Friends in Helsinki - Silvester Pt. 2

Last Thursday evening the 2nd couple arrived in Helsinki...for visiting us and celebrating New Years Eve with us.
These are David & Constanze:

And Andrea...
...and Tommy are also still with us...

On Thursday evening we showed our guests the Finnish tradition of sauna with some cold drinks and nice chats.

Friday was the 31st December, so we all took a bit longer sleep but finally everyone came out of their caves.
Our regular blog readers know that we have been already some times to the sea fortress "Suomenlinna", a small island & tourist attraction nearby Helsinki. But we never visit it covered full of snow & ice, so we thought could be a nice impressions for our guests.

In Suomenlinna we did the normal tourist spots, but it was really different in snow:

Time for some group pictures:
Everthing looks really great in snow...this is the summer beach in winter:

You can take endless walks through the snow...

...you can have a nice view on the Baltic Sea...
The girls had some fun with big cannons:



...or even while geocaching...


We visit the submarine:

David and André did a little snow fight...and the first round was clearly for David:



But in the 2nd round André got his revenge...


... and created the David "ice monster":

After so much ice & snow fun, we needed a little break and had some coffee & cinnamon rolls in a little Café on the island:

And we felt really sleepy:

In the end we enjoyed the early evening (5pm)...


...and went home to our Helsinki student dorm:
In the evening we had again a nice salmon meal and prepared us for NYE.

Shortly before midnight we arrived at the Senate Square in Helsinki......to enjoy a bit of fireworks and silvester party...

...but it's not like in Berlin. There was a huge stage, but we didn't had David Hasselhoff (who was singing "Looking for Freedom" at Brandenburger Tor). There were some finnish bands and it felt a bit melancholy & depressing. Typical Finnish mood. At midnight they sang the Finnish national anthem...

...and shortly after fireworks everybody left...
Anyway for us it was time to check out some clubs in Helsinki and so we partied till early in the morning and around 4am we came back home.

The next day Andrea & Tommy had to leave us, going back home to Berlin.
So we did some more fun stuff in the late afternoon with David & Constanze.
First part was the arctic ice bar:

Yes you see it right...it's a little "bar" in a restaurant, temperature is around -4/-5°C and everything is made of ice. Actually it is cooling chamber or big freezer, and they made the whole interior of ice. It was a really nice impression. For 10€ you get your entry & a little cocktail:

Currently in Helsinki they have there special Helsinki Light Show week. So some places like the Senate Square or Esplanada park are covered by light shows...

In the end we stopped at the backstage bar "Bar Bäkkäri" for some Lynchburg Lemonade and some dinner at a Neapel's restaurant:

Unfortunately on sunday our last guests David & Constanze left us we are alone again. But it was a really great time with our friends and we miss them already. Thx for visiting us and celebrating NYE! Welcome to 2011!!!