Tampere

On Saturday, I took the train to Tampere, which is 2 hours north of Turku, with three friends. Tampere has more of a "big city" feel to it than Turku. The buildings are taller and the streets are busier.

Throughout the city center there are lovely bridges crossing the river, and the best part is that there are ducks everywhere. How cute!

Unfortunately, we went out for lunch at this vegan restaurant that one of my friends wanted to go to, and it took two hours to get out of there! This means that we missed seeing two of the museums that I had planned on seeing. It was really annoying. I felt like I had spent my money just to take a train to a restaurant, but Tampere seems like an interesting city, so I won't mind going again. Hopefully in the spring, though, because there were beautiful fountains throughout the city that should be working by then.

We did manage to go to the Spy Museum though. Apparently, the Spy Museum in Tampere is the first of its kind in the world. They had some fun "spy" equipment, like voice changers and invisible ink, to try out, and some history on spying during the Cold War too. I tried some of their invisible ink while I was there, but I had to wait until I got home to decipher it with heat. I don't think that I have spy potential though, because as I held the paper over a candle it caught on fire.