Lost in Scandenavia: Suomenlina

Since Brianna doesn't have a Russian visa and that has essentially squashed Doug's and my idea of heading to St. Pete's for the day, we decided instead to head out of Helsinki and take the ferry over to an island called Suomenlinna. It's only about 20 minutes away from the city and as it's a UNESCO world heritage site it seemed like a nice idea.

The island itself is still a working fort as I understand it, it's certainly been around quite a while now. Anyway, we arrived off the ferry (filled with totally random people and a school trip of all things), it was raining, the wind was blowing, and it was freezing. So we bolted for the visitor center and pretty much decided after 30 minutes that it was too cold so we were heading back.

As we hurried back along the paths, the sun broke through the clouds for the first time since we arrived in Helsinki. The sky was so pale, that looked like it was just trying desperately to muster up the strength to be a different color than the clouds before the winds covered it up again.

It was nice to see the sun for a while though, but honestly it was even nicer to get back onto the ferry and head across the harbor to coffee and warmth. Mmm, warmth.