Finland, Sweden and peace...

Hi Everyone

Finland is a beautiful country, it was one of my favourites for countryside. The farms were picturesque I loved it. The language was a nightmare, but we didn't really have to worry about it, most of them spoke English, nice people.

When we arrived in Helsinki, we did the usual guided tour, and in the main square, there was an exhibition of huge bears. Remember the cows in Bordeaux, well Helsinki had large bears, representing the countries in the United Nations (I think), anyway there were about 130 of them. They were supposed to be touching hands and represented the art of tolerance, I didn't want to tell them, but somebody goofed and made the stands too big, the bears hands weren't touching, but never mind, the thought was there.


United States and Great Britain, they were cute..Some countries had great ones, the artist had done a brilliant job


Some were adorable


Some hardly bothered, shame Holland, shame!!


I have no idea what Bolivia was thinking, bears people, they were supposed to be tolerant bears!!

Sadly the ugliest one of all was Australian, I have no idea why they gave it to Ken Done to paint, the man has absolutely no talent, in my opinion. I was not the only Australian that was disappointed, we all agreed. It was crap...


See... Embarrassing!!!!


Oh and Helsinki had a cool church made of Rock..

We arrived in Sweden yesterday, Stockholm was okay, but I was tired after a night at sea, in a cabin for 4... Not a lot of sleep, although I did get in a room without Johanna... Bonus!! We did the usual guided tour and I was almost asleep, I almost begged off the afternoon tour to the VASA, I am so glad I didn't, it was amazing. It is a ship that sunk in the 1700's and was underwater and mud for over 300 years. It is brilliant, the Baltic sea is not very salty, so the normal little bugs that eat wood under the ocean cannot survive, so all the wood survived. They have salvaged it and restored it, with 95% of the original wood. It was worth seeing


The Vasa.. I couldn't fit it all in the picture, so I brought the book..

Today I said goodbye to the rest of my travelling companions, some sadly, some not... Most of them were really great people and it is sad I will not see them again. BUT I did get rid of Johanna, no more whispering or hissing, oh the joy. Sometimes you are the windscreen and sometimes you are the bug.. I travelled into town to find my new hotel, I had no idea where it was, but found the street within minutes of getting of the train, it was about a 4 block walk from the station, windscreen again!! I asked the receptin girl if there was a laundry nearby, she said for 100 Krone I could use the washing machine and dryer in the basement... Woohoo, windscreen again. So I started a load of washing, I asked her where the dryer was and she said it was an all in one, cool!! The girl didn't know how to work it so she asked the other girl who didn't know either, never mind the owner would know. They both told me it didn't get the clothes really dry, I would still have to hang them, well we've all been there, using crappy dryers, so I said is was fine. When the load was nearly done we got the manager to show us, he came downstaris and told us it was austomatic and it was drying now. He left and suddenly the penny dropped, I asked the girl "Is this a tumble dryer or a spin dryer?". She said "Spin dryer." Bloody hell, Now I'm the bug. I have been trying to lighten my load and now I have a heap of wet clothes... The girl assures me if I hang them about my room overnight they should dry... I have them hanging from everything in the room, but I am not reassured. Bug, bug, bug.... I new everything was going too well....

Oh well tomorrow I fly to Norway, hopefully not with excess baggage...

Cheers for now

Lones