Breakfast in Copenhagen, Lunch in Sweden and dinner in Finland

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well not exactly but near enough.... At present I am in a park in the centre of Helsinki which, get this, has free wifi!, I am never making fun of Karoliina and Moomin land ever again. they have free concerts all through the day in this park and I am currently listening to a guy playing a spanish guitar (he is really good, although he keeps playing the song which was on the musical doll in my Nannies house when I was young - brings back memories) and it is a thursday...... who knew life could be so good.

We left amsterdam on Tuesday night to get the night train to Copenhagen -which I have to say was absolutely class - we shared the sleeper cabin with a finnish lady and her daughter and a girl from Oz. Having arrived in Copenhagen with a couple of hours until our next leg of the journey we headed off to have Breakfast - then off again to get the train to stockholm. Despite the beds being just 6 feet long (and Jonathan deciding whether to leave his feet out the window for the night, and risk losing his shoes...) we both slept really well. Jonathan says: Perhaps it is the constant rocking motion, but there was something very pleasant waking up on a train after a good night sleep about to enter Denmark, and then going to sleep later that day on a ferry from Sweden to Finland. It certainly beats trying to sleep on planes. I think I am taking as much enjoyment out of the journey as from the destination. Earplugs and eye covers help to forget that dawn is at 5am, and passport control at 6am is just a “hold passports out the side of the bed for 10 seconds” affair. Had plenty of time in Copenhagen to wander into the center and have a nice leisurely breakfast and a quick look around.

When we arrived in Stockholm we were supposed to have about an hour and a half to get from the station to the ferry port which would bring us to Finland but the train was delayed by 20 mins and me being the ever fantastic organiser hadn't researched how to get from central station to the ferry - needless to say - you have never seen me run so fast (especially with a huge back pack - ok a reasonably sized back pack, on my back). But we made it with about 20 mins to spare and got the ferry which would take us to Finland. The ferry was great. we ended up with a four berth cabin and more importantly during dinner we were passed by two moomins - so after dinner our aim became to stalk the moomins in hope of obtaining a photo - Andy smith would have been proud of my shadowing technique - I now can say I MET PAPA MOOMIN! woo hoo, and have a photo to prove it - Karoliina you never told me how soft they really are........., So we have arrived in Helsinki feeling great. Will Update tomorrow and let you know what we get up to - BTW heading to St Petersburg tomorrow night at 11pm by overnight train. Jonathan says: car ferries have come a long way from the days of Rosslare to Cherbourg for a camping holiday in France. The basic layout is similar and it still has the dance floor with the same tunes playing as back in the 1980's, but electronic barcodes on your ticket to open cabin doors, airco, cabins that are identical to parisian hotel rooms, swimming pools, saunas, mini golf on deck with its own sun bar, and nice food and good wine in a proper restaurant for dinner, have made it pretty nice. The scenery at sunset out of the window of the islands in the bay outside of Stockholm certainly helped. The 45 minutes in Stockholm has to be the shortest visit to a city I have ever made but the people we spoke to were pretty helpful so I might be back. That said, they really aren't interested in queueing in orderly lines... Impression of the day has to be the field of hay bales that looked up as I clattered into the rail carriage in Sweden. Very impressed with Seppy's packing too - no hefting of luggage around the place necessary (just one backpack and smaller shoulder bag each), and also very impressed with her organising ability: successfully moved through 4 countries with very little fuss (it will be my turn after tomorrow). Picking up emails without a problem, so feel free to send them on to our gmail accounts [e-mail] or [e-mail] )

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