Day 13: Finishing Up In Finland

Tuesday was our last full day in Finland. I had been there almost a week, and Mary Beth had been there for almost two weeks. So it was almost a little strange to be thinking that we were leaving the country the following day.

After breakfast (which, if I didn’t mention before, offered a bowl full of little chocolate donuts every morning. Little chocolate donuts! What John Belushi called the donuts of champions! How could the day go wrong after a start like that?) Mary Beth and her team went to the conference. The weather had taken a consistent turn to the grey and cold, with this morning bringing rain and temperatures in the low 40s.

I wanted to go visit the Joensuu Lutheran Church, a picturesque old Lutheran church. I walked about 9-10 blocks to arrive there, only to find that the church opened at 11:00, a couple of hours later. So I walked back to the hotel, braving the rain and checking out a few stores along the way.

It was interesting to find store analogies to offerings back home. This morning, I stopped at a CityMarket, which basically was a Super Target. Joensuu also had other stores like Carson (JCPenny’s), Cale Olsen (Sears), Sokos (Younkers).

I went back to the hotel room and did some work waiting for Mary Beth to get back around lunchtime. We met up with Aaron and did a little souvenir shopping, then Aaron went his own way for lunch. Mary Beth and I walked over to the church (which was then open) and were able to get inside.

The church looked very much like a rural Lutheran church back home, with ornately-painted walls and ceilings, a large stained-glass window, and an elevated pulpit. We lit some candles (a nice Catholic alternative in a Protestant church) and got to hear a musical group warming up as we left. You could tell just from hearing the musicians tuning their instruments how acoustically well designed the building was, as it quickly filled with music.

We went back to the room and napped, then met Aaron in the hotel lobby for dinner. We decided to try a local pizza place, Pizza Master, on the recommendation of Mary Beth’s Finnish friend Salli. After a little work finding the place (made more challenging by what felt like walking through a November rain shower) we found the place and ordered.

We ended up each getting a large (almost a foot in diameter) individual pizza, which we eagerly consumed. It very much felt like a student location, with some of the cheapest (six euros for the pizza) food we’d had the whole trip.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel to pack. The next morning, we would be checking out and catching our plane to Rome.