Rhymes with "smells stinky"

Those of you who've known me for a long time will recall that back in my younger, wilder days, me and my buddies would head down to Daytona Beach every year for spring break. It was a crazy time, and I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything, but I always felt like something was missing. Oh, sure, the beaches were fabulous, the girls were gorgeous, and the partying went on late into the night, but there was always a little part of me that just wasn't satisfied. I could never put my finger on what was missing. Well, now that I've moved beyond those crazy times and grown up a little, I've finally figured out what was lacking: Helsinki.

Yes, you heard me. I'm talking about Helsinki, the capital of Finland. Admit it. You've all had moments where you've thought to yourself that life doesn't get much better than it is at that moment, and that all it would take to make things absolutely perfect would be if the whole experience could take place in Finland. Well, for spring break this year, we've decided to live the dream. We're going to Finland. (At least, we think so. I haven't actually booked the trip yet, but we think that's what we're going to do.)

Why Finland? I don't really know. It just struck me one day that the kids have two weeks off for spring break and that we shouldn't just sit around here in the middle of Europe doing nothing for that whole time. We've already done Paris (although spending two days at Disneyland and one day on a bus in Paris isn't really experiencing Paris), and Stace and I will be hitting Germany and/or Austria in July, so it seemed like we should try to make it to Scandinavia. Flights turned out to be cheap, and we can buy a pass that will get us into just about every attraction and onto every bus and train in Helsinki for three days, so at some point, you just throw up your hands and decide to go to Helsinki.

Here are some fun Finland facts: The official language of Finland is, not surprisingly, Finnish. (At one point last night, Stace asked, "Do they speak Start?" She then proceeded to laugh uncontrollably at herself for ten minutes. Pathetic.) The official currency is the euro. That turns out to be important, because I didn't want to add Swedish krona or Norwegian kroner to the list of currencies I'm trying to juggle in my head. There are about five million people in Finland. It's about 34 degrees there right now, so it's not terribly cold. Helsinki is about a three-hour flight from Zurich. It's one hour ahead of Switzerland.

Anyway, we'll see what happens. We're trying to strike the right balance between seeing as much of Europe as we can and not spending every last cent that finds its way into our bank account. However, since the U.S. economy will only exist for about six more months, we figure we may as well spend those dollars now while they can still be used for something other than lining the kitty litter box.