I see, is icy...

The alarm had gone off at 8:30, but I didn't wake up for fifteen minutes. My dad had been awake for a little while, and was upstairs in the sauna.

At 9:30 I met him in the executive lounge of the hotel, which we somehow have access to. We had a small breakfast, the same as yesterday... the salmon has not lost any of its taste.

While my dad did some business on the computer in the business center, I spoke with the front desk to book the ferry to Estonia tomorrow. We settled on the first boat over tomorrow morning - a bright and early 7:30 - and the second to last boat back from Tallinn on Friday night -- 5:30pm. We got the cheapest seats possible.

From there, my dad and I left the hotel and headed towards the museums. Since yesterday and the day before we had made the trek around the train station to that side of town several times, we took a different route -- across the Baltic. We walked over the ice for the full mile or so that the Gulf of Finland, a subdivision of the Baltic Sea, cuts into Helsinki before stopping at the train tracks. The ice, as I mentioned yesterday, is two feet thick or more. it's the most ice Helsinki has seen in 40 years. And it is this same thickness of ice that occurred one of the winters during WWII, when the Russians sent a battalion of tanks across the Baltic to attack Finland, who responded in kind by firing shells from the shore in front of the tanks, breaking the ice and sending them to the bottom of the sea. Good thing we're not at war with Finland.

On the way we discovered, to our extreme confusion, a ritualistic site of some sort, frozen into the ice. It was either that or a work of art...

A red picnic table and two red benches were chained together and frozen into the Sea. five poles surrounded them, about eight feet away. There were burnt-out oil-wick torches next to each pole. There were three frames that were also surrounding the table. Two of these were standing frames of wood, as if the part that was a store-side posterboard advertisement had been cut out. The third was a properly shaped picture frame, set on two stakes. These eight objects each had something nailed to it, or hung from it. They ranged from books to shoes to toys. On the table itself were three animal figurines, a few unidentifiable board game pieces, three books (in plastic wrap), and a sheet of paper taped onto the table. The two of us did not disturb the scene..

Our next stop was a boat that had half-sunk in the water before it was frozen into the ice. I claimed it as my own, and named it the Jenny, as Forrest Gump would have wanted me to do.

We departed the water when we reached the train tracks. We crossed over a pedestrian pathway, then walked on a pleasant residential path around a lake, to get to where the museums were. On the way we passed the Finlandia, Finland's most renowned concert hall.

At noon we entered the Finnish national museum. We learned a great deal regarding Finland's prehistoric peoples, their tools, and their evolutionary stories. But the real interest came from debating an age-old question.

In the mid 1800s, a theory was put forth that the Finns descended from what was called the Finno-Ugric people, a branch of Mongolian heritage, and were therefore most related, not to the Swedes or Russians, but to the Hungarians. The languages themselves, while only matching up certain words, have incredibly similar grammatical structure and do match up when it comes to some very common words, like familial relations and common needs words. But recent DNA evidence shows that the genetic make-up of the Finnish people is about 75% European and 25% Mongolian.

My father argued that because of the DNA evidence, it contradicted the theory that the Finns are from the East, because of the dominance of European blood. But I asserted that there is no reason why DNA evidence with that outcome disproves the Mongolian and Hungarian connection. Surely, the three nations peoples today look nothing alike, but walking amongst the natives today, it was easy to see distinctly Mongolian traits, such as the shape, position, and wideness of many Finns' eyes.

I argued that perhaps, and very likely, the Mongolian influence that probably helped create what would later evolve into modern Finnish also greatly influenced, though did not entirely permeate, the genetic make-up of the Finnish people as well. Then, for the 800 years between Genghis Khan's presence in the region and today, the Finns Mongolian roots have been slowly diluted to a mere 1/4 of their genetic make-up. On the other hand, though, there is a possibility that there are simply contradictions in the relationship between the Hungarians and the Finns.. and the Mongolians. It was a heavy discussion, to be sure, and wasted plenty of time in the Museum, before ever getting to the religious revival section within the "Realm" exhibit (Where, I might add, to bolster my point, there was a 17th century painting of Jesus that depicted a Jesus that looked more like Genghis Khan than a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Finn..).

At 1:30 we left the museum, and went to modern art museum, which was closed. That didn't stop my dad from wasting a half hour in the gift shop, though.

From 2 to quarter to 3 we wandered the streets, looking for Lapi, which was recommended to us by the hotel and an online review, but which turned out to be a typical overpriced tourist restaurant that catered exclusively to foreigners and would provide no real enjoyment for patrons like us. So we crossed to the other side of town.

We got to the Esplanade, just east of the shopping district and south of Senate Square, a beautiful park walkway between a boulevard of the same name. We started south, to look for the Root that we couldn't find yesterday, but gave up after passing Chez Dominique, a 2-star French restaurant, where we made a reservation for tonight (though we blew it off).

At 3:00 we sat down at a restaurant on a whim, Ravintola (Restaurant) Kappeli, which was right in the middle of the Esplanade. It turned out to be a fantastic choice. I enjoyed an appetizer of duck and a main course of a Reindeer steak. My dad had a smoked salmon dish with other sea critters floating around the plate as well. Finland has incredible food. Of the five food groups; Chocolate, Wine, Bread, Meat/Fish, and Beer, Finland is only lacking in Wine.

At 4 we parted ways. My father headed south, to the bookshop that the two Wash U. grad students pointed out yesterday. I went north, to Senate square to find a restaurant we wanted to try, Savotta (Which I didn't find), and to look for another restaurant, Kazak, which I did find - though it did not impress me. I wandered north along that road, back to the hotel, which I accessed by walking along the Baltic again.. it's just the easiest way to travel. I got back to the hotel a little after 5 and took a siesta. My dad showed up around 6:30, and we took a long siesta until 9, as the jet lag is finally catching up to us.

When we finally did leave the hotel, we wandered in the general direction of a restaurant suggestion. We didn't find it until 10, even though it is only a fifteen minute walk away. It was called Kolme Kruunua, and it was next to a restaurant called something with a Z (Zinneman?) that I had passed earlier today on my way back to the hotel from Kazak.

We sat down and ordered two dishes identical to two that we ordered at the Sea Horse. I had the Pike Perch a la Mannerheim (which my father had at the Sea Horse), and he had the Finnish Meatballs that Riku had yesterday. I refer at this point back to the comments I have made about every meal so far in terms of quality and taste.

We ate and had our bill paid in about a half hour, as my dad had to get to some big business conference call with the States. We walked back in silence as he listened to the discussion, and got back to the hotel a little before 11.

The rest of the night was uneventful. We had to get to sleep so we could be up in time for the ferry to Estonia in the morning.