Fun in Finland: Part 1!

After having recieved our passports from the school, and having the ability to travel outside of the country, Leah and I decided that we needed a break from the everyday stresses of life in Russia and living in the gostinitsa. Our solution to the problem was to take a romantic weekend getaway to nearby and oh so modern and socially progressive...Finland! We were originally going to take the train from St. Petersburg to Helsinki and then back again, but once we realized that it takes 6 hours to get there by train (meaning 12 hours of our weekend spent in transit), and that flying was only about $50 more a person we decided to book a flight to Helsinki and back instead. We had been looking on expedia at hotels in Helsinki and ended up finding a ridiculously nice (4 star Radisson Hotel on the waterfront) for only about $125 a night. Our flight was set to leave around 12:30pm on Friday the 3rd, so we left the Gostinitsa around 9:00am. We ended up getting to the airport on time and had no problems getting out of Russia (security was strict [3 checks and searches] but the people were very nice.) The flight to Helsinki was on a carrier called Finnair which was very good. The stewardesses were very friendly, the airplane was nice and clean and we had a delicious in flight snack consisting of orange juice, a nice bun with lettuce, cheese and cucumber and a mars bar. The flight was only an hour long, and because there is a one hour time difference between St. Petersburg and Finland we arrived in Finland at 12:30pm! We got through EU passport control without any problems, and soon were free in Finland! We grabbed a bus from the airport to the railway station downtown, and we were both very happy with our decision to visit Finland. Finland was a great big breathe of fresh air after being in Russia for a couple of months. Our first impression was that it was like an older, European version of Victoria in Canada. The air smelled very fresh and humid, the people were actually smiling, and the streets were clear of the random broken bottles of beer and vodka that are so prevalent on the streets of Petersburg. After getting off the bus at the railway station we wandered around the city a little bit and watched all the happy blonde people (we had to wait until 2:00pm to check into our hotel) we arrived at our hotel and checked in. Our room was amazing. It was decorated in very minimalist, Scandinavian design and furniture, with hardwood floors and the best bed in the universe. The matress was one of those extremely comfy memory foam ones and our duvee felt like being hugged to sleep by clouds. Once you got into bed you never wanted to get out. The hotel also had two Finnish saunas, and a massive and free breakfast buffet that had one table for breads, cakes, and muffins, another table for Scandinavian style breakfast which had different types of cheeses, pickeled herring, salmon, cucumber, lettuce and tomato, another table with all types of fresh fruit, another table with hot breakfast food like bacon, eggs, rice, sausage, beans and one more with yoghurt cereal and dried fruit. Drink options included milk, tea, coffee, apple juice, orange juice, fruit juice,and fruit smoothies. We settled into our hotel room and dropped off our bags, then went out to do some looking around and shopping, ate dinner at a very interesting Middle Eastern place in a food court in one of the malls. We then walked home, used the sauna, watched some fun Swedish and Finnish TV and then went to bed.