Helsinki in 6 hours...

So after Estonia, my flight back to the US and A was from Helsinki.

Sounds far away, but is only a 2-3 hour ferry (heeey-ayyy!) ride from

Tallinn. So I took a bus from Parnu to Tallinn, walked to the ferry

port, jumped on the giant cruise ship of a ferry and headed accross

the Gulf of Finland to Helsinki. Arriving at 5:30pm, I had basically

6 hours to enjoy the city.

And I did... Helsinki is more western than the other places I went.

Almost everyone speaks English, most signs are in Finnish, English and

other languages. There are actually people who aren't white there,

which wasn't the case in Russia or really even Estonia. It was very

diverse and felt a lot like the US and A for that matter.

I wandered to the waterfront and hopped a ferry (heeey-ayyy!) to the

island fortress of Salmenella... or something like that. Ate some

tasty fish and DRANK WATER FROM THE TAP!!!! Then I ran all around

these old russian gun emplacements. There were these awesome cannons

and beneath them tunnels and bunkers to explore. The sun had set and

it was magic hour, so I had to use my camera to see inside, but

naturally went into everyone of them. Then ran along the rocks by the

water and circled the fortress wall on the outside, hanging onto the

sides of the wall by the water. All as it was getting darker and

darker. Very cool and very exciting...

... and I made it back to the ferry (heeey-ayy!) on time. And as we

headed to helsinki in the dark I thought "I'm so lucky. What a great

trip and fabulous places I've seen. Who knew all this great stuff

existed, and I was able to go there." I would recommend all of these

places to everyone. Bring your sense of humor and willingness to

explore and you'll have a blast.

And now for the very bizarre twist at the end...

As the ferry pulled into the dock, all these emergency vehicles raced

up next to us. Ambulence, cops, fire trucks, this big crane.

Naturally we all went over to look at it. Clearly they were looking

for someone in the water. People thought a car might have gone in.

Turns out there was no car, but after about 15 minutes they did find

the person... They struggled to put him on the stretcher than hung

from the crane and lifted him out of the water. He was face down and

not moving. They lowered him on the dock and there was very little

hustle and bustle as it was clear the guy had died. Very bizarre, as

I realized all these amazing things I've seen and now I've seen my

first dead body. I've seen people in coffins before, but not like

this. Yeah, weird. I wondered who he was and how he'd ended up

there. He was wearing a swimsuit. I haven't been able to find out

anything about it either...

Didn't see that one coming, did you? Neither did I...

From there I headed to the airport to sleep a few hours before hopping

on the plane for my 14 hours of flying and 2 hours of layover to

return to LA. I was exhausted, and very confused with jetlag, but

made it back in one piece (and my bag made it with me).

I lucked out with this trip... no neck blow out (see Southeast Asia

2005) or Montezuma's revenge (see Guatemala/Belize 2006). And even

got to go with some great friends this time too. (Tom, Olga, Essylt

and Ben... go team Nails!).

In one of the airports I flew through...I saw an add that said

"We don't stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we

stop playing."

I agree with that 100%, and feel that trips like this, and just

enjoying the good friends and places in life help with that. I know I

often times will get a little to wrapped up in the bullshit of life

and have to stop myself and remember that there's no need to get so

stressed out about things. Life is way to short to waste worrying

about it.

Get out there, see the world. It's waiting for you.

This is Craig Ouellette,

last surviving member of the Nostromo... signing off.