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

Riga - Latvia

Maps really do come in handy (so does stealing free wifi)

So you can't say that you can't teach old dogs new tricks as this time we were prepared, a paper map of the city AND a digital map on the tab. I had a ball park mental image on the map of where we were walking to, even being able to point to that unlabelled road on the map but the other Spaz wasn't so sure. Thankfully there is lots of free wifi to steal or piggy back onto in the Baltics. A quick 2nd look and off we set for another hour long walk to the hostel. I should add here that my pack was 11kg when we left Sweden and by the time we got to this hostel it felt like 111kg :-( again we arrived sweaty, checked in, cleaned up and headed out to explore.

Before I tell you about our lovely time in Riga I should share some details about where we stayed. It was a lovely hostel that probably really wants to be a B&B. It had been open 3 weeks when we got there. As you would expect for something open 3 weeks, it is really clean. There was one problem for us, we were in a twin room (not the problem), the problem was the bathroom which was a 2m by 2m glass box in the corner of the room. Now don't get me wrong I am not a prude (yes I am Australian and they are a bit prudish) but there are limits to what I need to see the other Spaz do in the bathroom. Clear glass from the ceiling to the floor does not make a bathroom. I find this a weird thing to have in a twin room also as I often travel with friends and we get a twin room to save costs, I love my friends but again I don't need to see them in the bathroom.

The harbour in Riga was hosting the Tall ships festival so there were many boats with their numerous masts protruding high into the sky. We walked around the old ships for a while and spotted the Götheborg. I had travelled for days to see the ship from my home port. She was sitting impressively amongst some Norwegian and Russian boats. The Latvian police and military put on a display too. Whilst I could have had a cliched photo of me trying to hold some massive machine gun, I was most impressed with the bomb squads display. The maneuverability of the robots and the kevlar suit the 'lucky' human observer gets to wear were fascinating.

Old town in Riga was pretty, some very old churches, some amazing buildings and small little narrow streets were fun to explore. The museum of the occupation of Latvia was really interesting, and as a bonus it was available in 3 languages, importantly for me English was one of them. It told of the second world war through to soviet occupation and finally liberation. Communism was just as crippling to the country as Nazism. I need to read up more on why and how Russia came to occupy the Baltic states after the war!!!

Freedom monument

Getting some luck

Due to the soviet occupation there were numerous families that owned Zenit cameras. These are 35mm cameras (SLR) that are direct 'knock-off' of the Canon AE-1. If that made no sense to you then don't worry, basically we took some 50 year old film cameras for a walk around Riga on a tour we did. We spent some time out at the soviet market, then we headed to old Moscow road before returning back to town. Both the other Spaz and I have 72 photos each of Riga, some in focus, some over or under developed and some are just stunning. Film cameras capture a depth and feel that I have never been able to replicate with a digital camera. There is a whole blog post of photos we took on the tour, too many favourites to put here.

Soviet occupation also gave Riga electric cable buses. I haven't seen these in any country except former soviet states. We rode them home a couple of nights and in the tradition of our trip .... but pushing it further this time .... what you need a ticket ?!?! We are now public transport fugitives in 3 cities or 2 countries.

beer happiness

pancake happiness

Upon leaving the hostel to go to the bus terminal to catch a bus to Tallinn we caught a tram, what you need a ticket to ride a tram too ?!?! The bus station was next to the russian market which was convenient as we had a 4 hour bus ride, 3 Latvian lats (A$6) and were in need of some food and water for the trip. We got 2 massive pizza slices (not really pizza, more a bread roll with lots of vegetables and cheese on top but the size of a a very large piece of pizza), 2 danish like pastries, 4 nectarines, 1.5L of water, a 500ml bottle of coke and we still had 0.4 Latvian lats left, awesome!.

The Swedish gate

To make us even more happy, without knowing it we had booked ourselves onto the Lux bus for our trip to Tallinn. Oh you couldn't wipe the smiles from our faces when we took our seats in the first row behind the rear door, oh so happy, the Lux bus  :-)