so we correctly navigated the waters from tallinn, estonia to helsinki... or better said, the ferry boat captain did. we did a good job of purchasing the correct tickets. so what do you do on a 2 hour ride through international waters??? if you answered eat a slice of pizza and grab a beer, then you're totally right. bear with me, i do have pics to prove it but this internet cafe here in split won't let me hook up my camera. (grrrrr!!!!!). anywho, we docked at the port, located our bearings and made our way off to the hotel. as we turn the last corner of what should be our 
hotel, i notice this HUGE brick wall encompassing what appears to be some sort of correctional facility. i stop, look back down at my notes (possibly gesturing a little), and then shubha says "oh, did i forget to tell you that our hotel is a renovated state prison?"... yes, yes you did shubha. so turns out we're in the right place. pretty sweet inside (hotel restaurant/bar is called "jailbirds"). it's only about 3 years old so it looks nice. they kept the correctional facility theme going by keeping bars on the large windows at the ends of the hallways (which have a space in them to see the floors below you, just like shawshank). actually, it's the nicest beds we've had all trip. all around, i give it 6 stars.
we head out of the hotel to grab some eats. made it to the town square, trying to find a place that's still open and serving dinner at 10pm. we ended up grabbing a bite at "texas". cause after all, what's more authentic than a tex-mex place that seems to think the entire continent of south america is considered texas (and somehow includes cuba, which totally boggles my mind). fortunately, they DID have a local beer on tap. so there was some savoring of the finnish experience. turns out most of touristy stuff was already closed (shocker), so what do we do on a friday evening in a new town??? if your hand is raised and you said "go to the famed matchmaking bar 'molly malones'" then you're spot on. why not go to an irish pub in finland??? who wouldn't??? liked the place, had live music 5 nights a week. overall good time.saturday was a lazy day of laying in bed (did i mention how awesomelly comfortable those beds were?) followed by pizza dinner (grabbed whatever was the "special" at the restaurant we went to, not sure what it was actually called but it was named after the restaurant and the ingredients were in finnish and russian). one funny thing to mention, turns out that saturday was the brazil-finnish parade. apparently there's such a connection between the two countries that they've dedicated a whole funny clothing, samba line for a winding 4-5blocks through the city streets. pretty interesting, quite peculiar as to why, but nonetheless interesting.
on sunday we went to the island fortress of sveaborg. it was built back in the 1700's as the primary defence for the city. besides seeing some sort of war re-enactment and checking out the canons, not much else to see on the island. oh well, went back to the port and enjoyed fresh fish from the fishmongerers whilst sittin on the dock of the bay...up early for a 6am flight out to venice the next day, so we kept it relaxed sunday.
oh WAIT, i DID figure out how to hook up the camera without them knowing... there's no stoppin jack bauer...
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