We awoke early and made our way to Frankfurt Flughafen to catch our flight to Helsinki. The time in the air was about 2 1/2 hours and we passed the time by having a little plane party. Teresa was sitting in an aisle by herself so she didn’t get to partake.

The taxis in Helsinki already have about €7 on the meter, unless you call one, so the trip from the airport cost us about €70. Our Airbnb was right across from the water, but in an area that appeared to still be under development, so there were lots of buildings around us with scaffolding. We picked up the key from a friendly man in the supermarket across the road and made our way to the 6th floor. The front door was a bit of a struggle to open (it took Michele a day to work it out and Teresa & Irene never managed to master it) but once we were in, the apartment was clean, spacious and boasted lovely views. That said, we wouldn’t see the full extent of them until the next morning as it was about 5pm and the sun had set at about 3:20pm.

Scott and Irene had a room each and Teresa & Michele were sharing one with two single beds. Once we got ourselves established we had a drink and planned where we would eat dinner. Our Airbnb host had suggested a couple of restaurants and we decided to try a Russian restaurant about 20mins walk away.

Walking into our private room in the restaurant was reminiscent of an 18th century Russian aristocratic house. The walls were lined with dark blue velour and decorated with pictures of Finnish Prime Ministers. The table was laden with gold-plated cutlery and bohemian crystal glasses. Our very enthusiastic waitress explained to us that the King of Sweden had dined in this very room. We began with a round of vodka cocktails with sweet pickles and an amuse bouche that was in the middle of the table waiting for us, which we later found out was bear salami with sour cream and horseradish.

Michele ordered an entree of borscht and Scott & Teresa had vorschmack, which was minced lamb with anchovies. When they came the waitress informed us that should we need her we could just press the “vodka button” and she would come back….very handy! We took advantage of this button and ordered a round of vodka tasting, which is essentially four shots of different types of vodka (Russian standard, Stoli, Belevedere and Zubrowka).

Our main courses consisted of a platter of Shashliks, which were like skewers of meat served on a sizzling plate with accompaniments of sauerkraut, swede, mushrooms, carrots and potato. Irene & Scott shared deer with creamy mushroom sauce (Irene didn’t enjoy the strong, gamey flavour of the deer) and Teresa had chicken with garlic butter. Michele’s main was piroshki, the Russian version of pierogi, filled with lamb. Dessert was a baked Alaska shared between Irene, Scott & Michele while being serenaded by a guitar playing musician. He played us Kalinka and we sang along to “Those were the Days”.

A brief taxi ride back and we decided to grab a bottle of wine from the supermarket before heading up to our apartment. Here we found that all alcohol sales stop at 9pm…..hmmmm….luckily there was beer at the apartment! We would have to stock up tomorrow. Until then hyvää yötä!