The Northern Highlights

Hello!

Well, we have been to three cities since we last wrote so here goes...



We arrived, late again by 2 hours, in Helsinki on Wednesday midday after a long, squashed flight from New York. Our first Finnair flight, and it wasn't a Boeing, it was called an MD-11 or something. I swear the seats were even smaller than a 747 and it was packed. And no back of seat screen with on demand movies. Boo.

So we caught a train to the cheapest accommodation in Helsinki, Rastila Camping. It was ok, perhaps a step up from our New York place, except you had to walk a bit through snow and ice to get to the bathrooms, which meant of course that we needed to go about 10 times every night.




We had a beer from the supermarket, the only cheap thing in Helsinki, besides our cabin. Then fell asleep till 8.30. Except we didn't know if it was 8.30 at night or in the morning. Turned out it was night and we weren't going to get much more sleep that night either. I remember looking at the time at 5am and thinking "Good, I can get up soon". Unfortunately the sun doesn't rise till about 9am...




Anyway, while jet lag was my main memory of Helsinki, we did do some other things. Like eating salmon soup from a market on the harbour, which was yummy and reviving. We went to The Helsinki Design Museum, where we learned about important things like the much loved Alvar AAlto vase which seems to be one of the Finns proudest inventions (its a swirly shaped vase, like this one) and is sold in practically every shop.



We found that they also love Marimekko and the children's books about Moomin.




So after a couple of days not sleeping in our cabin we moved to this nice new hotel in the centre of the city called Hotel Glo. It was pretty plush, you could even plug your ipod into the Tivoli radio. The bed was comfy too, which was good, since the hours of lying awake till the sun came up were at least spent in comfort.

We ate a lot of salmon, soup, salmon for dinner, smoked salmon for breakfast twice and for lunch once. And B had reindeer, which was really tasty.
I liked Helsinki, it was so small and quiet, it was perfect for not doing much, but in a nice place. And the last night there it snowed like crazy, and I got to roll my suitcase through the slush in the morning which was a fun experience!

So last night we arrived in London, 2 hours late for the 3rd time out of 4 flights, and went to our hotel on the tube which was in Hoxton. There we met up with the lovely David Matthews and Gil and went and had pizza and wine and chats, which was great fun and made us excited about the moving to London part which is steadily approaching.

And I woke up at 2am, but went back to sleep straight away, yay! I was very happy this morning.

And now we have the wonderful Paris to contemplate which we have done this afternoon after an easy train journey on the Eurostar. We have an apartment in the 5th which you can see here.



And here is the view of the Pantheon from our window.




We have already eaten crepes and drunk a bottle of champagne while we cooked our own dinner for the 1st time since we left. We have been dying for homemade pasta and it was delicious!

So, we both hope that you are all going well, leave us a comment or send an email cos we are having fun, but we still miss you lots!

Au revoir, nos amis!