Tallinn, Estonia

Okay so we decided to make the trip to Helsinki a little more interesting by travelling to the capitol of Estonia! We took a three hour ferry ride from Helsinki to Tallinn and spent about an hour crushing through ice with this huge boat before actually getting out to open waters. In the meantime we listened to Finnish Karaoke (apparently really popular among the older generation). Tallinn was absolutely beautiful. We arrived in this fairy tale medival town and spent some time wandering around looking for our hostel. The top picture is taken just outside the almost completely intact city wall!

Left is one of my favorite pictures of the church at night....and believe me it took me about 5 tries before I got the picture to turn out! On the right are Mel and I carefully walking through the very slippy alleys of the old town. Thankfully there were no injuries but due to cold weather I believe we spent most of that day going from one cafe to the next and probably eating cakes if I remember right :)

Helsinki, Finland

Out of all the places I had intended to visit while in Sweden, it certainly never crossed my mind that I would also explore places like Helsinki. It started out as a potential trip to Kiruna but because we all really only had time for a long weekend and not an entire week we opted for another frozen option :) Above you can actually see me standing on a bowie in the Helsinki Harbor with Kara! The day was absolutely gorgeous and all of us decided to celebrate the sunny weather by getting ice cream....and the best part is that it couldn't melt because it was below freezing outside! As far as the other pictures go, you have me and Mel in front of some random statue we saw in a park as well as some scenic frozen harbor shots. This is probably most boring to people who come from cold places but I find walking on water kind of neat! One thing for sure, it makes distances so much shorter when you can just cut across the river whenever you feel like it.

Lophtet Sittning

I've decided to post this picture because this turns out to be the little barn house behind the chemical center that I though was used to house pigs, cows and horses...I was wrong. The cute little barn is actually a house just for the purpose of parties and other social events. Its called Lophtet and the Området decided to have a sittning there. This is the typical set up for the multiple course dinner parties. When we arrived we all received a welcome drink and on the bottom of the cup was a number which was used to find your seat buddy at the table. The evening was a lot of fun and ended up with most everybody dancing on the tables!

Day Trips

Okay so I didn't JUST study in February. Occasionally I did manage to do a day trip out of Lund just to get away from the books. The photo left is of the trees in front of the Royal Palace when I went to Copenhage with Mel on the 18th. The weather wasn't particularily great so we spend the first part wandering around some churches, eating sausages and doing some window shopping. Afterwards we sat in a nice cafe and had Danish beer and simply enjoyed the atmosphere of the place. The following weekend I went to the Bathhouse in Malmö where you sit in a sauna overlooking the sea and then you go outside and jump in the water (this day it was just above freezing). I know it sounds crazy and it makes your heart pump really fast but afterwards it feels so good and you aren't even bothered by the fact that you are standing outside in nothing but a towel in freezing weather. I would definately recommend this! The photo to the right is taken in a park Malmoe.