Helsinki, baby!

A lot has happened in the past day and a half or so. Jess and I took the overnight bus from St. Petersburg to Helsinki, Finland. It was fine, although we didn't get much sleep. Customs took a while, so that was annoying. When we got to the bus station, it was raining and cold. We found the train station which was only about a block away conveniently! It was really sketch with tons of garbage and people sleeping everywhere, but it was about 5:30am or so. We found luggage lockers for the day and managed to fit everything into 2 lockers. Being so early on a Sunday morning, NOTHING was open. We stayed in the station for a while to plan out our day using the awesome travel book Jess brought. We planned a really full day and after some much-needed coffee we set off. Here's a list:
- Olympic Tower from the 1952 games (which my uncle Hans was at because he was born here!). That was amazing because we were able to go up 11 stories to see the panoramic view of the city.
- Next we got some really expensive Subway (the dollar sucks) and wandered around some parks (Helsinki is GORGEOUS).
- A church that is completely under this rock formation with only the top dome of the church being visible. SO cool.
- The National Museum of Finland which was interesting and fun.
- From there we just walked around; we saw the parliment building, a famous mall and the great downtown area this city offers.
- The largest Orthodox cathedral in all of northern and western Europe. We also saw another really unique cathedral up on a mountain by the gulf.
- We met Andrew in a beautiful park after waiting a while
- The three of us hung out at a cafe and swapped stories of our travels so far
- We did A LOT of walking and saw some amazing views
- Eventually found dinner which was UNBELIEVABLY tasty (reindeer...mmmm....)
- Went back to the train station for some "sleep" (if you can call it that) for about 30 minutes
- Went on a late-night adventure to watch the sunrise at 2:30am overlooking a beach
- Went back to train station and had to wait outside for almost 2 hours in the cold watching annoying drunk Finnish teens
- Sending our duffels home today, enjoying Helsinki some more and heading to Stockholm on an overnight ship (hot shower and warm bed, here I come!)
I will do my best to update fairly often, but no garuntees. I can tell this will be an amazing trip and I'm very excited!