Americans are obnoxious?

Americans who travel to Europe hear it all the time. "Americans are loud and obnoxious". It has caused overseas Americans to don clothes bearing the Canadian maple leaf to make people think they are of a more genteel culture.

While there may be some element of truth to this (you'll often hear Europeans saying "Well, none of the people I personally know are like that...."), I just realized Europeans are even worse. I spent some time in the Frankfurt airport this morning waiting for my connection to Helsinki, and there were people smoking in the terminal gate! Now come on. Smoking in public is INFINITELY more obnoxious than being loud. When are Europeans going to learn that smoking is disgusting? If I had to choose one or the other I'd rather see a druggie shooting heroin in the corner of the room. It may be unsightly, but at least it doesn't give me a headache!

I made it safely to Helsinki. The weather here is awesome! If you want to see what the weather is like, click here. If you want to know what time it is, click here.

I am going to head out and walk around Central Helsinki this afternoon/evening. Need to find some things to do. Perhaps I can do one of those dinner cruises around the city or something. Helsinki is on the water... check out the map. My hotel is in the south west, near than big Number 51. It is about a 20 minute walk to the city center. I'm borrowing an HP R725 camera to see if I want to buy one, so we'll see how well the pictures come out.