Ferry to Finland

Even more exhausted than the day before, I rolled out of bed and downstairs in time for church.  The shortest commute I've ever had to Sacrament Meeting!  We kept it short but sweet, and used the time afterward to exchange contact information and say goodbye to our new friends.  I was surprised at how quickly we'd bonded with so many people and didn't want the fun to end, but eventually we parted and took the train to Stockholm to enjoy a few hours before catching the ferry.  It was clearly the end of a holiday weekend, and nearly impossible to find a locker at the train station for our luggage...and those that were free were too small for Maggie's bag.  We decided to use this as a practice run for visiting the ferry terminal, and were fortunate to find huge lockers there for her bag so we could wander Stockholm unfettered.  Our time was just long enough to do a few things, but not long enough to do much.  We had some unfinished business with a few gift shops and did that first, and then wandered around the waterfront enjoying a beautiful day with beautiful views.

It included a brief stop at a memorial that brought back a flood of memories...but not because of who it honored.  How many people have memorials to them in multiple countries?  Raoul Wallenberg is one of those men, and one of the few that deserved it.  I'd remembered he was a Swedish diplomat who went to Budapest (where I'd seen the other memorial) to rescue as many Jews as possible in the last days of WW2, but from there the details were really vague.  I committed to learning more about him when we returned to the US, and we continued on our way.  One of my last purchases is Sweden was a long-overdue Magnum bar.  It's not as exciting now that you can buy them in the US, too, but it still felt like something I had to do while in Europe and made sure to choose a flavor I hadn't had before.  We decided to play it safe in estimating the time needed to return to the ferry terminal, and for once I arrived somewhere early.  It provided a much-needed opportunity to work on writing postcards to my family, and was just nice to sit after so much excitement for the past few days.  It wasn't quiet for long, though, before we were joined by some familiar faces. 

In the course of the conference we'd learned that most of the Finns were taking the same ferry back to Finland, and that we'd be on the same boat with our new friends.  This was my first time on a cruise ship and I was so excited to see what it was like.  I was told it was customary to have your photo taken as you embarked, and made sure to do that. 

my elegant embarkation portrait

Then, it was off to find our cabin...in 4th class.  I didn't know such a thing existed, but it turned out we were below the auto decks of the boat.  It was fine, though, because it meant we had the cozy space of 4 bunk beds to ourselves, and it was a short walk down the hall to the bathroom.  As it turned out, we wouldn't be spending much time down there anyway.

One bunk for me, and one for the chocolate.

Setting our bags down, we went up on top to enjoy the view of the Swedish coastline from the upper deck.  We passed by many beautiful homes, almost all of which had a sauna right on the waterfront.  I was just so happy to be back on the water!

Feeling very nautical

After a while we went down to explore more of the ship, including its duty-free shop.  I normally breeze right through these at the airports (other than sampling new perfumes), but somehow got it into my head that this was the perfect time to stock up on chocolate to bring home.  Sometime later, I left the store with over 3 KILOS of chocolate and gummibears!  We ran into our Finnish friends in the shop, who were way more sensible in their purchases, and got on the elevator together and started planning our evening.  In the excitement I took out my phone to check the time, but had my hands so full of chocolate and my camera that I dropped my phone and the back popped off.  It couldn't have been at a worse time, as the elevator doors were open.  Everyone kindly scrambled to help me find all the parts and I thought it was fine, until I went to use it.  The date was several years off, and I thought it was the effect of being so far below water, but when I opened up the back of my phone I discovered the SIM card was missing. Knowing we picked up everything we could see, I had to conclude it dropped down the elevator shaft while the doors were open.  It was funny to think that it could be permanently sailing between Sweden and Finland at the bottom of the ship, but then I thought of the possibility of someone finding and using it to make as many international calls as they pleased.  First order of business back on dry land:  get word to my family to cancel it.  In the meantime, nothing could be done but enjoy the ship.

After dropping off our purchases, we visited the pleasure decks. Alas, we missed the karaoke hour (which I've heard is a sight to see in Finland), but we did manage to find that every TV screen was showing the Euro Cup tournament.  We cozied up to a screen just in time to unfortunately see England lose, but it was still entertaining to watch everyone else get worked up about it.  And once it ended, the discotheque opened.  This DJ's musical taste couldn't have been more different than the conference's, but it was fun to dance in a group with my friends.  There were a few others who came out on the dance floor, including one guy who had to finish a huge cocktail before attempting to join us and totally reminded me of an old SNL sketch. When I couldn't go any further, we called it a night and I got a few hours of sleep in the space we paid for before arriving in Turku.