Arrival in HELsinki

Someone on the plane told me that they don’t call it HELsinki for nothing. I agree! My first plane was delayed 2 hours, after a sprint through the JFK airport, I successfully caught my connection, only upon boarding to find out it would also be delayed 2 hours, due to rain in New York. Yay! Must be my lucky day. Haha. The airport in Helsinki was wonderful and all the people I have met have been extremely helpful and nice. Other than they all assume that I am finish, and speak to me in finish!

But this is where it gets interesting. I made it down to the city centre, and went to check in at the hostel (running on 24 hours without sleep so far) only to find that the hostel was fully booked. So, I managed to make my way further into the city to find a motel . . .it was also booked. I went to the train station because they have a hotel booking service, only to find out EVERY motel/hotel/hostel was booked in Helsinki. I ended up taking a train 45 min. to Kerava and spending the night at the hotel Cosmopoli. Now you would think that sounds like an upscale martini bar, but let me assure you, it is not. I checked in at Cosmopoli Sports Bar at 3pm, and told the lady I was going to sleep, and she said, you better, because the kareokee starts at 9:30 and you won’t sleep then.

I woke up at 5 pm to the sound of a woman moaning . . again at 5:30 and a man at 5:45, at 6 the cleaner came to clean the room, because the couple had checked out. I went out and got some groceries, tried to connect and chat with some of you (although, the people at the sportsbar gave me the wrong password, so that did not work out) and then went to sleep. I woke up again at 9 to drunken finish men butchering Hotel California, and did not get back to sleep until after 4 am when the bar closed (which was more like 4:30)!

Took the train back to Helsinki, now there are no rooms for tonight, they told me to go back to Cosmopoli and I said NO! haha. So, I’m taking the 7:30 train to Rovenemi tonight and checking into the Rudolph hostel in the morning. I hope Rudolph is friendlier than Cosmopoli was!