My European Adventure: Part 1

As I said in my previous post, I had a wonderfully amazing trip abroad. I have visited Europe before with my parents when I was about 14, but I feel as if I've only scratched the surface. What is it about Europe that is so entrancing to us North Americans? I feel as if the European continent harbours a secret that I want to uncover, and the more time I spend over there, the more I realize it just isn't enough. I so admire the depth of history and architecture, and I often try to imagine what life would be like if I lived abroad for a period of time. I have now added more countries to my 'travel list'; a list which only gets longer the more I travel.

Anyway, I visited three countries in my latest jaunt to Europe, although I did briefly stray over the border of Germany into Austria for around 10 minutes! I have added Austria to my list of places to see someday, so hopefully I'll be back.

We started off in Finland, as Jeff had some training to complete for work there, along with 5 other guys. We flew Saturday, April 21 from London-Toronto, Toronto-Frankfurt, experienced a 7-hour layover (that was brutal), and then flew Frankfurt-Helsinki. We stayed about two hours from Helsinki in Hameenlinna, which roughly translated, means Hame Castle. We arrived late Sunday, grabbed some dinner, and crashed into bed. I hadn't slept in over 24 hours!!

The first day I was there, Monday, we all explored the castle ruins across from the hotel - the Rantasipi Aulanko.

Castle ruins

Beautiful marble spiral staircase to get up to the turret

 The second day it was rainy, so we spent time exploring the hotel and swimming in the pool.

Cool chandeliers in the business atrium

View of the spa (glassed-in structure) and the hotel from the dock

The third day, we went to the lookout tower about 5km from the hotel. when we got there, we discovered we could only go about 1/3 of the way up since the final staircase was locked for the 'winter' season! We also visited the not-so-aptly-named Bear Caves, which turned out to not really be bear caves at all.

Lookout tower

Me as far as we could go up the lookout tower

Bear Caves - literally just a statue of some bears in a very shallow cave

The fourth day we didn't really do anything because I had too much school work to do. The rest of the guys went to a mall about 40 mins away, but I didn't go or take any pictures.

The fifth day we travelled to Helsinki since everyone was flying back to Frankfurt the next day. We took the 30 minute bus ride from the Hilton Helsinki Airport to downtown Helsinki. Helsinki is the cleanest city I've ever been in - apparently they zamboni the streets at night. I totally loved it, and I would definitely go back. All of the buildings were really architecturally interesting and unique. I would have loved to spend more time there!

Our very modern room at the Hilton Helsinki Airport Hotel

The bear is the national animal of Finland

Six or seven storey mall in Helsinki

Cool statue in one of the main squares of Helsinki 

Can you spot me?

And thus concludes part one of my European adventure. I think I'll either post part two later tonight or tomorrow sometime! I had an amazing time in Finland!