Tallinn Cruise

I had a few more days of break and a few exciting things happened. I got my Finnish bank card, I went into the cow house for the first time; I got to see the new calf! On the Friday we drove into Physälmi and went to this old flea market, lots of old books and videos, it reminded me of the Port Elliot market. We went to a sports store and it had some really nice bikes in it! I found a golden shoe horn! Points to anyone who knows why this is funny. We picked up Liisa on the way home and spent the afternoon looking at old baby photos of all of them and packing.

                   

Saturday 10th of March

We had an early start as we had to be in the city by about 8.30. There was about 16 or so of us travelling to Helsinki and it was a long trip but it passed pretty quickly. I listened to Hamish and Andy, wrote in my journal, had some Finnish lessons with Lisa and played cards. We stopped for lunch at the same roadhouse as I did when I drove from Karkku to Kiuruvesi! It was very strange thinking that it was only 6 weeks ago that I came to live with my family! It was nice to look over how much fun i’d already had and how much I’d changed even in that short amount of time. When we arrived in Helsinki it was straight to the dock and we all piled off the bus and went and picked up our tickets. We had to wait a little bit before we could get on the boat and we saw Aira Samulin who is a famous Finnish dancer, Tiina and Sophia went and got a photo with her. I was blown away by the size of the ship; I’d never been on a cruise ship before. When we go onto the ship we found our room, Liisa and I’s room was just a little room with two beds but the other room was a nice fancy room with a lounge and mini bar! While we were still docked in Helsinki we saw a bus with KOSONEN on it! That was pretty cool! We had a huge buffet lunch and then went back to mum and dads room and did our hair and hung around for a while. We docked at Tallinn at about 10pm and at about that time we headed down to the main sort of dance floor and they had music and dancing. The guy playing the guitar was one fo the Idol judges and I recognised him, which make him the first Finnish celebrity that Iäve recognised! We all danced and watched the music; Liisa told me all about her Abi cruise. If you remember back to my Penkkarit post now, after we put the Abit on the bus they drive to Helsinki and go on a cruise to Tallinn. We’ve decided I’m coming back for Tiina’s Abi cruise in 2018! After a while, everyone started to head to bed and Liisa and I decided to find the disco which was on the top floor, we were a little lost and someone offered to help us, in English because he’s heard me speaking English and then Liisa replied to him in Finnish and he was all shocked that she was speaking Finnish. Looking back I think maybe the time of the night made it funnier than it really was! We found the disco and danced for a while and actually had a tiny Finnish lesson at 2 in the morning! Finally we went back up to our room and turned on the TV to see that in the main area there was a rock and roll band playing, had to resist going back down there!  

On the bus

Getting an Autograph

My host Parents :)

The main stage

Liisa and I in the disco

Sunday

Somehow Liisa and I managed to drag our selves to breakfast at a reasonable time and then we all got ready to go into Tallinn! We walked off the ship into a sort of terminal thing. No one checked our bags or passports or anything, mind you. We went to a shopping centre first where seeing shoes sold for like 700 euro’s startled me until I realized it was Estonian money! Estonia now uses the Euro but only as of last year I believe so they still take Kroons. Actually I just looked it up and Kroons are no longer used in Estonia, only Euro’s so it must be for people to know what price they are paying for things. Anyway, afterwards Liisa and I went for a walk across the snow which, unlike Kiuruvesi, was starting to melt which didn’t make it fun to walk on! I was trying to find a cache but after a lot of searching we had to give up and walk back to the ship. It was near a really nice old church though so we got some great photos and got to see this strange statue which is a memorial for the 852 people that died on a cruise that sunk in 1994. When we got back to the ship we went “shopping” There was 3 main shops on board, one that sold chocolates and lollies, one that sold duty free perfume and another one that was by far the biggest, which sold alcohol. There is a chocolate called Julia! We had left Estonia now and I spent ages just watching the ship going through the ice, it was really cool, it sort seemed like we shouldn’t be moving but we were! I met the head of the Kokoomus party which means if they win, I can say i've met the Prime Minister! Liisa and I went back to the cabin and packed our stuff up because we had to leave the ship. I got to pose with the Kosonen bus before we left for the long journey back home. I tried to sleep, wrote in my journal and listened to U2 for most of the way. I also wrote my rotary article which I promise to post soon! We got home very late and we all collapsed utterly exhausted! 

Me looking pretty cool and Tallinn in the background

Walking in the city!

Liisa and I with the church

The statue

:D

I'm famous in Finland....