"Moi" from Lappeenranta, Finland...aka the middle of nowhere...

Lappeenranta. We're spending the week with our friend "Niki", a good friend of ours from British columbia, who is currently playing hockey in the Finnish Elite League...he's been a gracious host that has allowed us to crash in his living room - so rach and mix are sleeping on the pull out couch and me (julie) is sleeping on a seperate couch. You might as well say it's winter, because it is freezing here (this almost made the city "Crapeenranta" but we did have a lot of fun so we won't be too harsh)! We've been able to catch 2 of niki's hockey games, which is great - he's for the his girlfriend Trish is living with him in Lappeenranta and has been our host for the week because Niki has been so busy with hockey. It has been major detox for usmost points on the team, so he has to wear a gold helmet...i'm not kidding. we call him Golden Boy because the helmet is shinier than the stanley cup...so on every team there is a golden boy for the player with the most points. we're so proud of him!

New Boyfriends? We told him to find us a few good Finnish boys, but as it turns out, the only single boys are americans or canadians (which has been at par with our trip). The canadian boy actually turned out to be a good friend of our cousin Amie because they played hockey at Wayne State - small world! so now we have more north american friends but are still looking for our european romance, which is a spicy topic for our friend Mix's soap opera love life mwahahaha

"I'm glad we're ugly in Europe". So our dear friend Mix, who has been the hit of Europe, had another run-in in Lappeenranta. One of the city's top bars turned out to be a Strip Club, so we had a couple nights here...but it's so different than it is in the states. The dancers are more of a background ambiance type deal who come on stage every 15 minutes, dance to one song, gets naked for about 2 seconds, then quickly puts her clothes back on and walks around the bar asking for tips. we liked it because they sold cheap drinks and never charged us for coat check because we're a bunch of girls. because we're with the SaiPa hockey team, we hung out with the team girlfriends/wives a couple nights, even at the strip club.

So getting to the good part - Mix, Rach, and I are sitting next to niki our last night in Lap, and there is a guy (mohawk and glasses, sooo mix's type hahaha) who falls in love and thinks Mix is sooo beautiful, so he wants to spend some time with her, so he orders a bottle of champagne. while she's in the bathroom, Niki tells us that he just wants to sit and talk with her with the 300 euro bottle of champagne and we go YES AWESOME and immediately throw her under the bus. she comes back thinking the champagne is for all of us and we say "uh nope - please go to the small side booth where your new boyfriend is waiting with champagne and a good chat". so rach and i sit back, i look over at her, and i say "am i happy that we're euro ugly" and rach cheerses me back, and says "we're not opposed to throwing our friends under the bus" and now key in an evil laugh from both of us. poor mix, she saw that champagne again at the end of the night

Next stop: the ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn, Estonia!