Ferry to Helsinki

Our next destination after Berlin was Finland, where we were going to attend the wedding between Darryl (one of Jodie's closest childhood friends) and his fiance Kiira. It was an easy goodbye to Moritz and Elizabeth, because they also were going to the wedding so we knew we would see them within a few weeks. Kiira's family live in Pori, (see here) and we decided the best plan was to take trains to the northern coast of Germany, a thirty-hour ferry to Helsinki, and then trains to Pori. We weren't looking forward to this much travel to begin with... then we called to inquire about ferry prices. A private, double room on the ferry (for the two nights we would be in transit) was about $500 Canadian each, and two bunks in a four person room would have been $300 Canadian each. Given that this was more than we paid for our plan tickets across the Atlantic, it seemed rather pricey. We settled for the only remaining option, which was to sleep in the 'air-cushioned deck chairs' for about $150 each. These chairs are essentially airplane chairs that don't recline, don't come with free coffee and peanuts and certainly don't have seat-back televisions. What most people do is make a mad-scramble to claim floor space in the room with the chairs, lay down sleeping bags, and sleep on the floor. We were able to get some decent space near the front of the room, and managed to get a few hours of decent sleep both nights. Those that didn't have sleeping bags spent the entire night trying to sleep for more than 60 seconds before slipping sideways and waking up... By the second morning, they couldn't do much more than wander around like zombies.

The ferry was one of the most modern either of us has ever been on. It included a health club that gave us our first taste of the traditional Finnish sauna, along with a nice jacuzzi. (Unknown if BC Ferries is going to be adding this any time soon). One thing that we realized is how far north Finland is. Take a look at this map. We left from Rostock, one of the most northern cities of Germany, and we still had a long way to go. More on this later in the posts about Finland.