We drove to Helsinki and soon the ship sailed off at 5:00pm. By 'we' I mean my host family and Anita's side of the family which included her 2 parents, her aunt (and her nephew), her sister (and her husband and daughter), and her other sister (and her husband and 3 kids). It was quite hectic considering that there were so many of us, and not to mention there was a pair of 5 year old twins, who would not stop running around and jumping all over Sandra. (I forgot to mention that Lina was not with us because she had already planned to go to this over-night camping ground thing with different events and parties and such.) We had dinner scheduled at 5:30, but we lost one of the twins, so before we actually found him (he was at the info desk; someone presumed correctly that a little child wandering around must be lost) we ended up eating dinner a lot later. After dinner, Sandra and I explored the ship and then watched a Peter Pan show for kids at 8:00. After the show, we went to kareoke, where Sandra went up to sing 2 songs on behalf of her grandpa's birthday. Then there was a midnight show and then we went to bed.
In the morning, we ate breakfast (buffe- style) and eventaully made our way out of the ship; we were one of the last ones off and on the bus to the center of Stockholm since we were manuevering as one big group. Nevertheless, we got to the center, and walked around a bit.
Now I will take some time to tell you of this little friendly rivalry between Sweden and Finland. A couple of months ago, Finland won some important ice hockey game against Sweden, 6 to 1. Now, several months later, Finns are still bringing up the topic of how they won, and you can see guys wearing black shirts with a big "6 - 1" (although Sandra says that whoever wears that shirt is in danger of being beat up by a Swede). Nevertheless, I will also share another tibit of information; in Finland, it is customary that during a bachlors party, the man getting married has to do something embarrasing (ex: on the ship, there was a man that walked around in a pink bunny suit).
Now to continue back to my Stockholm adventures, in the middle of the Stockholm center, there was a famous Finnish boxer (or wrestler) that was having his bachlor party and as a result was sitting by a cafe outside (in the center of Stockholm, Sweden, must I remind you), wearing a Finnish ice hockey suit. It was quite funny; you could clearly tell by the looks on people´s faces who was a Swede or Finn. It was quite funny. I chuckled. Sandra said in his case, it was okay for him to wear that, beacuse no Swede would attempt to beat up a Finnish boxer.
After we walked around the center for a while, we went over to the old town of Stockholm. There, I visited the Royal Palace where the Swedish monarch resides (yes, Sweden still has a king). It was quite nice, I spent a few hours in the palace, walking around all the different elaborate rooms, listening to tour guides. Unfortunately, since I spent a good amount of time in the palace, I had little time to walk around the actual old town. Even so, I still did, even if for just maybe 45 minutes, and I even managaed to buy some souvenirs. Right before we left Stockholm for the ship, Sandra, Anita, one of her sisters, and I ate pasta at an Italian restaurant (everyone left for the ship before us).
Back on the ship, it was a (slightly) similar schedule as the night before: we (Sandra and I) walked around the ship, spent some time on the top deck with the rest of the family, read, ate chocolate, ate dinner at a buffet, watched the midnight show, walked around the ship, went the bed.
In the morning, we woke up, packed and got out the ship by 11ish. We stopped at some place to eat and then continued on our way to Tampere. Back at home for some reason, we were really tired but nevertheless, I went out with Sandra to buy stamps for my postcards and then met with her friend to eat a salad (that Sandra prepred at home) by the river and later bought ice cream. Then at night, me, Lina, and Esko left for the summer cottage in Ruovesi (Anita was in Spain for a couple of days for work and Sandra had to stay to sell strawberries).
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