Turku Sights

Turku sights – July 30 (friday)

by Laura E

driving to turku went swiftly. arriving in Turku, we picked up our (in my opinion) much better tour guide (she had a less annoying voice) and zoomed off around the sunny streets of Turku. She toured us around the river Aura, and explained how when turku was first settled, the river was the lifeline of the community, and named as such.

Next was the Turku cathedral, majestic and old. Our guide has an extensive knowledge of Turku's history, detailing about how a fire ravaged most of the city, and how the new city plan was different than past plans.

After that, we headed to Turku castle, an enormous castle that first started as merely a battle fortress. our tour guide was SUPER cute. Would have stayed longer just to look at him (and his english was excellent as well, but that's less important)

Bussed to Wirhuri Arena for our exhibition game.

After a quick communal shower in the rink, we hurriedly did our hair and makeup and raced on the bus to the Kupittaa Paviljonki (sp??) a beautiful wood building that held the opening banquet. The food was pretty good and apparently the dessert was SUPER good (I was too full). We were split up into groups of 2-4 and told to mingle with girls from the other teams. Who you sat with seemed to dictate how much communication happened. At my table with Kelsey we said about four sentences to these girls and got one word replies. Beth, Jaz and Nicole's table however were super rowdy behind us! Talk about feeling inadequate! Anyways, it was a nice time, with a group picture at then end.

We bussed to our hotel, checked in, and hit the hay.

Current City: Turku, Finland
Current time: 9pm, July 30