Finland Part 3

The third day of our Finland adventure saw another early start with Nesquick and tea. Although as we were clearing up the room we found Nesquick everywhere.... what we were doing we have no idea!Our first stop of the day was to a rather unusual church in Helsinki, which was circular and built into a pile of granite, with a large domed roof. 

We had a wander up over the roof, which was still completely covered in snow, then headed inside. The roof had a large bronze disc, which meant the acoustics inside were amazing. 

After this it was time to head back to the Hotel to pick up our bags and head to the station (with a quick stop for train snacks of course!) for our journey down to Turku, where Keira lives. Helsinki station is another awesome building, I wish more stations in England would look as good :(

Standing in the queue to buy tickets we witnessed the police coming to pick a drunk up in the station, using poking sticks!! Haha!! Although the uniform isn't nearly as nice as over here :P

We got Keira to buy our tickets, then jumped on the train. The train was two-tiered, but we decided to sit on the bottom. 

We also managed to buy the wrong tickets, and when the Finnish-only guard tried to communicate this, we had to enlist the help from a lady on the train who happened to speak English. Language failure 4.

The train journey was 2 hours from Helsinki to Turku, but we had plenty to keep us occupied. Somehow I managed to pick up a Soviet paper, which I thought was a Metro type affair, and we had snacks. O yes we had snacks. One one thing, we had shed loads of Nesquick left. But we also had a giant bag of crisps, Geisha chocolate (dribbles), and sweets....

Haha

Also, everytime Sarah decided to take a picture out the window, there would be a tunnel...hahaha 

Upon the arrival to turku, we jumped on a bus to Keira's accommodation. She has a nice room in a building with a lift that doesn't get stuck :D Though this doesn't mean I particularly liked it any more :P

We dumped our bags and headed straight out to explore the town. We stopped off at the Catherdral first of all. It was more of what I would expect a Cathedral to look like, made of stone, had tombs inside and of course boats hanging from the ceiling :D

We didn't hang around for long, mainly because some kind of service was about to start, but we thought we would continue our travels to a pub. A pub that used to be a public toilet. Oh yes...

Classy these Finnish...

Dinner up next, and we had a feast! 

Took us a while to decide whether or to tip the waitress though, the guidebook was NO HELP WHATSOEVER!!

Anyway we decided to throw in a couple of Euros and the waitress was so thankful I think we made her year! So make sure you tip in Turku :P

Absolutely knackered, we just decided to take it easy and head back to Keira's flat for hot chocolate and much catching up!

Finland Part 2

The next morning involved an early start, and breakfast! Now we didn't have any cutlery, or plates. So.....

Apple juice, Nesquick, and tea in plastic cups and spoons provided in the room :D. It's a bit random that the hotel provided a microwave and kettle, but only giving cups and spoons to eat anything from.

Also had a shower using "All Over Shampoo". I thought this was sweet. So heres a picture....

Sarah L was also creeped out, and she could see someone staring at her through the window...

Turned out to be this strapping fellow...

Onto things you probably care more about... Our first stop of the day was Senate Square. This is a big town square in the middle of Helsinki, accessible by only small roads, with a Lutherin Church at the top. 

The square looked as if it should have had a market in the middle, but it didn't :( The square was also surrounded by the University buildings, but better looking than any of the buildings on campus at home.

We decided to venture up the icy stairs of death and into the Church for a peek. It was strangely warm inside, and was very very plain. The walls were white, and hardly decorated at all, which is a huge difference to what you would see in a Church in Britain. Da Vinci should be twitching in his grave.

After this we decided to visit the tourist information point, to buy a travel card. For 6 €  you can have unlimited travel on the trams, buses and ferries around Helsinki for 24 hours, which worked out really well for us.

