Bear-ly Awake in Helsinki

I was deeply, neurotically anxious about a 10-hour flight to Helsinki with Elowen, but she did amazing (apart from an epic airport meltdown before we left). Once we got on the plane, she played with her toys, ate some orzo, and fell asleep to Tom and Jerry. She slept for most of the flight, with some wakeups for cuddles, and then sat and watched "The Secret Life of Pets." It's like this baby was made for travel!

No, I definitely didn't scream in the airport for 45 minutes, Mom!

Since there weren't many touristy things that interested me in Helsinki, we only planned to stay for one night, at the St. George Hotel. Exhausted, we immediately crashed for a few hours before dragging ourselves out of bed so as not to completely be off of any sort of sleep schedule. But before all of that, Elowen stood by herself for the first time! Just like it was no big deal. 

We walked over to Helsinki Cathedral, seeing some beautiful architecture along the way, including those two gentleman who look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. We also walked by a Marimekko fashion show and hit up the Moomin Shop. Moomins are as popular in Finland as Mickey is at home--while they look like white hippos, they're actually trolls who live in Moominvalley. Also, they're everywhere...on sodas, painted on shop windows, on cups and plates and shirts. Which makes sense, because they're pretty freaking adorable. 

For dinner, we ate at Savotta, which serves traditional Finnish cuisine. Our waitress couldn't have been nicer or loved Elowen more--she kept stroking her cheek and even brought her some sweet cream ice cream (though the little weirdo picked out and ate all the blueberries, and I had the ice cream). 

I started with a celeriac root and herb salad with soft cheese and buttermilk; we also had bear salami (a little strong) and stewed bear (delicious, kind of like pot roast). Then we both had Lapland reindeer roast and mash, also delicious! For dessert, I had a cloudberry kissel, which was tart and kind of like gooseberries...Taylor had French toast with strawberry jam that tasted like the sweetest summer you ever had. And we finished the meal with blueberry fortified wine and cloudberry wine--the Finns seem very into blueberries, and they even served blueberry juice on the plane. 

After dinner, we stopped at the sumptuously decorated Winter Garden for drinks, and I now dream of having that wallpaper in my house. I had a blackcurrant and blueberry cocktail in a little bird glass, and also tried a surprisingly good elote cocktail...it tasted kind of like a sweet corn tortilla. 

That brought an end to our Helsinki adventures for the time being, and the next day we were off to Riga, Latvia!