Hello Finland!

I had a great weekend in Helsinki. Shannon met me at the ferry on Friday night and we (along with Tiki whom I am glad I finally got to meet after reading about her on Shannon's blog) hit two of her favorite places (Molly's and Red Rum)...I got to try the licorice shot (which I liked) and the Fishermen's Friend (which I did NOT!). They also have a 'cider' which is actually like a beer but it tastes better...I had the pear flavored. It seems alot of activity in Finland involves drinking...either drinking coffee in a cafe or going to a bar, which can get quite expensive in both cases.

Shannon wasn't feeling well on Saturday morning so I took a bus tour of Helsinki, which was really good because I got a nice overview of the city and was able to go back and take pictures of the things I most liked. Then we went to dinner at this really good Finnish place (I can't remember the name of the place). It was very farmsy...had a tractor and everything...we sat in what we called the 'chicken coop' because it had the chicken wire around the tables. And then of course, what did we order? Chicken! The food was really good in Finland but more expensive than Tallinn. After dinner we walked around a bit down by the statue of the "Doodle guys" and then went to Ice Bar...a totally tourist place but we had to do it! It kind of looked like a meat locker as we went down into it. They give you big heavy coats so you are warm and the room is made of blocks of ice brought from Lapland. Then we went to the Casino and blew through some more money. We had a little trouble with the tram that night...it would stop but the doors didn't open. We waited for 3 trams to come by but none of them opened their doors...we thought maybe they weren't stopping at our stop because it was late but then we saw someone push a button on the side of the tram to open the doors. D'oh! (I guess Shannon always got on with other people so she never knew you had to push the button)

The highlight of the trip was Nolla. We found out they had a reggae buffet on Sunday mornings and we just had to go since we both love reggae. The food was ok, but there was free refills on coffee so we just sat there drinking coffee and listening to reggae and pretending just for a moment we were somewhere warm! We met Tiki for coffee afterward and then met up with a friend of mine from TripAdvisor (JohnTheFinn) who gave us a mini-tour of the area near the harbor. It was so cold we decided not to try and tour the island...it would have been too rough out there. I can't believe some people were eating ice cream!

It was great to see Shannon and talk about our experiences with the program, her being almost finished and me just getting going. It is hard to believe her time is almost over in Finland; she really has enjoyed it though she has enough souvenirs now. It seems her group really does alot more social stuff than here. Tom will be coming to Estonia in a few weeks so I am very excited about seeing him and sharing Tallinn with him. Too bad he can't bring the dogs with him...I really miss them too.