Helsinki

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Middle-aged drunkies, karaoke, duty-free shopping, and a ridiculous amount of bread and cheese basically sums up my first booze cruise adventure to Helsinki.

On a late Tuesday afternoon, three Canadians (equipped with a healthy supply of peanuts and peanut butter), two Belgians, an Austrian, a German, and a Czech boarded the Gabriella, via Viking Line.  The first thing that I noticed was the random age distribution of alcoholics on the ship.  The sight of merry red-faced old men, middle-aged women sipping their champagne, and of course, some families with thirteen year old girls wearing stilettos, all dressed up for the dance club, was a bit of a comedy show for us cynics.  Still, there was fun to be had, including a spontaneous karaoke performance by the newly-founded group, The Farmers (yours truly) to the sounds of Celine Dion, a view of the Baltic Sea at midnight with ice cracking as the ship made its way to Finland, a dance with some more alcohol-intoxicated 60 and 80-year olds, and a taste-testing of our newly-bought goods.  Though I wasn't one to load up on the goods on the tax-free ship, I did pick up one souvenir that piqued my curiosity, and that was a locally-produced cream liqueur, produced in Tallinn, Estonia.  It's similar in flavour to Bailey's, and excellent for spiking a cup of hot chocolate.

Along the Esplanade

It's impossible to see an entire city such as Helsinki in just eight hours.  Still, we managed to have a peek at what the city has to offer.

Uspenski Cathedral

Helsinki Cathedral

It has lots of famous churches! We saw the Upsenski Cathedral, the Helsinki Cathedral, and the Rock Church.  

Stockholm welcomes us back home, sweet home

Helsinki has that Scandinavian feel to it, yet a distant Soviet touch to it.  It's too bad we had such short time to visit the city, but for $30 round-trip, I can't really complain.  

What else is new...I've got two term papers coming up in the next couple of weeks - one on wastewater management in Canada and the other on agricultural crop rotation and integrated pest management - plus a new round of exams coming soon.  But I can look forward to my upcoming trip to London with the girls, and hopefully another Baltic cruise.  It's hard to believe that it's nearly March and that I've been here for seven months! Where has the time gone?