My Journey Through Hel(sinki)

So remember that one time I thought this journey would be less intense than my 36 hour one back from Africa? Yeah it wasn't. After waking up at the crack of dawn and getting to SFO with perfect timing, I thought everything would go smoothly. How silly of me. Upon arriving in Chicago, my three hour layover quickly turned into a seven hour one. This would only make sense because I had to catch a plane to Moscow after that left 40 minutes after I landed. Needless to say I did not make that flight. Because of that I am now sitting in the Helsinki airport for what seems like forever but is actually only 4 hours. This additional 4 hour layover has given me quite a lot of time to make some observations about the Helsinki airport and the people of Finland.  1. Finland is inhabited by ghosts. Ok maybe not real ghosts. But if you've ever been to this region of the world you will notice an overwhelming majority of the people here look like albinos.  2. The Helsinki airport was designed by the same people that did ikea... In conjunction with eskimos. Thank god I didn't forget my sweater... Oh wait... Thank god I turned around for it after I forgot it... Because its about -5 degrees in this airport. Not to mention its raining outside. Naturally I'm sitting here looking like someone on I shouldn't be alive, shivering and in desperate need of a good serving of meatballs.  3. There seem to be a lot of birds in this airport. I'm not talking about outside either. Every time I look up from The Big Bang Theory I see a little bird giving me a judgmental stare. They're probably here because the roof seems to be unfinished, which probably doesn't help the fact that it's freezing.  4. Employees here ride around the airport on what looks like the love child between a bike and a razor scooter. No more explanation can be provided.  And then I fell asleep, landed in Russia, navigated my way through the Moscow airport, got picked up by a cab driver with the SKETCHIEST sign in the world (now I feel Carrie's pain from Tanzania) because I was like 7 hours late, drove for FREAKING FIVE HOURS, and arrived in Yaroslavl at midnight... Minutes after the sun had set.