CRUISE to Helsinki, Finland!!

It's about 1:40pm on Saturday afternoon here in Uppsala and I think I can finally say that I'm feeling comfortable with the idea of being abroad until June! Up until just a couple days ago I still hadn't unpacked, so I've been living out of my suitcase haha. Unpacking was one of those things that I just couldn't bring myself to do until it felt right...and it finally felt right when we got back from Helsinki on Thursday!!
The cruise was such a blast!! We only paid 25sek to get on the boat, which is the equivalent of about $5.00! Sooo cheap! I had assumed the boat wouldn't be very nice since the tickets were so inexpensive...but boy was I wrong! This was a legit cruise ship, complete with a couple different clubbing rooms, a casino, a string quartet serenading the entrance as you walked onto the boat, glass elevators, and very fancy restaurants! Overall a very classy and fancy ship! There were four people to a cabin, which was definitely a tight squeeze! The beds just pulled out of the wall and then we shared a very small bathroom.
Now of course since we're all just poor college kids we didn't indulge in the fancy restaurants, so we lived off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for 3 days haha.
I guess the cruise to Finland is commonly known as the 'booze cruise' because you can get alcohol so cheap on the boat. With alcohol being monopolized in Sweden and so expensive, it's pretty popular for people to stock up on their alcohol supply on the ship because you can get it all 'duty free' or tax free! I bought this small bottle of vodka that's bright pink, called 'Girl' and says 'For Women Only' across the front of it! Of course me being the girlie girl that I am, I got it just to have the bottle haha! Pretty hilarious I think!
Anyways, the ship left Stockholm at 5pm on Tuesday and we got to Helsinki at 10am on Wednesday. We spent most of the day just walking around town and exploring the cool buildings! Exploring for a long period of time was a little difficult because it was FREEZING!! I'm talkin like 20 below zero!! I don't think I'll ever complain about another winter in Colorado because it pales in comparison to the frigid temperatures of Finland!! We did manage to see the capitol building and main cathedral and then ended up going to the National Museum of Finland, mainly just to have somewhere warm to stay for a little while haha. We also ate lunch downtown at a small, inexpensive pizza place. However, when I say 'inexpensive,' I'm talkin like $11 for the meal, which in reality is not that cheap haha...but all the food in Europe is more expensive than the US. Like a regular Big Mac meal at McDonalds would be like $6 in the US, where as it's about $9 over here, CRAZY!!
Anyways, we had to be back on the boat by 5pm and got back to Stockholm around 10am on Thursday morning. Overall it was a perfect first traveling experience! Definitely check out my pics of Helsinki on facebook if you haven't already!