Edinburgh - Scotland

So August is a crazy month in the wee Scottish city of Edinburgh. Not only do they throw a spectacular cultural festival that is called the 'fringe festival' but the military tattoo also runs for the last week of the month. Not knowing this detail, we chose to go on the last weekend of the month to see our favourite Australian comedian and it was brilliant!!

We had 3 nights in Edinburgh, so that left us with 2 FULL days to spend exploring and experiencing this city. The 1st night was spent wandering around, getting acquainted with the city. We managed to find the castle (not too hard since it is high up on a hill) and a proper Scottish pub to have a meal and an ale in :-) We wandered the streets for a while, taking in some of the street performers and ignoring others. The quality of these acts was reflected by their price, i.e. free so quite poor quality! We also managed to find a shop that sold whiskey, how odd. We instantly regretted being cheap about our travel and traveling with only hand luggage on Ryanair, oh well, a good reason to go back. Some little bottles were purchased for sampling enjoyment with family at Christmas.

On Saturday we strolled into town past the statue of Sherlock Holmes (Arthur C. Doyle was born in the area) and towards the Edinburgh book festival. A couple of hours or so later we emerged with some books after perusing many of the covers (and a great reusable shopping bag that contained a copy of The Guardian newspaper, Spaz misses reading a weekend newspaper). Better still the bag has an Iain Banks quote on it 'empathize with stupidity and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot'. In the mood for some coffee and snack we roamed towards the castle and along the way found ourselves a lovely family owned bookstore that had a cafe on the 3rd floor, score! I wish there was something like it in Sweden!

A lovely walk through the park (seeing a squirrel play in the park), past the floral clock and we realized it was 1 o'clock as we heard the gunshot from the castle. We made our way to the castle but the line to get in was over an hour long ... we quickly decided that we could do that next time we visit. I had read online that something fun to do was the camera obscura (http://www.camera-obscura.co.uk/) and we walked passed it as we headed away from the castle, so we stopped in to see it. The camera obscura itself isn't so spectacular. Impressive as it has been in the same spot since the 1880's and impressive that such simple technology can transmit images so far and so clearly, no the MOST impressive part of this museum or attraction was the 5 floors of optical illusions. Lets just say that in the room of mirrors I hit at least 2 mirrors, earning my name Spaz :-) The other spaz got to shake his own hand and was made a little disorientated by walking on a platform through a rotating cylinder :-) much fun indeed! All this fun made us hungry, so a pie shop was found. We had a haggis pie and a steak pie, both served with mashed potato and gravy (the Scottish know good comfort food). Haggis is nice, much to my surprise.

The Castle

Chimney pots for my nan

More chimney pots for my nan

LOOK squirrel - action shot

The sun came out

Very cool art

Tickling his own hand

Tasmanian Spaz

No city excursion we do seems complete without a trip to a cemetery and low and behold we randomly stumbled across an interesting one in the centre of town. 

Most other cemeteries are all cherubs and angles, this was all skulls and bones, way cool!!

All of this random wandering made us thirsty and since we had a paper to read we found a lovely little bar to rest up at. After an hour or so we moved on (don't know why really) but we found another little pub this time to stop and rest our legs at (full of friendly locals which was nice). Beer was consumed, a postcard was written and then it was off to join the line for what was our reason for being there in the first place, Adam Hills and his Happyism show. We thought that the line was long when we joined it, 50m from the start but by the time we entered the building it was easily 300m long. The show was much much fun :-) funny indeed :-) and a hit with both of us.

Before going to sleep we made plans for Sunday, to escape the hoards for a few hours and head out to enjoy the wonderful parkland area that is Arthur's seat. It was a bit of a sweaty walk to the top, a humid 18 degrees with very little breeze. There were still lots and lots of people out walking and enjoying the park but not as many as were in town. We stopped at the top for a little lunch picnic before heading down to walk around the park some more.

