Helsinki

On Monday morning I headed out to BCN airport. I got out there nice and early with 2.5 hours to spare so joined the enormous queue to checkin for Finnair. After an hour of waiting the queues were hardly waiting, only to be made worse by them trying to close one of the queues and forcing everyone to join into the next queue, where they were all accused of pushing in. Inevitably the fights started to break out and we had the queues double in length with security guards. After 2.5 hours later I finally got to check in and race on the plane for a nice flight over Germany and Sweden to arrive at Helsinki only 30 minutes late. With all the confusion the airport staff must have forgotten to pack any of the bags onto the plane, and so there was more waiting as plenty of people had to register contact details and bag descriptions.
Then got the bus into town and met up with Vivian and her cousin, and later on 2 mexican girls that were also crashing at her place. We enjoyed a drink in the evening at a local outside bar and then admired the Helsinki skyline from the rooftop bar on one of the towers.
On Tuesday we all took the ferry out to the island of Suomenlinna in the Helsinki harbour. This was an old fort with plenty of big cannons and bunkers to crawl around in. We enjoyed a picnic by the water and laughed as some locals were trying to brave the cold waters for a swim. Now I'm hoping my bags will turn up soon so I have some jeans to wear to the student party tonight.
I am now considering extending my stay in the North to allow a visit through Estonia (only a 1.5 hour boat ride across the harbour), Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, and possibly Sweden.