Thursday, May 21, 2009

We're moving to Finland!

We arrived in Helsinki, Finland two days ago. What a welcome place after coping with Russia for a week! The border crossing went really smooth and took just over an hour. It's really beautiful and clean here and everyone is very friendly. Nicole and I could totally live here...well, maybe just during the summer.
First off we went on a city tour on the coach, followed by check in at our amazing hotel. Yes, after staying in St. Petersburg, this hotel is the equivalent of a Ritz Cartlon for us right now. Then we had a nice dinner followed by a night on the town. We started out at a local Karaoke bar that was packed. Nicole wowed the crowd with her 'Proud Mary' performance and June entertained everyone with a Blink 182 song. The Fins loved it! Nicole and Derek finished off our karaoke experience with 'I Got You Babe'. Apparently The Eagles are big here - we heard 'Hotel California' sung twice while we were there! It was getting a little crazy in that place, so we left to find some place to dance for the rest of the night.
The Fins are somewhat obsessed with Texas. Everything is Texas or Southwest themed here...it's quite strange. We went to a club called 'Amarillo' that was very western themed. We hung out there for a little bit before calling it a night. Note: Don't order quesadillas in Finland.
We were supposed to go on a boat ride to Estonia yesterday, but that got cancelled because the company went out of business. Most of us were ready for some downtime anyways. The shopping here looks amazing, but we didn't get a chance to do any of that. Yesterday was Ascension Day, an important religious holiday in Europe. Most everything was closed. June found a short cruise that we took around all the small islands of Helsinki. It was cold, but nice to relax and learn some local history. We found a nice place for lunch and leisurely took in the city.
Today we're packing up for an overnight ferry ride to Stockholm, Sweden. It's pretty much a cruise ship that we'll drive the bus onto for the night. We've been told that it's a fun night with all sorts of stuff to do on the ship, just like a normal cruise ship.

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