Turku, Finland

Damn, Turku may not be as cool as Helsinki, but the quality of females is way higher. I suspect that this is because they have more Swedish genes here. Tons of blonds, though they're not all blond. They have the full spectrum of hair colors here, all the way to jet black. Some are even not as pale as you would expect. Very nice! Whoever asked the question about the sleeping cabin on the ferry is going to be sorry you asked. The short answer: no, I don't get a cabin. The long answer: there are two ways to do this crossing. The first is by paying for a sleeping cabin, the second is the all night party option, where you lock up your luggage, head to the onboard bar, get shitfaced and pass out somewhere on deck. Let me explain. Doing it this way is ridiculously cheap: 25 euros for an 11 hour boat ride, compared to 34 euros for a two hour train ride from Helsinki to Turku. This is because they don't make money off of passage, they make money off of alcohol sold on-board. That's right, it's a booze cruise. Although the ship travels entirely within the European Union, they stop at some chain of islands called the Aland Islands which technically belong to Finland but are semi-independent and tax free, so they are allowed to sell alcohol on board duty free. This is a big deal in Scandinavia, because liquor taxes are sky high and very unaffordable for the average person. Like I said before they're all Mormon about it because all they have to do is look to their neighbor Russia to see what easy availability of alcohol does to people during the depressing winters. This is NOT southern Europe with its relaxed views on alcohol consumption. It's supposed to be one all night sailing party and very crazy. Many people use it as a cheap nightclub. Although the party nights are naturally Friday and Saturday, I'm hoping there will at least be a little fun going on. I walked by the ferry terminal last night and it was pretty rowdy. Supposedly it gets so crazy that they don't allow unaccompanied passengers under the age of 23 to travel on round trip tickets Friday or Saturday night. The company I'm traveling with is called Viking Lines, so yes I will consider this as having been on a viking ship. My boat doesn't leave until 9 so I'm just killing time, and will bore you with my stream of consciousness thoughts about Finland and Europe in general. It's coooooooooooold. I bought some gloves in St. Petersburg, and now I'm not sure how I ever lived without them. It's lightly snowing right now. In Helsinki I had no idea that I was looking at the ocean until I saw a ship on it! The water was covered in a thin layer of ice and snow, so all I saw was white and I just assumed I was looking at a snow covered field. Turning on the cold water tap is something you will never forget. I will also never forget taking my clothes out of the washing machine yesterday and almost getting frostbite from touching them. This was of course just from the rinse cycle, since European washing machines are a pain in the ass when it comes to temperature, an annoyance which I discovered on my trip to Europe in 2007. Europeans wash all of their clothes in boiling hot water, and each machine has a built in water heater to trash your clothes. The lowest setting is 30 degrees Celsius. Not joking. So anything you wash in Europe gets shrunk beyond recognition. Pisses me off. I love the institutional style European hostels. These are not like the tourist hostels that are sometimes filthy and always annoying and usually packed with douchebags that for some reason I feel obligated to socialize with. In Europe, you can find in almost any city the HI run hostel, which is always immaculately clean, well organized and feels like a really well run college dorm. Very simple, practical and efficient. All kinds of people stay here, even some businessmen trying to cut costs. In Geneva I even encountered diplomats from poor African nations. These hostels offer everything you need without the bullshit, and are usually cheaper than the stupid tourist hostels. Their biggest asset, I think, is that they're always very spacious, whereas some tourist hostels can be very crammed. It's so much easier sharing a room with five other people when that room is comfortably large. I can tell that this is an educated country because there are bookstores like every 5 feet. In Helsinki I visited Finland's largest bookstore and it was awesome. They had the longest wall of Lonely Planets I had ever seen. Here I pondered just how much money Lonely Planet has made off of me in the past years. I'm like Jamie in Eurotrip with his Frommers except with Lonely Planet. I started buying them years before actually traveling, when I was in elementary school and junior high. I used to read them just dreaming of the day when I would finally visit all of the god forsaken places they covered.

One month ago I was in Sharjah.
Two months ago I was in Dahab.