Helsinki, Finland

Well. I'm not in Russia. I'm in Helsinki, Finland. Susanna and I took a brief break from Russia to meet Laurel who spent the semester studying in Paris. But we're going back to Russia tomorrow. If they let us past the customs control and border guards.

Important Observations About Finland

1. In Finland, they don't speak Russian or English. They speak a crazy language. It is called Finnish. As far as I can tell, every letter begins with H and is like 8 billion letters long and has long streams of a's all joined together. Example of a Finnish word. Haaalaaajkaaaamaaaanjaaaaa

2. I have now ridden on the most northern most metro in the world. Helsinki is the proud owner/location of such a metro. It only has one line. Also the cars are all bright orange. It was awesome.

3. Also this has nothing to do with Helsinki, but if anyone is ever going to be in Piter you need to stay at the Crazy Duck Hostel because that is the GREATEST place EVER. And by greatest, I mean craziest. And I was telling Susanna that they needed to divide the sleeping arrangements organized by insanity level and then we realized they probably did divide the hostel by insanity level and were placed in the crazy room. Crazy.

4. We saw some churches in Helsinki. They were stately and majestic. One of them is called the "rock church" and it is underground awesomeness. There's also a very pretty Russian Orthodox church on top of a hill.

5. We were multiple times mistaken for being both Finnish and even Russian. Some guy in this huge underground mall asked us in russian if we spoke russian. Because we look so russian with our coats and boots and stylish russian-ness. Awesome moment number 1. And then the waitress at the restaurant talked to us for like 3 minutes in Finnish and we all smiled and nodded and then she came back and kept speaking Finnish and then we ordered. And she said "Wow, you don't speak Finnish." And we said "No." And then she said "And I just went on and on speaking in Finnish to you." And we said "Yes." Awesome moment number 2. And then I tried to pronounce some italian pasta dish thing, and Laurel and Susanna laughed at my failure.

6. Also Susanna and I bought ice cream and ate it on the street when it was like negative 1 billion degrees which it always is. Which is like completely only a thing that Russian people do. So that was awesome. And all the hearty Finns looked at us.

7. Susanna likes to remind us that Finns are very hearty. They're also friendly. And very Finnish. But mostly hearty.

8. They also do nordic walking which means they stride about the city with nordic ski poles. Strange. Yes. A hearty, finnish activity. Most definitely.

9. Tomorrow night the Crazy Duck Hostel is full. So Susanna and I have planned our night in Piter to include depositing of luggage in luggage lockers at the train station, then wandering until it gets dark or cold, then going to McDonalds till like 2 a.m., then going to internet cafe from like 2 till 6, then going back to the train station and leaving for Moscow. I wonder what kind of people hang out in a 24 hour internet cafe on Nevski Prospekt at 4 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. I will soon be able to tell you.