You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen....

This last weekend I took a trip to Helsinki, Finland- and much fun was had. I went with two other girls from my floor, Rose from Melbourne, Australia and Titia from Delft in the Netherlands. We took an overnight cruise over there, which was pretty fun. The boat was big with lots of (expensive) stuff to do. Our first stop was the duty free shop, of course. While I was there, I spotted Maynard Wine Gums, my favorite candy back from my days in London. So I bought a big box, which I'm sad to say is now almost empty. Oh, interesting story. While we were in our cabin, we heard music coming from down the hall, so we went to check it out. There were a bunch of Swedish people our age drinking in a room, and they invited us in (FYI- many Swedish people go on these boats solely to buy cheap alcohol and get really drunk). They asked us where we were from, and when I said the US, they were like, oh, all snobby and disapproving like, and they didn't talk to me for the rest of our time in the room. I had never had people react like that to me being from the US. Most of the time people will say, oh we can't wait for you to get a new president, or something like that, but they wont hate me for being from the US. But not these people I guess. Oh well. And later on the boat, we went up to a karaoke bar (I may or may not have sang Summer of 69...) and this Swedish guy was telling me all about his dream to move to LA. I tried to explain that LA isn't really all that great, but I suppose the Swedes just watched too much of the OC. So anyways, the boat was fun. No icebergs or anything. For I would have surely died, being in the poor part of the boat, below the car deck.

Alright, enough about the boat. The destination was Helsinki. After a night of not sleeping very well we arrived, and it was freezing. Makes you really appreciate the 50 degree weather in Stockholm. We took the tram to our hostel, which was located inside the 1952 Olympic stadium, cool, then we set off to explore the city. Our first stop was the modern art museum, called Kiasma. And since I enjoy modern art very much, I was a fan of this activity. I bought a new poster for my collection of posters from art museums. Its a dog in a bee costume, and it says "en ihan ymmärrä" which is Finnish for something that I haven't bothered to look up yet. Oh I just remembered why dogs in bee suits seemed so familiar to me, its that website, with all the dogs in bee costumes....http://beedogs.com/ right. well, if you had trouble picturing what a dog in a bee suit would look like, this website has plenty of examples. After the museum of modern art, we made the mistake of walking through Helsinki's main shopping district on the way to our next destination. I ended up spending all the money I had just taken out of the ATM for the trip on shoes...but the good news is I now have rain boots (also known as wellies in England, gum boots in Australia) for those rainy Stockholm days. And a pair of crocs, but not ugly crocs, you wouldn't even know they were crocs, i swear! Since the majority of people reading this I'm guessing are male, I'll stop talking about shoes and move on. Our next stop was the Helsinki Cathedral. I got some nice pictures of it. It reminded me of what I imagine Russia would be like. Fun fact! Finland used to be part of Sweden, but Russia conquered it in 1809. It later became independent in 1917. So I suppose that's why there are both Russian and Swedish looking buildings in Helsinki.

The Helsinki Cathedral

This is where the trip starts getting a little bit dangerous, except not really. We read in the Lonely Planet guide about an old Finnish wood burning sauna, and we decided to visit it. The subway was sketchy (especially compared to the tunnelbana in Stockholm) and then the neighborhood we got dropped off didn't seem all that safe either...We had a hard time finding the building, but once we saw the old fat men in towels sitting outside this building with a huge sign that said 'sauna' we figured we were in the right place, but were beginning to question our decision to come there. But we decided to stay and use the sauna, but I wouldn't say I exactly enjoyed it. It was very old, and there were a lot of old (naked) people... anyways, it wasn't the relaxing experience I had imagined it to be. Our next stop was dinner, which again was picked out from the Lonely Planet guide, but don't worry, this time they got it right. We went to a little restaurant outside the city center with Finnish food. We opted to do the buffet, so we could try everything. I tried reindeer, which I was excited about, but I didn't care for it much. Not very flavorful. We stayed there for hours. Even when we wanted to leave, the old couple who owned the place kept talking to us, so we couldn't. They were nice though.

The next day, we started off the morning at Cafe Espanade. We bought 4 pastries between and 3 or us. I knew I was in trouble after eating the first third of a pastry and already feeling full. But I finished everything on my plate, a bad but delicious idea. We then took a ferry to Suomenlinna, an big fortress built on an island near the city in the 18th century to protect Helsinki. We walked around the island for a few hours, exploring different tunnels and buildings. It was huge, had the weather been nicer and if I would have had a flashlight to see inside some of these tunnels, I could have spent all day there. I imagine its a very nice place to visit in the summer. We took the ferry back and visited another cathedral, the Uspenski Orthodox Cathedral. Gotta love churches...especially if you're travelling in any city in Europe. We went back to the hostel to retrieve our bags, ate lunch/dinner in the big food market by the water, and got back on our boat. The ride home was pretty low key. Titia and I went to the sauna on the boat (much nicer than the scary one in Helsinki) and we went to bed early. The next morning, the boat arrived at 9:30, and I rushed back to KTH in time for my class at 10. Check out my new facebook album with pictures from Uto and Helsinki. http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2239592&l=75664&id=16915404