We arrived in Helsinki yesterday morning to a brisk 0° and a fair amount of snow on the ground. Getting from the Airport to the city was a breeze - just outside the door was a Finnair Bus which cost us 6 euros and the bus driver was friendly and helpful. It was so cold we had to open our luggage in a shopping mall to get our warm jackets and beanies out before walking to our apartment next to Hotel Jardine. Yes it really is called Apartment Next to Hotel Jardine. We were tired after the flights (getting old sucks) so we didn't do much yesterday, just a bit of shopping for supplies. Had a hard job finding a liquor store, we are used to Italy where they are in every shop. Finally after a lot of sign language and speaking slowly - success so had a beer for lunch. We then did something we swore we would never do after a long flight. We had a nap at 2.00pm and woke up after 7.00pm. No point in doing anything so went back to sleep until morning. We will explore our surrounds this morning with gloves beanie and ski jacket. It is interesting to compare Helsinki today with the last time we were here. Where it was green before it is now white and there are no leaves on the trees. I think I like the snow better it is really pretty. Although today the snow is starting to melt and in some places it has turned to dirty mush, it is still cold, a chilly 0 degrees. From one extreme to another with the heat we have had at home lately. However all places are heated, shopping centres, buses, restaurants, and thankfully our apartment. Staying in Helsinki is a lot different than we imagined. We had heard that English was common and thought that buying groceries and eating in restaurants would be easy, but mostly they speak Finnish (who knew) which is a very different language, and everything in the supermarket is in Finnish. It would be very hard to learn, lots of long words like Lahdevesi Kallvatten which we think is water. Our first impression of Helsinki is that is a very efficient, clean city.