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Published: August 18th 2008
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hi! we are writing from the utopian paradise that is scandinavia! well that might be a slight exaggeration, considering it hasnt really stopped raining since we landed. never the less!
after leaving galway we headed down to cork, the city between two rivers. actually lots of our cities seem quite water focussed. waterlogged says emma. probably due to living in drought zone. anyway cork! we dont really know how to describe cork but we liked it. while there we visited markets, went to the gallery and had lots of walks along the rivers, enjoying the busking. isab & em made sure on the first morning to track down a pub which would let us watch the saints collingwood match (woot from isab, glare from emma), we tried to drag roz along and teach her a fine appreciation of the game, but she preferred to see the shops for some reason (pfft). no one else in the bar showed the same enthusiasm for afl as us, could be because it was empty. also in cork isabella got her hair cut off at a real hairdresser wow.
from cork we bussed up to dublin. roz loved dublin and will live there
(she thinks, although isab and roz say that about EVERY CITY WE GO TO - emmas contribution). we all loved it actually. dublin is bustling and modern and pretty but they seem to make up tourist attractions to keep us on our toes....our favourite attraction was the really really big pointy thing which they put there for millenium celebrations or something. emma lead the way to our most exciting expedition, a two hour detour to see croke park, the others were not as exhillirated by the experience. but it was worth it for emma, who got out her camera and everything (the first time shes taken photos in about a month). our actual favourite attraction was the university, rozs number one destination for overseas semester so far. dublin was another example of the prevalance of australians in europe (we have met far more australians than europeans!), in our hostel dorm of 12 there were 8 aussies. on a side note, sharing rooms with the stinkier sex has turned us all off boys forever.
last tuesday we awoke at 4am (when i say 'awoke'....roz is groaning just at the memory....) to catch our flight to FINLAND. leaving the airport and
breathing scandi air for the first time, we were pretty much ecstatic! being in scandinavia we finally feel like were overseas, they drive on the wrong side of the road, the money is crazy and the language is actually foreign! (in ireland the signs were in two languages, gaelic & english, in finland the signs were also in two languages, finnish & swedish....handy!) we arrived in central helsinki, the sun was shining and it was fantastic! slightly difficult to navigate, but found our way to the hostel eventually and collapsed after a very long day. we stopped in (for a quick hour and a half) at the supermarket across the road (we LOVE supermarkets) and treated ourselves to a whole tub of icecream 😊 emma even cooked her own dinner, look out deb & ray, she is taking big steps.
helsinki is pretty much amazing. everyone there is attractive and fashionable and healthy looking, the buildings are so beautiful, its clean and modern and just amazing. roz & isab are going to live there one day. everyone rides bikes! there are no pay phones. for some reason everyone ignores the buskers even though theyre really great? they have an
awesome underground bus terminal. our second & third nights we stayed out of helsinki, in a little beach town called espoo. at the hotel/conference centre there is a fairly creepy, underground cell-like room which was our dorm! amazing small world coincidence number 73: the people sleeping two beds down from us live in james street, in northcote! and the guy asked if we had heard about his favourite restaurant spudatoes closing down! IT WAS TOTALLY WEIRD. anyway because it was technically a hotel and not a scummy hostel, the included breakfast (even included for the underdogs in the dorms) was probably the best breakfast any of us have ever eaten. ever. the massive buffet included museli and eggs and cheese and biscuits and fresh fruit and yoghurts and finnish pastries and heaps of breads and was just endless. we got up early especially to eat for two hours and digest for one hour, in the life of a poor traveller it was AMAZING. we filled our handbags with lunch & dinner haha. sorry to rant but we havent really recovered. espoo was very pretty though, on our last day we were blessed with the most spectacular weather. we spent the
day lounging in the sun on the edge of the water, by a forest, snacking on our stolen goodies, reading and snoozing and being gloriously gluttonous. emma & isab swam, and em got an extra dip in the water after roz pushed her in (it was officially the best thing roz has done the whole trip - isab knew there was a reason she let her come!). roz avoided the water and is now mega brown! maybe not mega but compared to the two milkos she is with. we made quite a spectacle of ourselves, hiking down to the water in our bathers with massive packs in tow.
unfortunately we had to leave finland before we were really ready, a combination of disorganisation leading to no accomodation left, and a lack of funds (finland is seriously expensive!). BUT the good news on that front is that our next stop (after a brief detour on a double decker TRAIN to turku) was SWEDEN. SWEEDDDEEENNNNN. somewhere we have all been very excited about seeing, we arrived here on sunday morning after an overnight ferry (most uncomfortable sleep....but very lovely sunset over the finnish archipelago, and the ships name was isabella! famous!).
unfortunately our time in stockholm has been dampened by the weather (yes! fantastic pun isab!) but we have extended our time an extra night to try and get some more sightseeing in tomorrow! stockholm as a city is built on 14 islands, pretty stunning although difficult to naviagte. today we visited the old town of gamla stan, great architecture, and the trip included a struggle up the cliffs which was rewarded with a brilliant view of stockholm and soggy rolls courtesy of another breakfast buffet! also window shopped the streets of soddermalm (the 'bohemian' area).
for those of you who have been trying to call, alfie our phone is being particularly difficult in countries who dont have vodafone stores, but were working on it. anyone who read all this, congrats! that is if anyone EVER reads it....leave comments! its a lot of effort for us! please 😊 will try to write again soon, maybe from the land of our hero princess mary. with love, your tavelbuggies.
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Nessa
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Roz
Are you brown again rozzie? Thats so not fair...i could never be brown if i tried, just red or white!!! Loving reading your blogs. Keep it up. Big hug roz from me and the pups :)