Helsinki, Finland -> Tallinn, Estonia
26.6 km dep: 11:36 arr: 19:30
Date: 2/08/2012
Weather: Sunny
I had an awesome time in Helsinki. I met a lot of peolple from everywhere around the globe and even spent an evening drinking with some Finns at a death metal bar. On my way back from that evening, I got seriously lost and it easily took me twice that amount of time it normally takes. I did not get to see the midnight sun, but it never got completely dark at night and high up in lattitudes, the sun rises so early that what I tought was a sun setting (west) was actually a sun rising (east) and it also does so further up north than in Canada so in the end, that got me going in the opposite direction.
Helsinki may not me as beautiful as Stockholm, but it was much more lively with people on terraces, outdoor concerts, markets and such.
My time there did not end very well tough. Finland is in a different time zone and I had decided not to advance all my clocks and always add an hour instead. That idea backfired on me when this morning, all drowsy and hangover from last night, I tought I had set my alarm and hour too early.
I ended up missing my ferry and the company would not give me a refund. I had to spent part of the afternoon in Helsinki and lost quite a bit of time in Tallinn but since I heard so many nice things about the city I may just end up staying an extra day.
While in Sweden and Denmark, I could somewhat read the signs because those two languages share a common ancestor with English I think. Finnish however is completely incomprehensible and so far I do not think I will fare much beter at Estonian. The Finns are all bilingual (and really like to speak English) and everything is also written in Swedish (there is a big swedish Speaking minority in Finland) so it really is never an issue, but I always find it funny to be illiterate.
Quel beau voyage tu fais! On a toujours hâte de te lire. ça doit être tout un dépaysement, Tu en auras sûrement beaucoup à conter à ton retour.
Tu as déjà beaucoup de kilomètrage de fait, et on espère que tu ne rencontreras pas trop d’imprévus d’ici la fin de ton aventure.
Ici tout va bien, On est à la roulotte depuis 2 semaines, et on y restera probablement encore la semaine prochaine. La température est exceptionnellement belle. Dimanche dernier, c’était le rodéo à St-Victor. Julie est venue avec Zachary et il est resté avec nous jusqu’à hier, mercredi.
Belle continuité de voyage
Hélène et Jean
Tu me donnes le gout d’aller en Finlande. Les suédois aussi étaient friands d’anglais en 89. Ils allaient jusqu’à écouter la télé en anglais plutôt qu’en suédois même s’ils ne comprenaient pas tout. Moi qui venait du Québec en plein bataille linguistique à l’époque, j’avoue que je ne partageais pas leur soif de l’anglais. J’ai eu de chaudes discussions à ce sujet avec bien des suédois et norvégiens.