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Ashley: Thanks guys, I’m happy to accept the award for best mystery trip 2011...
We arrived at Gatwick airport at 17:00 and checked in with Norwegian Airlines – there were several flights listed so the group still didn’t know where we going! We managed to board our flight and took-off without knowing the destination... a few minutes in to the flight, the pilot came on the pa to give an update in Norwegian – unfortunately, Helsinki still sounds like Helsinki regardless of the language, and the mystery of our destination was over! A 2.5 hour flight was just the right amount of time to recover from any leftover feelings of illness from the night before.
We arrived to our hotel, a converted factory right on the harbour, around midnight on Friday and went out for a couple hours to explore the city at night. The next morning we toured the market in the main square, went to an underground church, and walked pretty much the entire city centre – the weather was a nice 15 degrees and sunny, perfect for a couple Finnish beers on the patio. Helsinki is a really nice and clean city, a good mixture of old and very modern buildings throughout. At about 4pm on Saturday, we got our bags from the hotel and walked to the ferry terminal to head across the Baltic Sea towards another mystery destination... Tallinn, Estonia. WHAMMY, DOUBLE MYSTERY!
We had a great time in Tallinn, exploring the historic town centre and enjoying the local food and drink (a lot of Russian and German influence there – Vodka and Beer were the main drinks on offer). On Sunday we rented bikes and toured outside the walled old town along the sea. Again, we had great weather of about 16 and sunny the entire day. We flew back to London late on Sunday evening, caught a few hours of sleep and 5 lucky travellers turned back into business professionals just in time to walk through the office doors bright and early Monday morning. Man, I can’t wait for the weekend!
Highlights:
- PORK. Our Estonian traditional dinner included pork knuckles, pork roast, pork ribs, pork in jelly, pork in buns, pate, and the hottest mustard of life. All washed down with local beer and cider! Meat sweats started shortly afterwards…
- Danielle and Ashley learned the meaning of sarcasm
- Hookahs and shisha
- Visiting two countries in two days, with five of the most amazing foreigners this side of the atlantic.
Good luck Colin – you may want to enlist help from Ashley in order to ensure success on MT4.
Ashley and Tom ARE SO HIGH off the ground! It's like they are bionic.
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