Day Trip to Tampere

During our wonderful week at camp in Karkku, we also got to take a very fun day trip to Tampere.
Wednesday (Keskiviikko) August 8th, was the day of our trip to Tampere and I for one had been looking forward to it the entire week, and was so excited; I would get to see my first Finnish city. After lunch we all piled on to three buses and began the hour or so journey to Tampere.
When we first arrived, we pulled up to a park near the city-center, and then waited a bit for a tour guide to come so that we would first get a bus tour of the city. The tour lasted a little under two hours and took us all over the city and even a little bit out of it.

One of our first stops on our bus tour was a church. We mostly saw different buildings from inside the bus, but for this we were able to get out to take some pictures and then go inside for awhile. 

 The church was decorated in an Art Nouveau style with stain glass windows, and interesting portraits to depict the different stages of life. In Finland, the majority of people are of the Lutheran faith. While we were inside the church there was a small prayer group going on upstairs, so we were able to hear the organ playing as part of the ceremony. I can't recall ever hearing an organ as was the one in the church, because it got so loud, just when you thought it wouldn't get any louder, there it was nearly going to blow my ears off, but nice at the same time.

A little ways out of Tampere we stopped for a second time. The bus let us out on a hill overlooking the main lake that borders the city, very much near the home of a famous Finnish writer. The view from up there was amazing, but the narrow roads we went through to get there wouldn't be too much fun to have to go through during the wintertime.

 At the end of the bus tour, we were taken back to the park near the center and released to go exploring for the next two hours. My group started off wandering through the square.

There sure were all sorts of fruits, bread, jellys, and different candies.

And don't forget about the pastry's. Suklaa Leipa (Chocolate Bread), was one thing I ended up buying before we left. Yum

 This picture is right from the end of the square. But it is just across from the square that we encountered our first real language barrier and ended up in a bit of a strange situation.

After an hour and half of walking through the streets, first covering the left side of town then back to see the right, we ended up near where we first began, and there faced our first problem. In Finland, there aren't really many free bathrooms, and only a few metal kind of box things that you pay for. We ended up finding one that was free, but couldn't figure out how to use it. "Push button when it turns green, pull on door," whatever we were doing wasn't working. Then this old man came over to us and started lecturing us on the bathrooms, mind that he was speaking in Finnish. He showed us how to open a different stall and then my friend went in, leaving two of us standing outside with the old man. He kept talking and talking and my friend and I kept looking at each other, not sure what to do. All we could understand was that he said that one of the stalls was for little kids in case they couldn't wait for the other ones. Luckily it was my time to use the bathroom so I escaped the situation even though he was still talking when I came back out. We stood for a bit longer, then made a bit of a gesture of us going to leave soon so he ended the coversation, and then we escaped with a simple "kittos" (the only thing we really knew).

Towards the end of the two hours, we wandered back to the square so that we would be close by the buses for when we had to re-board. There was a Frenchman who was miming to a medium sized group of, shall I daresay; smiling Finns. My friends and I joined in this group and started following the mimed actions. It was so much fun, and I especially loved seeing the expressions on the faces of the Finns, not at all like what we had been told about them not showing emotion. Several times we mimed several things, from pumping up bicycle tires, to juggling balls to the point when we had about fifteen and were moving our arms back and forth so quickly. It was so much fun, and I was really glad that I just went for it and joined in too.

In Finland, there are many Eastern Orthodox Churches from when the Russians controlled parts of the country. We didn't get to go inside the one above, but saw it from a nearby park instead.

This picture is from our way back to Sastamala from Tampere, in the back is the Näsinneula Observation Tower. Goodbye Tampere, Finland's 3rd largest city, it was great fun to visit.