As was a favourite past time of this trip, we made our way to a pub, to read the paper some more and enjoy a refreshing ale. We then made our way back towards where we were staying with a little more pub visiting and ale drinking :-) We spent the evening eating in Leith (suburb of Edinburgh, similar to Fitzroy or Collingwood in Melbourne). It has a grimy very working class poor history but it is being gentrified. We stopped to eat at Nobles (http://www.noblesbarleith.co.uk/) where I had a rabbit burger and it was brilliant! plus the staff are super friendly and really knowledgeable. Wish there was something like it in Sweden! Can't wait to go back to Edinburgh, next time tho' hopefully it will be a little quieter.

Lovely little rolling peaks at Arthur's seat

Jyväskylä - Finland

The woods are peaceful .....

Well so you may think except when there are 8 adults and 2 kids in a wooden cottage whilst there is a rally going on nearby. We had a lovely 5 days out in the woods and at times it was very peaceful and at other times it was a cottage full of noise and fun :-)

hard life!

The other Spaz headed out with the others to watch the rally on numerous days leaving me at the cabin by myself to enjoy the quiet. I got to read a little, fish a little and spend some quality time examining the insides of my eyelids. I am still emotionally scared from being dragged around to various rally events in Australia when I was a child to care to go and watch rally now. Standing in a forest for 3 hours to watch a dozen cars go passed for 5-10 seconds just isn't my sort of fun.

bad driving

hood over the windscreen

The voyage back to Sweden was a really long day but quite enjoyable. We got up at 3.30 in the morning local time (2.30 Swedish time) and drove in the motorhome to Turku to catch the ferry. 8 hours later, we got off the ferry 100km north of Stockholm. We were back on Swedish soil :-) There was just 7 hours of driving left to get to the other Spaz's parents house (a little after 11pm). Boy that bed felt really really good when we hit it. The following day we got the train home to Gothenburg, home sweet home ... well for 2 weeks before we head off again for another little adventure.

how to drink coffee in a motorhome on the move, safety bowls

Clever Finnish solution to avoid leaving your dog in a hot car at the shopping center

Considering all of the great food, wine, beer, ice cream and pancakes that we ate over 3 weeks we returned to Sweden a little lighter. It goes to show that you can eat a little too well as long as you walk 10 hours a day. As is my usual custom after a summer holiday, I now have a very very well worn pair of converse shoes who days of remaining in my possession are numbered. This is my proof of a great summer :-)

Helsinki - Finland

A little rest and relaxation before 5 more days of rest and relaxation ... life can be so hard!

We knew that by the time we reached Helsinki that we will have had 2 weeks on the road, sleeping in hostels and other fairly cheap places. We also knew that by the time we got to Helsinki that we would be in a major need a clean room and bathroom and a nice solid comfy bed so we prebooked a great hotel. It was in an art deco building, the room was decorated beautifully, it was large, clean and had a bathroom with proper walls not ones made of clear glass and the bed was firm, the pillows were plush and I was in heaven! I felt proper clean for the first in days and it was gooooooood!

After a late, long and rather large lunch we spent the remainder of the afternoon walking around the city. I escorted the other Spaz past all of the 'must see' things, various churches, old buildings, important sculptures, monuments and then into nerd heaven. The Finns demonstrated their sense of humour at the train station. The station is a lovely art deco building with 4 men at the front entrance and each holds a ball to signify a globe. Unfortunately Spaz didn't get to see the men or much of the building as it is being restored or renovated at the moment, however the Finns had put up a large canvas advertisement with pictures of 3 of the men off on vacation, very amusing :-)

By nerding out we went into a multistory book store. I haven't had that much fun in ages. I could pick up numerous books, read the back synopsis and then put the book down if it didn't grab my attention. The fins are awesome, they read in Finnish, Swedish and English. I got to hold and read so many books but alas we only bought 2 each. We were now ready to tackle the next part of our adventure.

The next journey was to go via train to Jyväskylä, 4 hours north of Helsinki, in the Finnish woods and also conveniently where the Rally of Finland is held. We were going to meet up with the other Spaz's family, in a wooden cottage for a peaceful 5 days. The train ended up taking 5 hours due some electrical problems on the line ahead of where we were but that wasn't a problem for us as we were in holiday mode, nah, what is an hour when you have 5 days of fun and relaxation ahead of you?

