Heavy backpacks

People i met here who contributed to, and improved my trip: Brian and Cheanng (America), Steve (Ireland)

The ferry ride from Tallinn to Helsinki was mildly amusing, as it was filled with 2 hours of terrible Finnish karaoke! So on arriving in Helsinki at the ferry terminal i stupidly decided i'd walk the 5km to my hostel with my 3 backpacks, to clear my head and get some air..... very dumb. An hour and a bit later (9pm) i arrived completely knackered and in no mood for a Friday night out, which is rather uncharacteristic! So i caught an early evening after watching an appauling dvd.

Saturday i headed for the fortress island of Suromelina, but left my phone on the ferry whilst trying to charge it. I had a mad dash around the island and then headed back to the port to meet the ferry rearriving from Helsinki.

Luckily i got talking to some crazy Irish guy called Steve when i got back to the hostel and we decided we should go out and paint the town red. To my horror the first bar we went in was charging 5Euro for a half litre of beer. We made a swift exit and found beer for 2.5Euro for 0.4 litre and set up camp for a good few hours. We got chatting to a good few locals and also met 2 American guys, Brian and Cheanng. Steve and I carried on to a club and met a nice Finnish girl who got us in for free and jumped the queue as she knew the bouncers. Helsinki seems to be a pretty big party town and we stayed out until the clubs shut at 4am. This posed a problem, Stadion Hostel closes its doors between 3am and 7am! I stumbled back and decided the best thing to do was fall asleep on a table outside the hostel. Around 5.30am some Italians who were leaving the hostel woke me up and let me in and i managed to eventually get to bed!

Sunday was spent chilling out and i also crept through an open gate into the olympic stadium complex and i took a look around for a short while. Brian, Chang and I then went and caught the night bus to St Petersburg.