Helsinki

So much ice

During our second week in Tallinn we decided to visit another country for the day (cause we can).

Helsinki was our destination on a crisp day. It was a two hour journey on a pimp ferry fitted with a shopping centre, bars, pokies and a even dance floor! We were the first trip over for the day so the ferry got to break through the ice that set over the sea the previous night. 

Awesome icy sea

Massive sheets of ice breaking apart and sliding over one another as far as the eye could 'see' (haha pun intended).

Traveling further north of course the weather didn't do us any favours, with chilly wind cutting through us all day while we walked around.

We visited some cathedrals, an indoor market (the outdoor one was closed for winter), lots of shopping centres, second hand stores with funky clothes, couple of bars and a cool church built into a rock face. We finished our day eating kebabs before our night ferry home because everything else was too expensive.

Uspenski Cathedral

Temppeliaukio Church

Leah slipped on the ice.... again :(

Huge organ in the Helsinki Cathedral 

I'm gunna pop some tags, only got 20 euro in my pocket. Rip off!

 Freezing in Esplanadi park

 Overall, our impressions of Helsinki was that it would be a beautiful city in summer but in the cold winter there wasn't all that much to see or do, especially on our budget since everything is pretty expensive compared to Estonia. A day was definitely enough to see the sights. But it was good to go to another country, hear another language and we can now give some advise guests at our hostel looking to go to Helsinki.

Eesti

Estonia. Positively surprising. 

Its been 33 days since we flew out of Paris, what have we been up to?

Well we made it to Estonia! And it already feels like home! 

If we thought we were cold in Munich and Prague, we were about to get a whole lot colder. So we had a stop over in Riga for 3 hours then boarded a small 50 seater plain for the 1 hour journey to Tallinn Estonia. We landed at night and arrived at our ‘Eesti kodu’ (Estonian Home) Red Emperor Hostel and Bar about 9 pm. So what do you do when you land in Estonia? We drank. We were welcomed with jelly shots and an amazing choice of Saku’s finest beers. We got to bed about 5 am the next morning.

We started work a few days later. Leah is mostly making beds, cleaning and checking people in, while Arvi is mostly serving at the bar and babysitting drunken guests on nightshift. We are enjoying work and making heaps of new friends.

 

Leah enjoying a huge pancake

Vana Linn 

5am Arvi on Night shift

Kiek in de Kök

Stay tuned more to come on Estonia soon…

Arvi and his Football Pitches

It started during our first train trip to Berlin. I was snapping pictures out the window when I saw my other love ... football. So every train trip, walking tour or our own exploration I've kept an eye out for football fields everywhere (I've kind of got a sixth sense for spotting them).

On the way to Berlin from Munich

Czech Republic

On our way to Vienna from Prague

Snow Covered in Vienna 

Can't really tell but this one in the Italian Alps

Northern Italy

A.C. Risanese in Italy

Water logged pitch on our way to Cinque Terre

Sweet little synthetic in Monterosso

And another futsal pitch in Levanto

Awesome full size synthetic in Villefranche near Nice

concrete/dirt caged pitch in Paris

and one with players and a beautiful backdrop

Shot from the train on our way to Paris airport

another traveling out of Paris

Thick thick snow in Helsinki
 (oh yeah we visited Helsinki the other day) 

pa-REE

ahhh Paris the city of love....i guess

Token Eiffel Tower shot

We had a lovely couple of days in Paris zooming around under the city in the metro or walking around site seeing. We stayed at this cute colourful apartment in an artsy district a quick metro ride away from the city centre. On a sunny first day we ventured off to The Eiffel Tower, its huge. Without many tourists around we got in some good photos and Arvi even got to see some locals play football a couple of hundred metres away from the tower.

so thats how they work

 We visited houses, streets, castles, churches, bridges and more. The love lock bridge was very cool, with 1000's of locks clipped onto the metal mesh.

love lock bridge

Notre Dame was also amazing with all the stain glass windows and gothic architecture.
In Paris we also began our love affair with baguettes. They were so delicious we would eat 3 a day on average.

the Hunchback of Notre Dame 

Huge stained glass windows 

Notre Damn 

A break dancer and pianist street performing 

We caught the free walking tour the second day which took us to places that we hadn't seen yet. After a lovely picnic on the lawns of the Louvre with ham, cheese, hummus and of course 2 baguettes we ventured inside. It is huge!! We got to see the Mona Lisa front row of course, it was alright for a painting but smaller than we imagined.

Picnic nice and sunny

Mona

Mummified animals

Mummy

Leah got to see all her gross Egyptian stuff mummified mummys, cats, rats, dogs, birds and an alligator. Finally, that evening we ventured off to see the lights of the Moulin Rouge. Paris's sex shop street it should be called. Every third shop was either a brothel or sex toy shop (No parents we didn't venture into any).

Moulin Rouge

Nice is nice

We were welcomed into Nice with a mass of people all excited from their day at Carnival. Confetti scattered the streets and there were bright posters, face paint, balloons etc. As we walked closer to our hostel, two huge creepy looking Characters were set up at the end of a square where a lot of the activities/performances took place. We soon found out that after that, the Carnival activities would break for 2 days and start again the day we leave Nice. Bummer.

Creepy Carnivale folk

Creepy Carnivale folk

We did however catch an amazing sun set across the beaches from several viewing places along the Nice board walk.

beautiful sunset

some Asian took our picture

The first night we were so hungry, our stomachs were eating themselves because we couldn’t make up our minds where to eat! We eventually gave into our hunger and ended up at an Irish pub, drinking Belgium beer and eating really tasty burgers. How French!

We had a beautiful first day where we walked east towards the next town, Villefranche. We passed lots of fancy houses and little coves where people were swimming in the clear blue water. Can’t tell you much about Villefranche other than its expensive and we saw a lot of it while searching for about an hour for a public toilet (its ok we found one eventually, apparently fancy rich people don’t need public toilets).

Villefranche 

Leah tried to offset some of the bread, cheese and chocolate we have been eating with a jog along the boardwalk that afternoon. Jogging is very popular in Nice, and all the men’s running tights left little to the imagination…

Walking along the rock beach

The next day we went on a walking tour with the hostel. An animated Englishman took a big group of us through old town and to some great lookout points. Nice flowers markets, the biggest in France were so colourful and smelt amazing. We picked up a baguette, some pate and delicious strawberries to have a picnic for lunch at the top of the hill. Arvi confused the poor shop owners by saying ‘grazie’ instead of ‘merci’. Unfortunately, he still has not adapted to language change.

Succulents for only 1euro!

Juicy strawberries 

Beautiful flower arrangements 

Baguette? 

Thinking of where to go to next, we bought a train ticket to Cannes only to change our minds and go the other way back to Monaco and see why this place is the most expensive place in the world. The houses are big and tightly packed around a bay full of the most luxurious yachts (more like houses on water). Monte Carlo Casino was amazing, so big and a bit over the top. The minimum on the roulette table was out of our budget but we had fun watching people loose their money.We put 10 euro into the pokies instead and took out 72 euro not even 5 minutes later!!! We strutted back to the train station like high rollers, pretty damn chuffed with ourselves. Dinner and drinks that night courtesy of Monte Carlo Casino, Merci Beaucoup!

Ice rink during the winter and swimming pool during the summer

Acting all fancy in Monaco 

Acting important in Monaco

Begging for money for another baguette at the train station

We are off to Paris next ooh la la!