Been through the Baltics

---

We've been a little slack lately with reference to the travelblog (had a few other problems to sort out and trying to still see everything.) Well here goes,

We got to Stockholm on the Friday night and what do you know, got drunk at Dannys place. Played poker and got enough to maybe cover our drinks for that night. Next day we went on the mission to book our ferry to Finland - hopefully for the Sunday arvo - unlucky. Problem was we wanted to wait till Stockholm in order to see some contacts about cheaper tickets. We ended up getting cheaper tickets on the Monday morning (7am) boat. Saturday afternoon we went for a drive in Dannys car, - cant believe it, all those Kms on the Autobahn and the highest speed I hit was 153, 10 minutes driving in Sweden and all of a sudden Im doing 180 - After this we played some football in the park then had some warm up drinks that dragged on till bout midnight before 7 of us piled into a cab and paid 270SEK (bout A$52) to get the 10-15 mins into the middle of town. Went to a couple of places before everyone else bailed and I continued on for a couple of hours more, won money on blackjack in a nightclub though which subsidised everything nicely. Sunday arvo was spent by everyone woeing their drinking decisions from the previous night before dinner, an hour or twos sleep and off on the mission to get to the port for the boat check-in.

Because the boat was a daytime boat it wasn't the big party it normally is but nevertheless met some people and ended up disposing of some duty free alcohol before the boat got to Turku in Finland. On arriving at the Hostel in Finland I produced a bottle of Jager and a bottle of Vodka (Both duty free of course, cant afford to buy it in Scandinavia,) and the night was taken up with drinking games featuring our hostel roommates. Next day we caught the train to Helsinki and lodged in the Olympic Stadium. We walked around a bit, grabbed some food and sat down for a beer. Met a swedish guy named Micheal who offered to take us out on the archipelago off the coast of Stockholm in his boat when we get back to Sweden, we've just got to work out if we can fit it in. Next day was spent sightseeing at Sveaborg, an old defensive fortress island, after this I went and saw my cousin who lives in Helsinki for a coupla hours then met up with matt again for dinner then a coupla drinks in the Ice Bar.

Thursday we caught the boat over to Tallinn. It seems with all these ferries, the price you get on-line is never the same as when you get there, which is really annoying if you cant book on-line. Arriving in Tallinn we realised that we didn't even know where our hostel was, was not hard to find though. Checked into Hostel Alur and proceeded to get something to eat for the day, this is where our bad diets really started, In Finland we didn't have Euros left for food the day that we left and it costs too much to get a small amount from an ATM for a snack, as well as then having some leftover that cost a heap to get changed, so by the time we got to Tallinn at bout 1800 we were starving. After bout half hour of looking round at different prices we found a nice bar called Nimega with reasonably priced meals. In Tallinn everything seems an all right price but when you sit down and work it out its still at least the same as home. Whilst at Nimega we ran into a German guy named Lucas who has lived in Tallinn for the past 2 1/2 years and he offered us a free tour round the city the next day.

This worked well, we shouted him a coupla beers in the process and we learnt alot about the city, finally finishing the tour at the docks, drinking take-aways with Lucas, his father Klaus and his American housemate Robert. That night went back to Nimega for a couple and ended up drinking with a 1 German, 1 Finnish, 1 American, 2 Swedes and 2 Estonians. Next morning a coupla charges hit my credit card, which we had been using, and all of a sudden it was time to switch to Matts. We went to book our bus tickets to Riga and handed him the card, to which we got a reply of "Cash Only" in a bloody travel agent. ATM stop proved really bad with the ATM keeping the card. All of a sudden we were in Estonia with bout 70Kc ($7.5) and bout $35 bucks in one account. I had a brainwave to try and overdraw my Newc Perm account as has happened a coupla times by accident in Aust. Next mission, finding somewhere to buy bus tickets by credit card. Caught a cab out to the bus station (45Kc), I put one ticket on my card, Next one wouldn't work. But now we had 275Kc. I had a coin collection from all the countries we've been to as well as a A$10 note, So I sucked it up and took a pile of Euro coins (all with different countries designs on them) and the A$10 note to the money exchange desk to get the shitty exchange rate they give you on coins, this put us just shy of 2 tickets as the exchange place only took coins from Euro countries, Great Britain, Estonia and Latvia. A very short while later whilst searching for the Toblerone bar we bought duty free on the Stockholm-Turku boat then forgot we had, I stumbled across 120SEK (A$22, 180Kc). Matt had the same. This was money left over from Sweden which was forgotten about because that wont last long with the prices in Sweden. But at least now we had bus tickets in 5 hours and a packet of cigarettes.

Arriving in Riga, we checked into our hostel and they gave us a free beer on arrival, DELIGHTFUL. I ducked up to a 24 hour money exchange and changed our last 140sek for bout 14.7 Latvian Lats. We then started to try and sort out getting some money. As our heads finally hit the pillow at bout 6am Sunday morning it was hard to stop thinking about how this was going to work. Next day we used the phone card we bought online with the last cents from my Newc Perm account and both rang home as well as Mastercard to see what could be done. Straight after that was sorted we headed for food. After the 2 bits of Toblerone we had the day before, a meal was in order, so we got a meal and this left us with enough Lats left to have 1 beer each before bed. Next morning everything was looking up as I got up and checked my bank account and there was money from both our parents there. Matt had to find a Western Union to get a little bit of money from Mastercard. We stayed an extra 2 nights in Riga in order to go to the beach, relax, actually do something in the town and make sure everything was gonna work out.

Wednesday arvo we headed for Vilnius by bus. Getting into Old town Hostel at bout 2030 we got changed and decided to stay an extra night there as well. We met some other people from the hostel and ended up out for the night, thankfully Lithuania is a little bit cheaper than Estonia and Latvia. Next day on getting up Martin, a South African, Gary, an Englishman and Fiona, a West Australian were heading out for a bite to eat and we tagged along. Martin and I made the fateful mistake of ordering something from a picture. On this plate, the 4 cheese strips were alright, the 4 herring rolls were pretty good, the pile of Pigs ears was not much chop, the 2 bits of fried bread needed a hammer and chisel but was edible when dipping it in other peoples leftover sauce, BUT the half plate of what I learned to be SMOKED Chicken Stomachs were not bearable. Very shortly the table had beers on it. That evening I ducked up and bought train tickets to Warsaw for the next morning and 6 beers from the supermarket to try and have a quite one at the hostel. On arrival back to the hostel I found Matt and Gary dead to the world. Martin and Fiona soon followed. My night was then taken up by playing cards with Camille and Cecille, 2 french girls who were leaving for the Czech Republic in the middle of the night and Mauro, an Italian guy.

Next morning, whilst waiting for the train we met Steve, an Australian guy travelling the same route. This made the train ride alot more bearable. Because of the events of our last afternoon in Vilnius, we hadn't booked accomodation but a girl that worked at Oki Doki Hostel found us 2 beds for 1 night at Kanonia in Old Town. First mission when we got there was booking accomodation for the rest of the trip. Tonight were at the Jump Inn Hostel, about to out for some dinner and we catch a really slow, but cheap, train to Krakow tomorrow.

I kept it short didn't I?
Kane

---