Helsinki and Tallinn - a long weekend^^

Ben and Tob went to see the ice-hockey world-cup in Sweden and Finland. After they visited Linköping, Uppsala and Stockholm in Sweden they went to see Naantalia, Turku and Tampere in Finland before I joined them in Helsinki. When my plane arrived about 2am in the morning (17.05.) Ben and Tob were already drunk after partying with 8 Finish girls :P No way I could drink so much within an hour... so I endured it^^ Our CS hosts Anni and Mia were super friendly and generous girls. We met their friends for party in a theater, where they had access due to their work... great setting to party :D The next morning (or afternoon) Mia showed us some tourist attractions... Sibelius park, Nicolai church and the harbor.  Later Anni joined us and we prepared some nice dinner all together. After some conversations about cultural differences we booked our ferry and hostel for Tallinn... as everyone was exhausted from the day before we went to bed early.
The next morning we woke up late... started even later as we all enjoyed a coffee and baguette before we ran to the tram... it didn't help much as we had to run 20min through Helsinki city to catch our 8am ferry :P We made it last minute and relaxed on our ride towards Tallinn.
Tallinn welcomed us with sunshine right away... what a beautiful city! After we've been rather disappointed by Helsinki's appearance and high prices, Tallinn surprised us as lovely, cozy and considerably low cost city. Huge parts of the old city walls are intact, it has plenty cozy churches and the hanse style houses are simply lovely. After dinner 9 beers and a bottle of rum prepared us for a party night^^ First another beer in a bar before we went to Hollywood club... 23 beers, 4 cocktails, a few dances and talks later the club closed at 5am... another 4 beer helped us to get to sleep... no wonder I suffered hangover the whole next day :(
The next day (19.05.) we continued to enjoy the lovely center of Tallinn before we watched the champions league final... the result degraded our party mood... the next day (20.05.) we went back to Helsinki... already the ride on the ferry gave me a sunburn before we enjoyed a nap in front of the Russian church and another one in Kaisaniemen park. We discovered even some nice buildings next to all the Stalinistic ones :D The ice-hockey final left us with our 7eur beers when Russia bet Slovakia... we cheered for Slovakia to see the small and charming country win... but Russia been simply the better team... finally we took a nap at the airport before our flight left early morning (21.05.) back home...

3 more organ pipes at Sibelius monument^^

view over Tallinn towards the sea

view over Tallinn towards the business center

mama seagull taking care of her kids on Tallinn's roofs

charming corners everywhere in Tallinn's old town

on the old city wall

a lot of tourists all over the city... next to the city hall was their main spot :P

Russian church in Helsinki... the most beautiful sight of the city and a good spot for a nap^^