, it didn’t quite

Re-enactors showing how things used to be...

do what it was supposed to do and in the end, in it’s one major battle, it surrendered. Over the years, though, various governments have owned and operated it, changing the armaments, updating the

Guns on the island

catacombs. Now it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and a prison (the inmates are used as groundskeepers).

After taking the Ferry back to Helsinki, I met up with Jennica in the Esplanade. We listened to a live band for a few minutes (whose name I really can’t remember and they really weren’t that good) before heading off to meet Tommy and then get fixins for a barbecue that night. On our way, though, we decided to stop for ice cream. Let me stop and take a few minutes to talk about ice cream in Europe…

It’s everywhere! If I get fat over here, that’s why. No matter where you turn, if there is a crowd of people, there is an ice cream stand. Usually, it’s one unit of currency for a single scoop in a waffle cone (i.e. if they have Euro, it’s a Euro or two, if they have crowns it’s a crown, etc…) Sometimes there are more flavors than you’ll know what to do with, sometimes, like in Finland, they have just a few. But anyway you cut it, there is ice cream whenever you want one, and when they’re everywhere, you want one all the time! So Jennica and I wanted an ice cream. We hit the stand and the way the cost breakdown worked you could get one big scoop or two little ones for the same price, We both chose two little ones and then went happily on our way. About now, you’re wondering, why is he telling us about getting an ice cream? Be patient. As we’re leaving the stand, Jen hands me a napkin. I look at her, and she responds by saying “I don’t think you’ll need it or anything…”

Those of you who know me know what’s coming next, don’t you?

Yup. No sooner is the napkin in my hand than the top scoop of ice cream is falling down the front of my shirt while I scramble to catch it before it hits the ground. Which I manage to do. Of course, my jacket is a mess, my hands need the napkin and Jennica is laughing hysterically, but I still have my ice cream!

For another thirty seconds.

I take three more licks (and don’t get to the center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop) and the whole thing goes sailing off the cone, forward so there’s no chance of survival, and into the dirt. My altruistic attitude instantly becomes one of “well, I guess someone doesn’t want me to have any ice cream.” Jennica feels bad, certainly, but she still has hers so we continue on. We get about 50m when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, comes a lokki (that would be Finnish for seagull) who dive bombs her and takes a chunk out of the top of her ice cream. We stop so she can scrap the residue off, lokki are disgusting critters after all, and she is not about to eat where it’s landed. We are both laughing at this point, me without an ice cream and her’s cut down in the prime of its half-eaten life. Basically, we are off our guard. I mean seriously, how much more can happen in once little trip with an ice cream cone?

Turns out lokki are not only disgustingly dirty, they are also incredibly crafty! While that first one distracted us, got us to relax,

Jennica post lokki attack!

its fellows came in on a sneak attack a few minutes later, this time taking out the whole cone, knocking it right out of her hands! Honestly, if they had opened season on lokki right then, Jen would have taken out a dozen with her bare hands. Of course, just to prove the point that they were NOT going to stop us, we went and each of us got another cone (single scoops this time, we might be filled with hubris, but we’re not crazy!)

Continuing on, we made our way through the Plague Park (yes, they have a park named for victims of the plague. The big church in the middle of town? Doom Church. The Finns are not a jolly people, despite the fact Santa allegedly lives in Finnish Lapland) and finally meet up with Tommy. The idea is that we are going to meet up with Jen’s sister then go to her parent’s house (they’re out of town) to get their car and have the

Doom Church

BBQ.

Everything goes smoothly until we get to the house and Jennica realizes she doesn’t have the keys to get in. No worries – quick change of plans. Instead of open flames and outdoor beer, we’re going to go back to Jen’s place and Tommy is going to put his culinary expertise to work. And he does. We have reindeer sausage, some kind of pork filet and a marinated chicken (heavy on the meat here). For dessert, Tommy makes some sort of chocolate/banana concoction which like heaven in a (burnt) peel. Despite never finding the keys, I’d say the evening was a complete success!

So my last day in Prague was again spent in the company of Marcus, Jenni (who wants me to let everyone know her name is actually Jennica) and Jim (whose other friends call him unspeakable names which we won’t reprint here unless there is huge public outcry and a petition under the Jaq Freedom of Information Act). Anyway, we decided to walk around the city, see the Palace and do whatever came along.

