Sunday, October 14

 

 

I woke about 8:30, wishing that we could have a normal Sunday, involving getting up at 11:00 and having brunch. Instead I got up and started shaving.

I ate two stuffed croissants, drank a pot of tea, dressed, and got in the car. We collected Naa and headed for Meilahti. The journey involved an almost unbroken string of major roadworks across Helsinki.

We navigate the final set of diversions and turn left off Mannerheimintie and past the hospital before turning right down a narrow road. Naa and I get out at the entrance to Saint Mary’s Church while Irma finds somewhere to park. We walk up the stairs to find the church overflowing with people.

We have come to see Niilia take her sacrament, and so has everyone else in Helsinki. Irma will sneak down to the front, her camera in hand, and Naa and I will watch from the back; by which I mean from the doorway.

The service will last about one hundred minutes and by the time it ends I will have started to feel that it might as well go on forever.

In the afternoon we will go to their house for the celebration where we will have all kinds of food, including Tusita’s spring rolls that Naa cannot get enough of.

I will go to bed early.