Finland

Taxi sign, looked as though someone had been taking shots at it with a BBgun.

I am going to be honest here and say that I had never really though about visiting Finland, it wasn't on my list of places I was likely to visit so I never expected to find myself there. But when we arrived I was very curious, I have never heard much about the Finnish people with the one exception being their education system which is currently the best in the world.

One of the Tzars, I forget which one. I took this picture because I got a kick out of all the seagull poop on the statue's head.


We had organized an afternoon tour out to a little medieval town named Porvoo (pronounced Parva). So in the morning we wandered into Helsinki where we found ourselves in the midst of a great crafts market. We took the big red hop-on hop-off tour, which honestly was a bit of a mistake because there wasn't a lot to be seen from the bus. The driver's spiel kind of went like this " Behind those bushes over there, (indicates wildly to left) there is an interesting building it is the oldest wooden building in Helsinki" We all crane to the left to see if we can see said building...nope. Oh well, it was a nice day for a bus ride. Also our bus driver was Cockney, which added a little bit of spice to our tour and he taught us some rhyming slang, which I have now and predictably forgotten. 

The Porvoo tour was pretty cool. We had a really nice tour guide and she told us lots of facts about Finland and what it is like living there. Apparently the highlight of being Finnish is the Sauna (pronounced Sawunah), closely followed by sausage barbeque, and beer. 

I like to ride my bicycle. 

Porvoo was really only two blocks wide and about three blocks down. It was really adorable and filled with pretty little boutiques, yummy looking cafes, and cobbled streets.

Porvoo