But the Palace was our first stop. Well, not exactly. Our first stop was the train station where I took WAY too long trying to book a ticket to Munich. That was one of the two things I needed to do during the day. The other was get some more souvenirs and mail a box home (filled with said souvenirs). So my little gang (and yes, we looked like a United Nations version of Reservoir Dogs walking down the street – in slow motion even because of all the walking we had done the day before) was very patient with me delaying them and once I had my ticket sorted, we headed off towards the Palace.

Naturally, we got off at the wrong stop so once again, out came the trusty Lonely Planet and once again, Jenni was our fearless leader in getting us to the Palace and the Cathedral or St. Vitus. Now, as you’ll recall, I’ve already been to the Palace on my city tour so it was up to me to fill in knowledge gaps and point out things my guide told me (I felt like I was passing on the wisdom and knowledge of generations of Pragians – or whatever they’re called). Once we were through with the Cathedral, we all opted for a bit of a sit down and maybe a light refreshment. We found a place inside the Palace walls, chosen for the dessert special which sounded fantastic, and sat. I decided to have a chicken wrap, as did Jim and Jenni. Marcus chose a focaccia bread sandwich and we each had a beverage. Why, you may be asking yourself, is he going into so much detail about a silly lunch? Well… after last night’s adventure with the nice rude waiter, we’d been having discussions about service and the lack thereof and sure enough, this little place didn’t disappoint!

When the meal came, four plastic sealed items were deposited on our table, like the kind you’d buy from the refrigerated section of a Seven-11. Drinks were also set down and before we could even comprehend the fact we had just purchased pre-made meals the waiter asked us if we were paying together or separately. When we answered “separately,” the guy immediately told us how much each of us owed then stood there until we paid. I wish this was the worst of it, but no… the bus person took away our plates as we finished, even if no one else was done and then, as a final push, she took Jenni’s plate while Jenni was STILL eating! We had to laugh about it. Of course, the reason we had stopped there to begin with was for the dessert, so Jenni and I (being the dessert twins) decided to split it. It was advertised as a mash of strawberries with ice cream and something else… when it arrived, though, it looked nothing like what we were expecting. It was a strawberry puree with a lump of ice cream in the middle and we figured the whatever it was I forgot was mixed into the mashed strawberries because it was nowhere to be found.

This started a trend of weird food things through-out the day for us. Sure, I could talk about trying to get down off the Palace hill and me going to find a post office to mail my stuff home, but that’s boring compared to our food adventures.

When we decided to sit for 45 minutes and take a little boat ride in the river, part of the reason we went was they offered free ice cream, beer, lemonade, coffee and tea…except it was only one of the beverages and the ice cream was a cheap chocolate dipped bar. The boat ride itself, though, was nice and relaxing.

Then came dinner. We found a little out of the way place and we all ordered traditional Czech foods. At least we tried to. The menu was written in three languages, Czech, German and English. So each item had the description first in Czech in big, bold letters, then in German in smaller, regular script and finally in English. None of us spoke Czech, but Marcus, as you’ll recall, speaks fluent German, so he was looking at both the German and English descriptions of each dish to try and determine, exactly, what they were. I ended up ordering a sirloin dish with a cream and raspberry sauce. Of course, when it came, it was three thinly sliced pieces of beef smothered in some sort of raspberry infused gravy and topped with a huge dollop of whipped cream. It was like dessert and dinner all rolled into one… a Willie Wonka experiment gone awry! Jenni had ordered boiled potatoes along with her main course but when the food was brought out, she got fried potatoes.

“I ordered boiled potatoes,” she said

“We don’t have boiled – you get these,” came the surly response.

Again with the Eastern European view of the world – you’ll get what we give you and you’ll like it! Then we had dessert, according to the menu, a pancake with ice cream and cherries (and the only reason we knew it was cherries was in the German description it mentioned Kirsche). Naturally, what came out was a crepe, stuffed with chocolate ice cream (no mention of chocolate anywhere) drowned in a chocolate sauce which, if it had any hint of cherry in it, would take a palate the likes of which Tom Colicchio would be envious of to spot.

