ESTONIA: I'm Tallinn you, its awesome!

This past weekend I went to Tallinn, Estonia with a few friends. It was amazing and we had so much fun....it is such an interesting city with SO much to do and see! To be totally honest, I am wayyyy too tired to blog much lately as I've actually been doing school work....so I'll post some pictures of my trip and perhaps update later!

...The ferry ride from Helsinki to Tallinn. (about 2 hours long)

I was SHOCKED at the amount of ice on the ocean....

..it was like something out of a movie!

No amount ice could stop our ferry...although our arrival was delayed about 15 minutes because of it.

Danny, Me, and Alex on deck! The wind was blowing so strong I had to hold my hat on!

Flower market in Tallinn

Old city gates

The beautiful rose Danny bought for me...

TULIPS! my favzzzz

The door to our hostel...such an awesome location and super nice staff!

Me and my friend

A cool little mini door in a cool little alley way

....from the viewpoint.

...the harbor from the viewpoint

...snow bar!

There were amber shops everywhere...bought myself a pretty little ring

...an old fortress walkway with a cafe uptop...HOT CHOCOLATE

..there was a display of Chinese symbol ice sculptures, this monkey was my favorite!

Everyone loves a man with a mustache!

..at the Beer House sippin' on a deeeelicious honey beer!

..don't be fooled, Alex and I later switched to the big mugs

...my kickass pancake stuffed with ham and brie

There were so many cool doors!

Oh blue skies, how I've missed you. 

..Alex and I went on a tour of the city wall to get a look from above.

On our last night we went out for a traditional Estonian meal...roasted pork, sauerkraut (which I normally don't even like but this stuff was baaangggginnnng) with potatoes and onions! and a nice glass of red wine :-)

I cannot wait to go back to Tallinn...I think mom and I might make our way through there for a night or two as we work back up to Helsinki to fly home at the end of June. I cannot wait for our bike trip through Italy...although she will probably kick my booty since she is miss bike rider and since "60 year olds RULE".

Tonight is a Moulin Rouge themed Stammtisch so that shall be interesting....unfortunately I did not bring my stripper outfits with me so I will probably just wear normal clothing, but I'm sure I will acquire some wonderful pictures throughout the evening regardless. 

I am heading to a Finnish cottage for the weekend and then leave early early EARLY Tuesday morning (1:30am) for Lapland!!!!

Au revoir! 

Time to get stuff done son!

The last few days have been pretty low key...my birthday night out Saturday was a lot fun and I can't wait to do it all over again for my pseudo-21st with all my peeps back home! We went to a bar called Ruma, which means "ugly" in Finnish....check out the picture of the bathroom stalls and the photo screens on the walls!

Twunnnnywunnnn!

I love you all for coming out!

This week and last week I have been taking my Russia and the Russians: Myth and Reality course at JYU. The course only lasts for two weeks, and then I have to turn in a paper by the end of March...and then I get a full semester worth of credit. The way they do the classes here is pretty awesome, I get to slack AND be finished with all my courses by the end of March. The professor who teaches the course is from St. Petersburg. The course is more politically and historically based than I usually enjoy but since I don't know much about Russia I find it pretty interesting. He is constantly asking me questions about America that apply to whatever we are talking about since I am the only American in the class. Usually they are political questions, and so I have nothing to contribute. I find politics totally frustrating and obnoxious and although I understand that they do affect me, I just cannot make myself interested in them at this point in my life. Maybe one day..but not tomorrow. Or the next! I am learning a lot about a country that I really never knew much about...and that is what I enjoy!

Speaking of Russia, I am going to St. Petersburg in the middle of March and CANNOT WAIT! Also, the Lapland trip is officially two weeks awayyyyy! Lapland is a once in a lifetime trip and I am excited to see everything it has to offer.

Alright..I'm OUT!

PS- I woke up this morning to a package at my door from the man I adore most (after Papa of course!)...filled with plenty of birthday surprises! I might just have the sweetest boyfriend ever :-)

PPS- I. MISS. RILEY.

Birthday!

