#3: Night Boat to Stockholm

Travel can be a very logical and predictable thing: we make plans, book tickets, show up at the airport or train station and off we go. Even though most of our brains know where we're going, there's often a moment when a slow moving part of the brain-- maybe the reflective part-- catches up to the plan making part of the brain and says 'how did we get the middle of the Baltic Sea?' The logical part of the brain sighs and says, 'How do you not remember? We talked about this. We bought tickets.' 'Yes, yes, I know,' says the reflective part, 'but it doesn't make it seem any more amazing to find ourselves watching the sun set on a ship in the Baltic Sea.'  

On Saturday, Dale and I had most of a day to wander Helsinki and we wandered the areas I'd found on Friday and found a few new areas to explore. We had coffee at the Kappeli cafe which was glassy and gazebo-like and prettily historic. Around 4:00, we headed to the ship that would take us overnight to Stockholm. I had no idea what to expect but I appreciated being greeted by a giant Moomin as we got on board (I was sad to see he did not take the journey with us). We had a very pleasant afternoon watching the waves from the deck and enjoying the sunshine.  It was around this time when the reflective part of my brain started to catch up to the logical part and marvel that we were floating on a sea that I know I had mislabled in a Grade 7 social studies exam.  I watched the sunset at nearly 11:00 pm and then watched the moon rise. It was incredibly peaceful and beautiful and I fought falling asleep for longer than I should have. I woke up at 4:30 when the sun rose again and we got up early to see the new scenery. It was a lovely way to travel and a nice way to arrive in Sweden.