Helsinki

Just stay awake.  Just stay awake.  It was not easy for any of us because of the jetlag but I knew that it would be so much better if we could just hold out until bed time.  We drove to the temple, and while some of us walked around the perimeter enjoying the grounds, some of us found benches and tried to catch a quick nap.  I admit, that looked very tempting.

We had just a couple more hours to kill before we could check in so we stopped by the Sibelius Monument.  The sculpture was a lot bigger and more interesting than I had really expected.  I was glad that we stopped.  The boys were so tired though they didn't even finish walking up to the sculpture before finding another place to lie down.  

I barely talked them into a few pictures before they just didn't cooperate any more.  But look how cool it is we are in Helsinki kids!!

Our hotel was definitely built for the European backpacker in mind.  We had a hard time getting the right check-in instructions but we finally made it to our rooms.  The boys shared with Jeremy and I and the girls shared with my mom.  We retrieved some pizza from the shop downstairs and ate way more than I thought we would be able to.  We tried gyro pizza for the first time, which is apparently popular in Finland.  It was either really good or I was just really hungry from traveling, but I ate four huge slices.  

After dinner Jeremy and the girls wanted to sleep but my mom and the boys wanted to go exploring.  We found this awesome sculpture that we challenged the boys to climb up.  Watching them problem solve to get on top was incredibly humorous.  They finally did it!  I just love how incredibly European all of surrounding buildings look.  And the sun set lighting?  It was spectacular.  

We had a lot of twilight because of Finland's location on the globe and so we kept exploring.  We found a public garden and more sculptures before it was time for all of us to call it a night.  I couldn't wait to sleep in a bed!  (A weird, flat backpacking bed, but a bed).