Today is my birthday! I am finally...FINALLY 21!!! The day has come...time to throw that fake away! :-)

Although since I'm in Finland, being 21 doesn't make a bit of difference in my partying abilities here but we are all still going to celebrate like we're in America! Alex has been stressing to everyone that it is a big freaking deal hehe...I'm usually not one to make a huge hooplah out of my birthday but this year I give myself the right to make it a huge shebang. Even more so because it is so NOT an important birthday here or to any of the other internationals!

Tonight a bunch of us are pregaming in Alex's apartment and then heading downtown...I think I will go somewhere to get a fancy beverage and then out to the clubs! I am very excited although right now the thought of drinking is not super appealing...I have all day to change that though!

I am finally recovered from my hangover from Thursday night...twas a doozie! I think everyone had a really good time at the Anything But Clothes stammtisch so I will post a few pictures of the glorious outfits of the attendees. I did not win the free trip to Lapland, but thats ok! I didn't plan on winning and some people put a huge amount of effort into their costumes...everyone looked fantastic!

Now it is time for me to rest up and prepare myself for one of the greatest nights of my life. Peace out suckas!

Hookers, chocolate, circus troupes, and flutes....

So Wednesday night a few of us went downtown to a bar called Memphis. The other university in Jyvaskyla, JAMK, was hosting some sort of event for their international students and so we all went down there to check it out. Once I got there, I found my friend Kyla (who gave me the rest of her burger---so delicious it is worthy of a little mention) and we had a beer then decided to play it low key for the night and go bar hopping to check out a few other places around the area so we would know what was up. We left Memphis and went to Parnell's which is an Irish pub sort of spot and Kyla got some delicious sort of Irish cream beer (...I think) and then we went to REDNECK. Yes, in Jyvaskyla there is a bar called Redneck. I'm pretty sure it was put there just for us, as I (being from North Carolina) am well acquainted with the redneck lifestyle and Kyla (who is from Tennessee) is also prettty up on the way of the rednecks. When we walked in we realized we were the only people there, so we had a little photo shoot to showcase the decor. (Sidenote: On the way in I slipped and fell on some ice and bruised the shiznit out of the palm of my hand...only to further bruise it Friday night. More on that later.)

Yummy, creamy beer at Parnell's

I forget what mine was called but it had a bear on it!

REDNECK!! wooden picnic tables, tractor seat barstools, old crappy motorcycle hanging on the wall...love it!

Check out the super cute window valances hahaha

Love the barstools! 

Every bar needs a creepy painting and white-n-red checkered tablecloths!

We got our dranks and were just enjoying the atmosphere, I harassed the bartender about the happenings at Redneck...they only play Finnish music which I found strange. We've decided that we might need to begin my birthday festivities on Saturday night at this wonderful little slice of home. So Kyla and I are sitting there, and these two girls come in and sit at a table near us and so we start talking to them. They were Finnish but spoke English okay but enough that we could get buy. Long story short, a few minutes later one of them goes outside to have a cigarette with an older gentleman. Fast forward ten minutes later and she doesn't come back, so the friend (her name is Marjut) who was still with us starts freaking out. Then we find out she is only 17, they are from another place in Finland called Oulu, neither of them have ever been to Jyvaskyla before, and they are only in town for the night. This girl was waaaaasted, so Kyla and I went into mommy mode and refused to leave her by herself. As the night goes on and we check most of the bars in the area for her friend, we find out more about her: she has been is foster care basically her whole life, the friend we lost (Marsa) is basically like her sister/best friend/only thing she has, and she has just had a really sad life and she was so sweet so Kyla and I became even more worried about her. I bought us all a pizza to share hoping that maybe she would sober up some and we called one of Kyla's Finnish friends to see if he could get more information about where this chick was supposed to stay or what we should do with her. So then Marjut gets a call from another friend saying that the Marsa (the one we can't find) is at Hotel Alexandria and we should take her there. (Oh yes, by the way...we tried calling Marsa at the beginning of this whole debacle, but as luck would have it Marjut had both of their phones on her person.) So we are walking around trying to find this hotel, and by this point it is 3am so as much as I want this girl to get somewhere safe and be with her friend I'm like really ready to go home and get rid of her. So I ask the next person I see if he knows where Hotel Alexandria is. He tells us he isn't from Jyvaskyla but he is meeting some friends in the city center and they can help us. So we follow him and see his friends (meanwhile the drunken 17 year old is speaking to him in Finnish, takes a beer out of her purse and opens the bottle WITH HER TEETH...the lid was not a twist off, I promise.) and this d-bag of a dude stops at an ATM, gets cash out, and then Marjut basically tells Kyla and I to eff off and they start walking away arm in arm. BITCH WAS A HOOKER!!! We didn't even know, and she was plenty happy to have our help (the whole night she kept telling us that we were wonderful people and she was so thankful to have met us because she didn't know what to do and all this crap...) until a man stepped in and she had a chance to make some money. So Kyla and I both got realllll feisty and kind of flipped out on these dudes but apparently prostitution is legal in Finland (I googled it all the next day) as long as you're 16 or older. So we pretty much wasted our whole night taking care of this poor girl who we felt really bad for and then we got slapped in the face. (I mean that figuratively although Kyla did get hit in the chest when we tried to stop this girl from going with this nasty dude.) I got one picture of the three of us together to document my evening...this was before we knew she was a prosty.

