turku

turku was the center of life & culture in finland during swedish domination. the swedish prince held up residency there (one of the buildings in the pictures looks very palatial). helsinki became the capitol when sweden lost finland to russia (sometime in the 19th century). then, there was a huge fire in turku that destroyed a good portion of the city.

according to teemu, turku is the nicest/prettiest cities in finland. especially in the summer w/ a lot of that owing to the river that runs through it (the night-time frozen version of which is pictured below). i'll have to go over again sometime during the day when shops are open & well, there's daylight.

i arrived into turku around 6pm, ate, & started wandering around the city around 7pm for a couple of hours.....i put the location of the club in my gps & set it to "go" there & then kinda followed the directions. after a couple of hours, i was almost an icicle, especially my fingers (my right hand was kind "frozen" in "gripping the camera" shape). so, i went to dynamo early - the show didn't start until 10pm.....that's another thing i've been having to get used to; most shops close around 6pm (& remain closed on sun.'s) & music shows start around 10 & end around 2am or so - about 3 hrs. later than the shows i've gone to in portland - bars stay open until 5am.

after the friend were done, we were all getting ready to leave. teemu & one of his friends - i can't remember her name - felt bad that i was going to be staying in turku overnight (since my train back wasn't leaving until around 6:30am), so they gave me a ride back to helsinki via tampere....why aren't there any pictures of this trip? well, it was dark & i was sleeping. :D i ended up arriving in helsinki before i would have boarded the train in turku. and i was able to cancel my ticket for an 8e fee. it was kinda funny, the lady asked me if i really wanted to cancel & i thought: look @ the ticket, it's from turku to helsinki leaving in 15 min. & i'm already in helsinki; i won't be using the ticket. i got back to my apt. around 7am & slept until noon.