New Years in Finland!

What a way to spend the New Year - in Helsinki, Finland! It was my first New Year not in California in or around Lompoc, so it was a unique experience for that fact alone...but by being in Finland, it made it all the more awesome.

Christmas, too was wonderful - spending it with a friend's family made it special and again, it was one of my first holidays not in California (or WI) with my own family. Language skills were put to the test, and my belly was constantly full of delicious home made dishes - I'm sure I've gained a few pounds. Everyone was warm and kind and made me feel right at home. I baked chocolate chip cookies, which were a hit and gone within minutes. Presents were opened after dinner on Christmas eve in a free-for-all frenzy, so I got to see what everyone received the next morning when everyone was re-examining their gifts. I received generous presents from everyone, which was unexpected and lovely. Christmas dinner consisted of a specific set of 12 dishes which included lots of herring (delicious!), stuffed carp, potatoes, salads and other stuff i don't remember. Basically, there was plenty of food for leftovers the next morning to snack on. I got to see small villages in the countryside, a funny house covered in pots and bowls (pictured), old cemeteries, and rye fields everywhere.

So, on to Helsinki - I was in four countries in one day! That's 4 stamps in my passport, baby! Latvia made us nervous because the lines to get in were unbelievable and the border guards were taking their sweet time checking people...talking, smoking, changing shifts, standing around...ugh! It took us almost an hour to get through into Latvia and 30 seconds to get into Estonia...our hypothesis was that it was because women were working the Estonian border. The same story goes for the drive back across both borders - 30 seconds and no line because women were working! Girl power!

Anyway - we took a three hour ferry into Helsinki, hopped on a trolley straight to our hotel - which was amazing. Our rooms were upgraded to superior class which entitled us to the use of an executive lounge with free internet and snackies, which were more than welcome in a country on the Euro with food prices much higher than our broke Lithuanian wallets wanted to handle. There was a sauna and pool, and an amazingly huge breakfast that we filled up on so we didn't have to spend money on said expensive food. We even brought our own stuff to make sandwiches. The weather was gloomy, but picture worthy and everything was still decked out for Christmas. Beautiful architecture was all over the city, and many parks with joggers - not a usual sight in Lithuania. There were churches everywhere - and we met the New Year in Senate Square in front of the big cathedral pictured. There was a speech by the Lord Mayor, performances by fire artists and musical groups and lots and lots of fireworks. Hooray for 2007! Photos are up in the Lithuania 2006 folder, and I will start a new folder called Lithuania 2007 for the remainder of my stay here so it's easier to distinguish when things happened and keep me more organized.