Tallinn - Estonia

We have a map, we can travel

So when we were chatting to the guys who took us on our photo tour of Riga we told them that our next stop was Tallinn. They then gave us a map of the place, score! So whilst we got the Lux bus and it was a very luxurious bus indeed unfortunately my body didn't agree! I pretty much spent 3 hours on the bus with the front of my rib cage trying to push itself out of my back through my spine, needless to say.... I was in a little bit of pain and discomfort on the bus journey and the other Spaz got to see me pull some rather funny faces. Stupid body!!! But arrive in Tallinn we did, da da daaaaaa! (for the pop culture reference refer to the movie The Croods, watched whilst on the bus. The trailer can be found in the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBdiFU6DgpE).

Again we walked for another 45 min with a pack that now weighs around 222kg (picked up some cheap vodka in Poland and Estonia) to the hotel. Yes, we upgraded to a hotel, da da daaaaaa!

Tallinn consists of an old town, some former soviet sites and a huge national park. We restricted ourselves to seeing old town and the museum of contemporary art areas. Old town is pretty but it is just full of tourists and the things that tourist need, restaurants, bars and somewhere to pick some craptastic souvenirs. Since I had already been to Tallinn I made the other Spaz be in charge at this point. I didn't want to stop him from seeing things just because I might have already seen them before. It appears that we have very similar interests as we did pretty much did a compressed version of the last time I was in Tallinn, Walked around old town, saw key historical sights, went to the museum of occupation and spent time out in the green park area around the art museum.

One place that I remembered from my last visit was a fabulous pancake place. I knew what it looked like but I didn't know its name. Thankfully my brain and body can lead me to food reliably, Kompressor pancakes are the bomb!!! blue cheese and mushrooms for me and ham and smoked cheese for the other Spaz, devine!

So so so gooooooood :-)

Apparently this was good too

One place that I felt more confident exploring this time was the soviet market. Having a boy next to you is a good thing when travelling sometimes. The soviet market is run by and for former soviets that live in Tallinn. Many are unemployed or on a very tiny soviet pension so they need somewhere to buy and sell goods cheap. It is full of 'brand' name socks and underwear as well as some rather dodgy looking Russian fashion. Since we had been on the road a couple of weeks by now we decided that some new socks and underwear might be a good idea. I put a hole in my 'addidas' sock by just putting it on my foot and the shape of the male underwear leaves us thinking that Russian men must have different shaped hips and boy bits from other men. At least it was all really cheap, 3 pairs of socks for 2€. 

The best part of the russian market was walking around all of the 2nd hand stalls. They had old soviet cameras, clocks, pins, flags, fuse boxes and the odd meter of electric cable. There was also a phone charger for every phone ever made, ever, available for sale. Whilst I joke about some of the things for sale there, there is also a bit of a sad side to the market. You get to appreciate just how rich and well off you are when you see little stalls or a table or a cloth on the ground being run by nana's selling glass bottles. These aren't anything special bottles, just washed and dried bottles that we all use and then throw into the recycling, just glass bottles from when we buy a pasta sauce or jam at the supermarket. There were also stalls where nana's were selling the odd lettuce leaf or cucumber they had grown. Very very humbling.

One afternoon we were rather lazy, after walking the 3km out to the park we then sat under the trees and read and chillaxed. A perfectly balanced holiday :-)

lazy afternoon view, green leaves and blue sky

Squirrels don't need a warning sign

The next port of call for us was Helsinki and we were actually going to arrive in the port :-) on the fast catamaran ferry, 90 mins and we were there.

Riga - as captured by Zenit 35mm film camera

When we were doing our brief internet research on what to do and see in each city that we planned to visit I stumbled across a photography tour in Riga. It gave us the opportunity to use the old Soviet Zenit 35mm film cameras, so I was hooked from the start. The photos below are scans of the negatives but I haven't cleaned up the digital files yet (something to do on a rainy day) so their quality isn't the greatest but you certainly will get a feel for the city.

The camera

Soviet market

Closing time

Berries everywhere

 Moscow road (literally runs direct to Moscow)

Warehouse area (currently being rejuvenated as Riga is European culture capital for 2014)

  
In the park