Lunch next, and being students we couldn't go past the University without sampling the food in the student canteen. The choices were, Carrot and Nut Curry or Chicken and Cinnamon Stew, served with salad and bread. Was very nice, especially with the accompanying glass of milk :)

Our travels then took us towards the Harbour. Quite a comparison to Southend Sea Front for sure. The sea was still frozen, apart from a path of slushy ice that the ferry had left. Lots of ducks were quite contently sat on the ice, and only disturbed every now and then by the odd ferry engine noise. There was a little market place also just by the waters edge, selling fur and cakes :)

The ferry from the harbour took us to the islands of Suomenlinna (not Semolina...language fail 2). We past many little islands on the way, some just stranded out in the ice-sea with just one or two houses on them. That must be a strange place to live.

The islands themselves were beautiful and all connected by footbridges. Very quiet, hardly any people around, and it just looked so undisturbed. I don't think I could live there, but the peace and tranquility was overwhelming.

However this is where we encountered yet another major fail...

Footwear... Climbing up icy hills in normal English trainers doesn't work, and we found ourselves slipping and sliding all over the place. Typical English... :P

We explored the island for a bit, then caught the ferry back to Helsinki mainland were we needed a hot chocolate to warm up. We attempted to ask for it in Finnish, but then we encountered language fail 3 :P

Next on the Helsinki agenda was a quick jump on the tram and round to the Olympic stadium. Wasn't really much to this actually, just literally the stadium. It did, however, have a very high viewing tower, with a lift (grumble) up to the top, so you could see over Helsinki...

Unfortunately, our stomachs were screaming again, so we headed back on the busy tram round to central Helsinki and dived into a noodle bar! Yummy!

Before heading back to the Hotel, we stopped off at

 an ice bar for a quick cocktail. We were given coats to wear inside that looked like sleeping bags with holes in for the arms. Although, it wasn't that much colder in there than it was outside! It was -5oC and we were allowed to stay in there for 30 mins. Just enough time for one drink, many pictures, and even more puns about how "cool" it was....and the "chilling" music.... o dear o dear.

The evening was quite relaxing, we chilled out and watched some Finnish Tv, "Frenit" and "Simpsoni". The Finnish have some amazing adverts. Bananas are for monkeys. We also went to a bar for a quick drink with one of Keira's friends. We had the most expensive drink I think I've ever had. €7 for a vodka and orange... shocking...

However we did walk past an amusing bar on the way home....

Finland Part 1

Moi from Penguin!

This year one of my good friends from uni has trotted off to Finland for her placement. And that just screams visit, so off I went. And I took 2 Sarahs with me! We all met at London Gatwick airport and got a 3 hour sleasyjet flight to Helsinki Vantaa. 3 hours should have given us plenty of time to learn a few words of Finnish from Sarah L's guidebook and to learn some background information.

Fail.

However we was reassurred that it was ok to be nude on the beach and we learnt all about Gay Helsinki. So it wasn't an epic fail. Anyway we would have looked silly trying to pronounce all the Finnish words on the plane in front of all the Finnish people.

Anyway, I digress...

So we met Keira at the airport, and hopped on a bus to Helsinki city centre, and dragged our luggage through the snow to the hotel. 

It was an unusual hotel, with no reception. We were just given a door code to unlock the doors. Our room was on the 7th floor so we jumped into the lift (which I reluctantly agreed to cos I'm too lazy to climb 7 floors). I don't like lifts. At all. Finnish lifts did not at all help this hatred. No internal door to the lift, so only 3 walls to the lift. And what happened, of course, we got stuck between floor 3 and 4. So I excessively pressed the help button, and some Finnish person tried to help us...

In Finnish...

But we found that if we squished into the lift further, the lift moved again. THANK GOD!!!

We eventually got into our room, to find half the number of beds we should have. SOFA BED!!

 Ahhh the Scandinavian genius... Except now we were absolutely starving, so popped to the coop type job round the corner for some microwavable goodness. 

Fail...

Pizza it was then! After buying brekfast of course!

[NB] This blog was written on the flight home on the back of a vomit bag. I DO NOT have small handwriting. It's just compact for vomit bag convenience.

I'm Still Alive

I haven't posted in a few months....sorry guys and gals...

Will catch up soon promise...