We found Nemo in Tampere

One of the interesting looking fish from the aquarium

Nemo and his friends

A painting of Lenin speaking to a crowd of peasants

A statue of Lenin

The hill that we climbed to get to the observation tower

The city of Tampere from the observation tower

Saturday we went to Tampere; a town about a two hour train ride away from Helsinki. We decided to go because they have an observation tower with a really good doughnut shop, an aquarium that I wanted to see, the Lenin Museum, an indoor fresh foods market and a stable yard. We arrived in Tampere and realized that the visitor center was closed which left us without a map. We did find a large directory and located our first stop, the observation tower. In order to get to the tower we had to walk half a mile up an ice covered hill. We made it safely to the top where we ate some really good poppy seed doughnuts sprinkled with sugar. We then climbed that tower and took some of the pictures above. We also picked up a map from a stand at the base of the tower.
After leaving the tower we walked to the Lenin Museum. The museum is dedicated to Vladimir Lenin, who is credited with starting communism in Russia and helping Finland gain its freedom from Russia. You can read more about Lenin by visiting this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin . We took several pictures while at the museum of some of the sculptures and articles displayed there. The museum was interesting and broadened our knowledge of how communism got its start and how Finland gained its freedom.
After touring the museum we walked to the indoor market. We walked around for a few minutes and looked at all of the booths. Many of the booths had fresh meats and vegetables of all varieties. There was a fish booth that sold fresh and cooked fish of several varieties including salmon. There were a few baked goods booths and some booths that sold crafts and other supplies. We decided to try our luck at one of the baked goods booths and ordered salami and cheese sandwiches and "desserts". I got a lemon creme iced cookie while Randall ended up with a rice cake of sorts. We both thought he had ordered a dessert but it was a pastry (unsweetened) folded like a flat football around rice. It was good but it was not sweet as he had expected.
Once we finished lunch we headed to the stable yard. The stable yard is an old horse farm where the factory owner and workers kept their horses. We though it would have open stalls that we could see how the horses used to housed but it was empty. They did have several shops which ranged from a modern tack store to a chocolate shop. We decided to get a small sample of some of the fresh made chocolates. So, we purchased a mix of strawberry and white chocolate, plain white chocolate, milk chocolate and dark chocolate. We got two pig shaped pieces of each kind in the pre-assorted bag I picked out. We have two left and they were quite good.
After our short visit to the stable yard we went to the aquarium. There we saw Nemo and all of his friends. We saw some of the fish from the movie and some other types of fish that I have never seen before. They had an electric eel, horned puff fish, lion fish, several fresh water stingrays, an iguana, lots of algae eaters, catfish and cichlids. They also had rainbow trout and regular trout in a tank that the top opens outside. They had a tank that had a thunderstorm demonstration which was a joke compared to what we experience in North Carolina. We took our time and enjoyed seeing some of the fish.
After leaving the aquarium we went out to a local non-American restaurant. We both ordered different dishes and sampled each others food, Randall ordered sauteed reindeer with gravy over mashed potatoes and I got the sausage pan, which is a small iron skillet layered on the bottom with potatoes, ham and onions, then topped with four types of sausage. I liked all of the sausage except one type. We both ate until we were about to pop. We took our time and enjoyed the food and warmth of the restaurant. After we finished we headed for the train station.
At the train station we had about an hour wait for our train so we sat down and talked about our day. While we were sitting there a drunken homeless man walked up and got in Randall's face. He began saying something quietly in Finnish. When he paused for a second Randall looked at him and politely said "I do not speak Finnish". Well, that set him off, he started yelling at Randall in Finnish and we have no idea what he said. His tirade only lasted for about 15 seconds, because a police officer came over clasped him on the back of the neck and escorted him outside. The officer did not say a word to us or the man. He did talk to the two men seated behind us and we are not sure what he said to them but no one said anything to us either. The man did come back in about 15 minutes later but he did not look at us or speak to us.

Here are some of the other photos that we took while in Tampere

Weekend in Tampere