Helsinki PART 2-

All of a sudden, the fact that this country holds a wife carrying competition annually started to make a lot mroe sense. These people are over-caffinated and introverted and the reason they keep their mouths shut is that they would scare off visitors if they started expressing themselves openly.

After the modern art museum, we walked around for 7 hours, checking out some cool design stores, the design museum (Helsinki is the 2012 Design Capital of the World), a fascinating museum on Mannerheim,- their former President who traveled across Asia on horseback and was a fabulous hunter, and then took a relaxing cruise through the surrounding islands. Along the way we had a reindeer muffin for a snack (even Maddox enjoyed it- but we'll wait til he stops beliving in Santa Claus to remind him of that).

After a super long day and a nice nap we went out for dinner at a traditional Finnish log cabin resturant. We sat down, had a bear salami on rye amuse busch ordered some bear meatballs and a salad and waited. And waited and waited and waited. And waited. After 1.5 hours we got our salad and a drink. 2.5 hours later we were still waiting on our bear balls. Really? Oh yeah, I reminded myself. We are in EUROPE. And sure Maddox is easy going and a fantastic traveler who can handle jet lag surprizingly well. And yes he is 9 months old but we can still take him out to dinner and enjoy ourselves if we bring some cereal for him to snack on and some toys to entertain him (or if there are girls he can flirt with in his immediate vicinity). But he is still a baby, I am unable to bring 3 hours worth of cereal to keep him busy and sitting quietly for 3 hours is a little much to ask of him. But he powered through. He did fall asleep at one point on the table but at least he didn't kick and scream. What a little trooper. We love our little guy so much!

Next stop, St Petersburg!!!