Helsinki

Helsinki was the city we spent the least time in, and it really was the city with the least to see. Don't get me wrong--it's a beautiful city. It's just not a big tourist destination. The Uspenski Cathedral is the largest Orthodox church in Western Europe.

We took a little ferry out to Suomenlinna ("Castle of Finland"), an inhabited fortress built on 6 small islands. In addition to Suomenlinna, there are many islands in Helsinki with houses and restaurants on them. It's really beautiful boat ride into Helsinki's harbor.
We trekked over to the Sibelius monument, which honors the famous Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. The monument itself is really interesting--an abstraction of over 600 organ pipes. Sibelius is pretty cool too. A post about Helsinki wouldn't be complete without some photos of Helsinki Cathedral, the beautiful iconic landmark of Helsinki.

St. Petersburg (f.k.a. Leningrad)

We were totally blown away by St. Petersburg. We wanted to go because we thought it would be cool to go to Russia, but I don't think we expected such an amazingly beautiful city. It's spectacular! We wish we had more time to spend there, but even getting there for 3 days was complicated because of visa requirements and transport considerations. On our overnight ferry (which we took both ways), all 6 of us stayed in a microscopic, 2-bunk cabin. Good thing we're all friends!The Peter and Paul Fortress is where the city began in 1703. The above church with a really tall steeple is in the center of the fortress.

There were a few onion-domed churches, but the most impressive was the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. It's so incredibly beautiful. (How many photos of one church can I get away with in one blog post?)
(The above photo is Michaela on Jacob's head while Mike secures the Bjorn for Jacob.)St. Petersburg is also a city of palaces. In the above photo you can see the Winter Palace behind us. (Don't you love Gavsky's crooked sunglasses?) The next photo shows it from the other side, Palace Square. We took a boat excursion to Peterhof, a huge complex of palaces and gardens built by Peter the Great. Apparently there are over 150 fountains at Peterhof. It was beautiful. In Russia it didn't really get dark at night, which tricked us into staying out much later than we otherwise would. We also stayed on the top floor of the hotel, where there were skylights. So I think Gavsky (ГАВСКИЙ) was a bit confused about the daylight/night-time situation. But he is such a good traveler and did great on this trip.

Going to the olympics

The process for getting tickets to the London 2012 Olympics is fascinating. We requested tickets for whatever we wanted to see, and recipients are selected by a lottery system. We were told when we requested tickets last month that money would just be charged to our credit card sometime at the end of May if we got tickets, but it would be months later before we found out which event(s) we got tickets for. Money was deducted today!! So we know we're going to the Olympics, we just have no idea which event(s) we'll get to see. :) We'll keep you posted.

(Yes, this is a portion of the online banking screen.)

half-birthday

No, we don't plan to celebrate all of his half-birthdays, but this one seemed worthy of celebration. I baked an apple pie for a barbecue with friends, and I reserved a bit of the filling (pre-seasoning) to bake Gavin his own little (half)birthday pie. The next photo is his first bite of the pie.Thankfully we redeemed ourselves and let him try something that he actually loved. We've never seen his face so clean after a meal--he wanted ALL of the strawberries in his mouth.We've loved every minute of Gavin since he came into our lives 6 months ago!

Gavin: the latest

This is one of the posts you should skip if, for you, Gavin could star in a show called "Babies I Don't Care About" because this one's all about him. :)

He's almost 6 months old! Here are a few of the latest (random) photos.

canine encounter

Eurovision 2011

You might remember our coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest the past few years (08, 09, 10). It just doesn't get more entertaining than Eurovision. This year's competition was held in Dusseldorf, Germany because the previous year's winner gets to host the next year's competition. Interestingly, Lena, the performer who won it for Germany last year, was also Germany's entry this year (with a different song).
It was well worth watching the whole thing, but here are our highlights:

• The winner was Azerbaijan. We didn't love their song (not that we hated it), but here's the video of it.
  
  
  


• The initial photo in this post is from Moldova's entry. Yes, they really wore those hats. And the lady was on a unicycle... (This is why we love Eurovision.)


• Probably the most talked-about entry this year is Ireland's. Their performers are a duo (identical twins) called Jedward, who became famous in the UK for being awful but getting pretty far in 2009's X-Factor competition. (We watched that season and were really rooting for Jedward to leave as soon as possible.) Their song this year, called "Lipstick," was pretty bad


• The Israeli entry was a song called "Ding Dong" by Dana International (below), a transsexual past winner of Eurovision (1998). She didn't make it to the Saturday final this year.

• Portugal's entry (which also didn't make the Saturday final) was a hilarious protest song against economic austerity measures.


• Bosnia & Herzegovina's entry was very entertaining with an eclectic ensemble (including a hip-hop dancing trumpeter) and a catchy tune.


• The Ukraine's entry was awesome because a popular sand artist shared the stage with the singer and did some art on the screen while the song was going on. Apparently the sand artist was the winner of "Ukraine's Got Talent."


• Finland's entry is a save-the-world song sung by a performer called Paradise Oskar. The song, called "Da Da Dam," grew on me and I quite liked it Saturday night in the final.
  
  

• Russia's entry was catchy but a little naughty. I don't know if it's the dude's accent while he's singing it, but we found the following lyric hilarious every time he sang it: "You look so good On the floor Put my mind in the dirty zone."


• Our favorite entry that didn't even make the final (we saw it on Tuesday's semi-final) was Armenia's entry called "Boom Boom." Here's the video.