to market, to market

so on our first full morning in Cartagena we met the guy we had arranged to guide us for a city tour and for a tour of the local market and street food vendors. The guide's name is Brayan and he is showing us around his hometown and at the same time orienting his young cousin Christian to the job of being a guide (Christian graduated from high school at the end of November - just two weeks earlier!)

our first stop is the local market where Brayan knows lots of people and Christian watches out for us from the back of our small entourage...

the market doesn't have divided areas for each type of product or produce but is sort of a jumble of everything - except for one area of sign painting (more on that later)

above and below - you probably don't want to know--- LOL

holiday decorations and candles -

if your party is going to be a successful party there needs to be a lot of people in attendance and so you put up posters all over town announcing it- and these guys in the market paint the signs for the party announcements!

many household items for sale - some fabricated on the spot-

the photo above was by far the widest "alley" in the market - many were wet (especially in the food areas) and muddy... but all were interesting because this is not a tourist market - it is for locals and we saw no other gringos when we were there...

Next up some photos of the hotel (lovely decor and fabulously fun toucans in residence) and the other parts of town we saw... sweets and fruits from vendors - La Popa and the fortress... so stay tuned!

Food and food halls in Helsinki

By now we were burned out on churches.  We had seen the fabulous Rock Church in Helsinki before as well as the giant Lutheran Church that towers over government square, so we decided to skip the "city tour" the morning we arrived in Helsinki and wander over to the food halls by the harbor.  We also skipped breakfast in favor of eating fresh from the market food at their outdoor cafe.

We picked two kinds of the salmon and two kinds of shrimp salads on dark dense bread- and loved it all.  Phil went back for another round on the "toast skagen" (shrimp) and we grabbed some beverages from this stand-

then after breaking our fast we headed back into the market/food halls to check out what was on offer- wish we had these in America!

 

We walked around town and actually made a couple of purchases a few hand towels with hooks that are so common in northern Europe but so rare in the U.S.  We also stopped to replenish our Euro supply for the next trips we take to Europe and that was challenging as the cash machines are few and far between in Helsinki - they use mobile apps (we found this out later in Sweden) and so no one caries a lot of cash or needs to have any for that matter.... except the tourists LOL-

we had a made a lunch reservation when we were at breakfast and so eventually we wound our way through the outdoor market to the restaurant on the harbor that we had chosen for lunch. OLO is the name of the place and we later found out it is one of the Michelin starred restaurants in Finland and by some reviewers rated the #1 restaurant (ravintola in Finnish) in Helsinki....

 on to lunch!

the men's and women's toilets LOL

 

terrific lunch- so happy we were able to relax on our own this day- back to the ship and then we headed out of Helsinki and on to Stockholm - below the view from the sundeck over the harbor-

It was a lovely relaxing day in Finland and tomorrow we disembark the ship in the morning and because they take on new passengers at 2 PM we must clear out of our cabins by 9 AM despite not arriving into port until 11 AM.... so stay tuned for a few more days as land-lubbers and the rest of the trip......