Let me just begin by saying, what they call a "ferry" is what we call a cruise ship. I am NOT kidding. That being said, we got stamps at passport control and took off on our mini-cruise in no time. Well, we had to get up at 5:45 in the morning, take a train from Turku to Helsinki and THEN hop on, but you know what we mean.

So, for the most part we stared off into oblivion b/c we were still exhausted. Upon arrival we got to the passport control and I got through. There was a woman that cut in front of Jocelyn and distracted the officer b/c she had started to say something and then stopped. I had my passport so I walked through. Jocelyn was re-directed to another line. A few minutes later she was through and I stopped panicking (Canadians were not allowed in Estonia last year). We waited a few minutes before speaking before I finally asked her what was up with that. She said she'd been in the wrong line and she had to get her stamp. Not thinking about it too much, I made the small comment that she hadn't stamped mine. That's right folks, I accidentally snuck, or as Jocelyn says, "confidentally walked in" to Estonia. So off we went in search of new adventures.... and for the first hour found nothing really of interest.... except that people in Finland and Estonia drink a LOT!!! On the street, on the bus, in the park, but it's even worse in Estonia. Every other store sold alcohol for awesome prices. It's like the discount capital of the world.

We ended up at what I thought was a castle and hung out taking pictures for a while and eating some scandinavian chocolate I had gotten earlier in the day. Then Jocelyn suggested we walk to other side and check out what else Estonia had to offer. It was then that we found that this was actually more of a gateway into the past... well, it would have been if it hadn't been for the fact that the street was lined with cars. Aside from that, the buildings were beautiful. We walked up and down the cobblestone streets taking pictures and then started stumbling along little shops. We were also happy to discover that they took Euros because we had not exchanged any of our money to Estonian currency- Kroniks.

We then went around another corner and found a local festival/market. Again, there were street vendors and local craftsmen everywhere but this time there was also a stage with performances and a lot of the local townspeople were dressed in costume. It was awesome. We passed a torture museum as well as a wax museum and then found a little trinket shop that had a lot of neat little knick knacks. And fear not, we did not spend an outrageous amount of money. MAYBE 5 ? apiece! Be proud, be very proud.

We sat in a park looking at the modern w/the past at our backs and then it was time to head back. Going through passport control was obviously a little awkward for me. She looked through my book 3 times before I finally said, she didn't stamp it when I came in today. The woman rolled her eyes, stamped mine and handed it back. THANK GOD!

Jocelyn had no issues.

On our ride back we were not on the crusier we went to Estonia on. This was the AutoExpress. This was the Cadillac of speedboats as far as I'm concerned. It was about half the size of the cruiser and almost twice as fast. We, again, fell asleep on the boat only this time we had company. When the bell for last call was rung (I'm telling you, these people drink like fish!!!), we awoke. And that's how Jocelyn met Lässe. He was a nice, older gentleman who thought Jocelyn was cute when she slept... because she happened to be snoring at the time. She was horribly embarrassed and he told her it was cute. His English was a little broken up but as she said, his "English was better than [her] Finnish." They spoke for the next twenty minutes and he introduced her to his family and dragged her out on to the deck while he had a cigarette and told her about all of the sites she needed to see while in Helsinki. But then we had to leave to catch our train. The boat was so fast we even made it back to Helsinki in time to catch the earlier train.

And then there was that train ride. Let me just say, we met some Irish folks on that train. Their children, HELLIONS. They started off in one car and then got into the car we chose right before we got there. They were on one end, we were on the other. No one in between. The entire time, the youngest child, a 5 year old girl name Yasmine crawled all over the seats and fell once. Mom kept "trying" to get her to stop. She didn't have the mom look that puts the fear of death in her child. Instead, the kid just climbed everywhere. Then they decided to come running to our end of the train. The man, who we later found was actually the kids uncle, jokingly said that they just wanted to be near us.

I have come to the conclusion that these children would be the perfect ad campaign to promote birth control. If my option is what could possibly be kids like that or no kids, I'll be child free. I however, have two moms so I'm pretty sure I'll get that mom look down if I need to.

Meanwhile, we pulled into the station and that's when the guy introduced himself as Richard (we think). He also let us know he wanted to throw himself off a cliff. Those children were running them ragged. He had another week before his sister-in-law and the kids would be leaving. He was in Turku studying abroad. His parting words was that he wasn't drunk enough for this.... and he was really drunk.

We were just happy that the kids were gone.

So, we went back to the hostel, got clean and went to bed. And that brings us to the present.....