This is a terrible picture and she looks kind of cockeyed, BUT she was actually a really cute and sweet acting "little girl" but I guess we were just being naive. Although in our defense she didn't look, dress or act like a hooker until the very end of the night. 

So that was awesome!

Friday during the day we went to the Panda chocolate factory! It is in Jyvaskyla and they make yummyyy chocolate! So a group of us went out there thinking we could go on a tour or something interactive/ behind the scenes because someone had told one of us that they do tours there. We arrive and walk into the factory shop where you can get discounted prices on the chocolate, but not really that discounted because you have to ride a bus both ways out there so it really isn't cheaper...in fact it probably ended up costing more haha but thats ok we were there for the experience! But once we got there we were told that they do not do tours and haven't for years! So we all bought some chocolate (some of us may or may not have gone a little crazy and bought a ton..although it makes good gifts!) and headed back into town....when all was said and done we probably spent about 20 or 30 minutes at the factory. But here are a few pictures!

I have no idea what this says

A giant spool of licorice!

I wanna get chocolate wasted!!!!!

Friday night we went to BRA. And yes, I got my ass kicked again. So that was fun!!!! We were all having a good old time when all of a sudden this group of shirtless men in spandex ran out into the middle of the dance floor wearing fake mustaches and they started doing acrobatics and gymnastics!! They were yelling and throwing each other around and doing flips and going craaaazzaaayyy! It was pretty cool so after their performance I hunted them down for a picture :-)

I'm a sucker for spandex and fake facial hair!

So we danced and we played and we frolicked and we drank all night long! Here are a few pictures from the events at BRA...

Helen, Alex, Cass, Jaanika, and myself

Me, Adrien and Cass at BRA!

Me, my new Finnish friend Aleksi (he was a huge help at the chocolate shop, telling me what everything was) and Pascal...time out??

I LOVE THE SWING CHAIRS. 

aaaand just a little obnoxious picture for all to enjoy!

So as we are leaving BRA we encountered a little flute playing man in the middle of city center. The generous drunk that I am gave him entirely too much money just because I was enjoying dancing around in the middle of the road...I'm not used to having coins that are actually worth something! Those euro and two euros coins add up fast when you just throw them in someone's money box! But oh well, the pictures were worth it! He was playing Irish jig sounded music...I think you can almost hear it just from looking at the pictures!

so awesome!

For a musician, he didn't seem to enjoy us enjoying ourselves to his music...

getting cray-cray!

Steve also joined in on the dance moves...

just doing our thang...

haha heel kicks? i dont know

This is when I got yelled at for almost stepping on his money box! I had just given him literally TWENTY EUROS and he was an asshole. 

So I enjoyed the dancing but not the music man. He sucked. Anyways, on the way home I slipped on ice and fell backwards and took a tumble straight down to the sidewalk and hit muh poor little head. While trying to break my fall I further injured the palm of my hand which is now severely bruised and yesterday my head hurt like a mofo (combo of both a hangover and slamming it into concrete...hehehehe) but today it feels a little better. My whole body is kind of in pain today though so I think my fall resulted in my writhing around on the ground for a bit too...haha whoops! Finland is kicking my butt, but I'm kicking it right back!!!

Love, Peace, and chicken grease! (god I would kill for southern fried chicken right now!)