We arrived by train early last evening in Turku, Finland - the former capital city. After unloading our luggage at the hotel, Becky and I went for a walk around the city (actually, we were after food, but the restaurant was closed by the time we got there). The Aura river, which runs through the city, it is pretty gross during the day, but with all the city lights and lighted restaurant boats, is quite lovely at night. We ended up eating for dinner what takes the cake as the worst kebab on the trip so far (supposedly, kebab is different in each country... but the spinning lamb that gets meat shaved off of it threw us for a 'not-hungry-anymore' loop, hopefully it will be better elsewhere).

We started out today by visiting Saint Henry's, an ecumenical chapel. The chapel is shaped like an inverse ship hull, the exterior clad in copper sheeting. The inside glows with light, the pine paneling and beams still bright and unweathered. We wandered about for a few minutes, and then sat down to draw. A tour group (we think) came in at the same time; they sang a hymn, led by an organ player with the most amazing singing voice, listened to a history of the chapel, and left. Of course, I am hypothesizing a lot of this, they were speaking in Finnish, but we distinctly heard the word 'architect' several times.

After that, we went to the cemetery in Turku, to see the chapel and funeral home. Unfortunately, the chapel was in use, so we didn't get to see it. The funeral home was in use as well, but closed off enough that we could still wander around the main entry rooms.

The group went back to the hotel, and everyone went off to explore Turku for a few more hours before we had to meet up again to catch our boat to Sweden. Becky and I went shopping, to buy scarves (weather has been colder than I expected), ate lunch at the seafood restaurant we were too late to eat at last night, and poked around the local Orthodox Church, which was unfortunately closed for the day.

Once our group met back up, we headed for the harbor to catch the overnight cruise ship to Stockholm, Sweden, also a first for me. Quarters were a bit cramped, but it was still a lot of fun. I really wish we had been able to see the islands we cruised by during the day, but we did get to see a few before the sun went down completely.