I started the day early, about 6am and by about 4 this afternoon I was back in the hostel asleep. It’s generally not my proudest moment when I need a nap after 10, albeit active, hours, but hey, guess I needed it.

My whole goal today was to take a day trip to the island, Suomenlina. This island was used as a military stronghold to the city of Helsinki up until I believe WWII. A friend at work who used to live in Helsinki suggested that I do it, and I’m glad that I did. For what it lacked in actual military infrastructure, it more than made up for in the social aspect that this island seems to play for many Finns.

As it seems like I do every so often my first step in my adventure this morning was to get lost. I’m beginning to understand the street structure a little here, and I guess I was feeling a little bit over confident because I turned right when I should have turned left. I was on the right street that I wanted to be on, so I just figured that I follow it until I get to the water, which I finally did. The only problem is that it was the wrong water. No worries though, I just went back the way I came and in about 40 minutes I was where I needed to be. The ferries leave every half hour for the island so I didn’t have long to wait before I was on my way.

Probably the first 45 minutes that I was on the island I kept thinking that there must be some mistake, that this island is just a bunch of old buildings, although interesting there really wasn’t any reason for people to be taking trips to see them. See, when you get off the boat you have a choice, go left across a bridge or go right, up a hill. Did I mention that this morning I turned right when I should have turned left? Well, I did it again. I went up the hill and ended up wandering around for quite a bit just looking at old buildings, some had people living in them and others were being restored, interesting, but not that interesting. After thoroughly investigating that part of the island I headed across that bridge.

The best way to describe the makeup of the island is to visualize it being broke in two, one side was for fighting and the other side was the housing for the people that did the fighting. This side was really interesting; there were old rusted guns, bunkers, and tunnels. In most cases they were in bad shape, but it was really fun just walking around imagining what it must have been like to have lived there hundreds of years ago, and also the views from the island overlooking the water were absolutely beautiful. There were areas where you could go down to the sea and sit on rocks, and if you wanted to you could go swimming, which a lot of people were doing. At one point there was an old dude that was strapped to a parachute and riding the wind in short 30 second rides. It looked like it was a lot of fun, and at one time he almost hit me with his feet as he sailed along. I’ve got a video of it, but I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to upload it or not.

I spent about an hour and a half wandering around this part of the island taking pictures and just being surprised on the amount of people that were using the island as a mini-retreat. There are several areas that are kind of like parks, and each one of them were packed with people picnicking or laying out in the sun. It was almost like the whole island had become a theme park of some sorts, but of course, with no rides.

I got back to Helsinki about 1 and relaxed on the steps of that huge white church in the photograph with a pint of raspberries watching the tourists wander around.