United States? Um, Where is that?

Our shore excursion to Helsinki was "by land and by sea."  We started out with a boat trip around the many islands that make up the city.  Then we landed at, guess where, a flea market with lots of vendors selling lots of souvenirs.  With a quick trip to the restrooms in City Hall, which actually functioned like a city hall, with an internet area where people were using computers and a very nice art exhibit.


As we walked the several blocks to our bus for the land portion of our tour, we met a young man who asked where we were from.  We tour participants stand out like sore thumbs, with colored stickers on our lapels denoting which tour group we're with - so it wasn't hard for him to peg us as tourists.  When we responded, "the United States," he got a confused look on his face and responded  that he'd never heard of that.  As we clarified, "The United States of America," he then understood and said that he'd heard of "America."