St. Petersburg & Helsinki
So I was finally able to go on my big trip that I had been waiting for! I traveled to St. Petersburg in Russia; Helsinki in Finland; Stockholm in Sweden; Tallinn in Estonia; Riga in Latvia and Vilnius in Lithuania. That’s a mouthful in itself! So we took a night train to St. Pete’s and it lasted 8 hours. But it was a sleeping train so once we boarded we were able to get our beds set up and just chill for a little while and take in the fact we were on a train for the first time. And it was fun to finally say I have been on a passenger train. We only spent one day in St. Pete’s which was nice, but I’m glad we are going again so we can see a lot more. The big thing we went to was ‘Winter Palace’. It was the castle of the Romanov Family, who was the lasts Czars of Russia. And if you have seen the movie Anastasia then you know who and what I’m talking about because she was a real girl and lived in the castle.
Then we boarded a night bus that was headed to Helsinki, Finland. All in all it took about 11 hours on one bus to get there since we had to pass border patrol and customs and traffic was so bad because there was supposed to be a Ferry instead of buses but they all got canceled so around 5,000 people were on buses all headed in the same direction. So that’s a lot of people and buses to check. That bus ride was hard, I was able to get a seat to myself, but still not very fun to try and sleep on a bus let alone be stuck on it and have nowhere to change, go the bathroom or get ready for the morning. So we all did the best we could and when we got into Helsinki, we found a restaurant that was an all you can eat pizza buffet so we headed in there bought our plates, then I headed straight to the bathroom to try and freshen up and put clean clothes on. Then I would be able to enjoy my pizza. A lot of other girls did the same thing as me so I didn’t feel that awkward! After lunch we just walked around for a bit then got back on the bus and did a city bus tour around the town.
We saw some pretty interesting things but the thing I liked most was a sculpture that was built for a famous conductor and it was made to look like 600 organ pipes. It was really neat and the details were amazing! After the bus tour we had to drive to Turku, Finland because that was where our first ferry was waiting.
Holy cow, these things were not the type of ferry’s I was thinking. It was like a cruise ship. They had restaurants, casinos, bars, dance clubs, a full on supermarket, lounging decks, and a karaoke bar. The rooms were really small and we had four people to a room but hey at least it was a bed that I could lie down in. Once I boarded the ship and got a shower finally, which it had been since Thursday and it was now Sunday night. Jessica and I got ready and met up with the other girls and we headed to the karaoke bar. It took awhile for us to finally have our turn on stage we when they called our name all seven of us went up on this little stage and sang, “Every Time we touch”. Let’s just say it was an experience I would prefer not to repeat. It was fun but it was too many people and the song was not a good one to sing at karaoke. But hey at least I can say I finally got on a stage and performed karaoke in front of an audience. After that we went to the dance club and danced until about 2am. I was way tired by then and knew we had to be up at 6:00am so me and some other girls left and headed back to our rooms for a little sleep. All I thought about that night was how I would wake up and finally be in Sweden! Somewhere I have always hoped to visit. In the morning we had no time for breakfast because it was back on another bus that was headed into Stockholm. More about Stockholm, Sweden in another post! 
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