hello from

...the creepiest country I've ever been to so far?

The hotel is a cross between a Stephen King novel about masks that come alive in the dead of night, and The Shining. (Hotels with red carpets.)

On coming into land, you see clusters of little islands that make up the jagged coastline of Helsinki, just stuffed with these talk Nordic fir trees. Between all the buildings are these Twin Peaks trees.

It's creepy and weird. I LOVE it.

On closer inspection, so on ground level, the trees are all tall and packed together, very Blair Witch project.

I have a feeling that we won't have to venture too far to find something INSANE here. Finland might be Scandinavia; clean, expensive, dark and cold in winter. But it's definitely creepy and strange.
God it feels good to be in a ridiculous place again.

So far my son and husband don't seem to mind it either, mostly ignoring the red carpet and masks and living it up in our upgraded room (a suite!)

And, according to my Favourite Irish Gay Friend who is a genius at languages, accents and linguistics in general, all I have to do is add 'leinen' to the end of everything to be understood in Finnish.
'Televisionleinen, Sebastianleinen, sofaleinen....'

The thing is though, it's not that cold. It's 1 degree. That's nippy, but it's not Baltic, which is the seaboard we lie on currently.

I am wondering if we will even see snow on this north pole expedition?