30 hours in Finland
so on friday afternoon we all head out for Helsinki. i had no idea what to expect. we asked my friends dad where we should go when we got there and he told us "the airport". so in actuality Helsinki was predeposed to suck before we even got there. anyway on friday we all got on the ferry (which was the nicest part of the trip) and headed across the baltic to Finland. we got there two hours later and took a bus to our hotel in the city centre. we heard finnish food was terrible so we decided on a spanish restaurant called la bodega. during the middle of our dinner, the locals eating next to us broke into song. check out auburneurope.blogspot.com to see the video of him serenading us. it was bizarre. the restaurant was also right next to a night club, so about 15 minutes into our dinner the bass line started rattling our glasses on the table, but other than that it was great. next we all decided to head out to a bar called hemingways for a couple of late night beers. well in finland apparently every night is 10 dollar beer night at all the bars. so we all sat there nursing our beers for an hour, and in the middle of that hour from across the street, we hear our friends singing coming out of another bar. ridiculous. finally we went back to the hotel to look up some of the student bars around town... we ended up at an art school bar which for the better part of 30 minutes we debated whether or not it was actually a gay bar. we chilled and listened to the dj and then around 3 we headed back to the hotel. on the elevator this old guy in a suit who had just checked in asked us "what are you doing going in? you still have another hour til everything is closed." called out by somebody older than my dad
anyway so on friday we got up around noonish to check out and met up with rest of our group that came over saturday morning. well as i have done in many a country, i suggested renting bikes to get off the beaten path a little bit. that went over well for about half of us, so we took off on the tram to the bike rental shop. the guy gave us a map and showed us a 23 km "coastal route" that should take two to three hours and be very easy to follow. bullsh*t. so i was pegged to be our guide for no apparent reason and off we went. things went smoothly for the first hour or so, we stopped at the beach and on some outcroppings. then about two hours into the ride we wound up in the middle of a mall. so i asked the cops that were there about where we were. i gave him my map and he chuckled and said "where do you think you are?" we had missed a left turn and i had lead us straight off the map. for probably ten kilometers. so i passed bike map navigation onto jeffrey. who promptly lead us down a path on an island where we had to get off and carry our bikes through a forest. so finally we ask some people and get back on a major road headed back to initial route. 5 hours and 50 kilometers later, our biking adventure finally ended. so we got lost in finland twice, but i guess thats part of the fun. we dropped off our bikes and then john, thomas, brandon and i (me not by choice) all went out to tour the rest of the stupid city. i was quite bitter about this tour and wanted only to sit down and have a beer and some food, but no we had to go check out the finnish parliament and the currently-being-renovated president's mansion, which was completely empty. finally we went to see the 1952 Olympic stadium which was cool, except you cant go inside. so we tried various different ways in, all to no avail. finally we walked all the way back to the port and got on the 10pm ferry back to Tallinn... we got back at 12ish and went back to the hostel for some showers. we end up going to the no name pub for a late dinner. when 5am rolled around, me and john said good bye to the russian people we had been engaged in conversation with (for about 3 hours we talked about russian-us politics and also the art of the flaming sambuca shot) and headed home. by this time it is broad daylight. we stopped at a little food stand on our way back and we heard the people in front of us speaking english. well another bizarre story. it turns out to be Maj. Meadows, the auburn guy that spoke to us at the embassy last week. so we sat there asking him defense questions and all kinds of what if questions about the russians for about an hour. we finally say our good byes (after 3 years in estonia he is headed back to the states july 1st), and we finally get back to our hostel around 7 this morning. so we have our last free day today, i am about to do some work on my company reports, and then we fly out to Vilnius, Lithuania at 5am tomorrow and immediately get on a bus to Klapieda, a city on the coast. there is a lot more to this whole story, and eventually i will write it all down, but its been a crazy weekend. hope everyone is well.
posted by Graham Potter @ 8:03:00 AM