The difference, though, in this place as opposed to the other places we had eaten, was that here, they weren’t nearly as eager to get rid of us. In fact, once we had gotten our food initially, trying to catch someone’s eye in order to get refills, dessert, or, heaven forbid, the check, was nigh on impossible. The servers would walk past us, close enough we could ALMOST reach out and touch them, but not quite, and completely avoid noticing we were waving frantically to get their attention. I suppose for the Czechs, there are only extremes.

Nothing major happened for the rest of the night (although our grand tally for the day was 15km) and Friday morning, Jim and I headed off to the train (Jenni met us in the lobby to say good-bye). The train ride was uneventful (except for a minor detour where we all piled onto a bus for one station stop to avoid some rail damage) and we pulled into Munich around 3:30. Once I got to the Hostel (which was a fair walk, especially with full kit in the hot weather) I checked in, got set up and went for lunch. When I got back to my room, I met Mike, a student from St. Louis. We talked about psychology for a bit, then I went downstairs, where the wifi works, and spent the evening talking to Kamilla, one of the counter girls, about comparative literature and helping her practice her English (which was much better than having her help me practice German, I assure you).

Today started a little rough, but I made it out the door and down to the Old Towne square in time for my tour. Unfortunately, my tour never showed up. Thankfully, there were several other tours going so I picked one at random and away we went. This one was nice as there were only four people in the tour including myself and the tour guide was a Prague native who was very enthusiastic, if a bit scattered at times.

We set off after watching the Astronomical Clock in the Old Town Square ring in the hour. The pictures are the clock and the various figures. I’d taken video of the event, but it didn’t come out, so you don’t get to see it. After that, we headed up the hill to the Prague Palace, the oldest working palace in Europe. When we got up to the top though, I came to a realization – what I’d been taking pictures of, thinking it was the palace, was not. Sure the Palace was up there, but the big impressive thing, I should have known, was the Cathedral of St. Vitus. And it is impressive! Even more than the architecture and stained glass and all that, it’s impressive because it houses the remains of five different saints, including St Vitus. St Wenceslas is also there, as are three others. We got the story of St. John of something who was a priest and refused to give up the queen’s confession to the king so the king had him thrown from the Charles Bridge. Before he hit the water, though, five stars encircled his head and he was whisked up top heaven. Now, there’s a statue of him on the Charles Bridge and you can rub one side of it and make a wish and if you don’t tell anyone what the wish is, it will come true. Yes, that’s me rubbing and no, I won’t tell you what I wished for. (I did take a picture of the wishing plaque by itself so if you want to wish and rub the computer screen, I won’t say anything and neither will St. John).

Oh yeah, as you enter the palace, there are two guards standing sentry on either side of the gate. Like the British ones in front of Buckingham Palace, these guys aren’t allowed to smile or talk or move or anything. They do this for an hour at a time. Every hour, though, there is the changing of the guard.

Saw a few more sites, heard about some more churches, then headed down to the Jewish Quarter… the original ghetto. Got the background on Jews in Prague, found out the six synagogues which remain in the old Jewish Quarter are now all part of the Jewish museum, which is the most visited museum in Prague and got the story about Rabbi Loew, who created the Golem to protect the Jews of Prague and is buried here in one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in Europe.

After our tour ended, Tracy, a south African living in Edinburgh, and I grabbed a bite to eat then headed off to the Museum of Instruments of Torture! Three floors of racks, manacles, spikes and chastity belts was pretty interesting. We both decided we didn’t understand how human beings could actually come up with this stuff. But then again, a lot of the commentary mentioned these instruments were used in Germany so really, in World War II, they were just refining what they had been doing for centuries. Sadly, they didn’t allow photographs – and with that many torture devices around, I wasn’t going to risk it.

As we headed back to the Old Town Square, we stopped in a shop I had been in last night. I bought more art. I know! But it’s cool art. Need to find frames when I get back.

Tomorrow there’s a couple of people from the hostel and me and Tracy and we’re all gonna take a day trip to see a church made out of human bones. After that, I might do the night time ghost tour.

Hope you’re all having fun without me. I miss each and every one of you reading this. Some of you more than others. And yes, that means you.

PS: They have hockey here!