Waking up to sunshine and "Une vie d'amour" playing outside my window sets the mood just right for the rest of the day. I will try to refrain using capital letters or too many words of emphasis to describe one of the most beautiful cities I've been to that I am now in love with.
Our hostel was located in the middle of the Old Town so it was quite easy to access all of the historic buildings from it.We first decided to climb to the top of a watchtower that one of the churches had that Arturo had suggested the previous night. He had not mentioned that it was a 60 meter climb with stirs that were a foot in height at minimum. The staircase that led up to the tower was fairy tale-like (it reminded me of Rapunzel's tower). The fairy tale ended when we had to climb it. There were honestly flip-out chairs halfway up the tower for people to rest on. Being the troupers that we are, we didn't stop at all during our climb and were still partially alive when we got to the top. The view was magnificent. The clear blue skies helped immensely. I must say that this tower and view beat the Harju tower in Jyvaskyla. It's always nicer to look out without a glass pane in between you and the view. It was bliss to have the sun on your skin, the breeze in your hair and eyes full of the sights.
Despite my throbbing thighs, I was full of energy and anticipation to see the rest of the city when I climbed down the tower. Everything I saw was remarkably beautiful, I honestly don't remember the last time I've had so many positive emotions at everything I looked at.
Unfortunately all the good in the world has to be balanced out by some bad so I think it was almost inevitable for me to have dropped my camera running across a street. This happened right after I visited a marketplace where all of eh vendors and shoppers spoke Russian. I was in heaven. I even bought some Russian sweets (ZIFIR) to share with the crew.
I was surprisingly unfazed by my broken camera. The memory card was in tact and I still had my phone to take pictures with. The fact that 5 other people with taking pictures with their cameras didn't hurt either.
The day was so warm and pleasant that we took a break on the luscious green grass beside a castle. I even got to visit another Russian church where I put up more candles. I've noticed that I'm becoming less and less upset by trivial matters.
Our ferry ride to Helsinki was highly enjoyable. It was only 2 hrs instead of the 3 hrs that it took us to get here. There were 5 year old koniak samples followed by dark chocolate in one of the shops on the shopping 'street' on the ship. Can you say that we travel in style? On top of my Estonian liquor collection, I added a beautiful black and white bag to my souvenir collection.
SIGH. what a fabulous day.
When we can read more about your adventures?
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