European Adventure

Well, its not as nice as Sweden but it sure beats Norway - its Finland. If I had not just left Stockholm, I'm sure Helsinki would have seemed like a perfect little Scandanavian city. But it does have its charms - the people are extremely friendly and seem to have a real love for life even in the middle of a cold dark winter. I didn't know much about Helsinki, or Finland for that matter, before I arrived, but the towns musuems had me up to speed quickly.

I headed off to Soumelina Fortress, taking the ferry across some very choppy water, but the colourful little buildings there made it worth it, and a brilliant video in the musuem on the Island was fascinating. I explored the rest of Heslinki with the help of a bus-tour. I was probably the only one under 50 on the bus, but that just made me feel lucky to be experiencing the world at a young age. Sibellious Park was beautiful even with the strange metal tribute. But my only problem came when I went out to find a traditional Finnish sauna, every one I went to seemed to be filled with creepy older gentlemen who had the look that if I went in I might not come out or would come out as their new young bride! So I never did get to experience the traditional Suana.

The night life in Helsinki is better that its neighbours and after a few too many shots at a local hotspot, a friend and I had to hightail it across town at 3:30am in order to make the curfew of our hostel at 4, arriving with only 2 minutes to spare! I happened to book a room based on the fact that it was located at the old olympic stadium, rather than location as it was a little bit out the way, especially when under the influence of strong Finnish liqour!

But that was all that I had time for in Finland, I still had to get to Denmark before meeting family in Switzerland for Christmas