Hannah - Helsinki, Finland

Hey guys! So today we went to Finland. The weather was perfect for kayaking. After a hurried breakfast, we  odftge the ship. We actually we doing a lot of our tours with another family. Once we find them after they got off the boat, we found our kayak guide, Marti. Because there was an odd number of people in both groups, I ended up going with the 14 year old boy, Sebastian. The scenery was beautiful. After about an hour and a half kayaking, we stopped on a little island for a break. After the stop we kayaked back. Since the 12 year old twins from the other family went together on the way back, a race broke out. After a few, "stop! You're going too fast!" From the guide Seb (the 14 year old) and I made it back first, to the dismay and anger of the twins. After the kayaking tour we walked and walked and walked. Since we all were starving, we stopped at a little cafe, which had sandwiches, croissants, and pizza. Once everyone was fueled up, we walked and walked and walked somemore. Mrs. coco wanted to see a church called the rock church. unfortunately we had not idea where that was so we walked and walked and walked some more. Finally we found it. It literally as a church built in rock. It had a cool ceiling though. After the rock church we walked some more until we found another church. This church was huge...I mean a massive Roman church. There organ in the back was about on wall wide. Our ultimate stop in Helsinki was the market square. Unfortunately we found a lot of squares, but no markets. Finally we found it and perused the assortment of jewelry, knives, lighters, fresh produce, and shirts. The coco's tried to catch a cab, it finding one for 8 people would have been near impossible. Finally we caught a tram that took us right to our boat  where there was a violinist from Finland who came on the boat and played the Sibelius violin concerto. It was quite impressive and very entertaining. (I love that piece) after that, I went to the teen center and played amazing race. We were on 3 teams and we got assigned challenges, had to complete them, video them, then show them to our leader. An example of something we had to do was go into the buffet and sing twinkle twinkle Little Star. My team lost. Anywho, we also went swimming, and had a soccer shootout. Because I couldn't play in the soccer match after the shootout, I watched the teens play. It was annoying that I couldn't play, but I did see some kids that played good street soccer...the ones with the fancy moves. Now it's 12:30, and tomorrow is St. Petersburg, Russia. I'm very excited! (Hopefully we don't get arrested by the Russian police...ha-ha)