Rolling On

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Time for an update!

First, an apology for the lack of photos this time. I have lots, but the fat body of my USB stick can´t fit into the narrow opening on this computer!

As you can see, I´m no longer in Norway. Currently posting from Helsinki, capital of Finland! I´ll go back to where I left off though, and give the story of how I ended up here.

August 3, Sunday, I went hiking in Lofoten again. The mountains there are irresistible! I climbed a cluster of 5 peaks not far from where I camped, including the mini-Ha Ling and mini-miner´s peak from the photo I included the other day. It was warm and sunny, so I spent a bunch of time lounging on the highest summit with great views all around. That afternoon I packed up my tent and went to the nearby hostel in Kabelvag, where I had a reservation. I only mention the hostel because of the cats. There were lots of cats there. Not in the actual hostel rooms, but roaming around everywhere outside in the parking lot and courtyard area. I had a ring of about 6 of them sitting around me watching me eat dinner on the patio!

Monday I did a quick jaunt up one more mountain, which was great except for the fact that the trail marked on the map didn´t actually exist. "Oh," said a lady I asked about it later, "there´s no trail there. It´s just a place people go to pick berries." Well, the bushwhacking was nasty but I did find lots of wild blueberries, which made for a yummy hike! In the afternoon I caught a bus to Narvik, a good-sized town on the mainland and only 40km from the Swedish border. Unfortunately the info centre was closed when I got there, so I couldn´t decide until the morning whether to take the train into Sweden or get a bus south to Bodo and back that way. I did end up with a dorm to myself in the hostel though, which was pretty nice!

Tuesday I wandered down to the train station for info on the trains, but the place was closed at 7:30 despite a sign saying "Open 6:30-20:00". At the town info centre an hour later I found out that the station is no longer manned. Just the same, the info centre folks were able to get me the info I wanted about trains, and I decided to take the 7 hour trip into Sweden to the city of Lulea on the coast of the Baltic Sea. This would mean new territory instead of retracing my steps through Norway, which was my other thought for traveling south. Due to a train delay, I didn´t get to Lulea until after the info centre there closed either, so again I ended up having to wait until morning to make more travel decisions.

Wednesday I had two options for going further south: train through Sweden, then connect through Denmark and Germany to get down to the Alps (my eventual goal - they have mountains there!); or take a bus into Finland then catch a train south through Finland, a route that would take me through eastern Europe on my way south. It was a bit of a coin-toss decision, but I ended up hopping on the bus, and, 13 hours later (13 very loooooooong hours) I arrived in Helsinki. Eastern roads it is!

Today I´m exploring Helsinki. The greater Helsinki area has a population of about 1.3 million, making it the largest place I´ve been to since arriving in Europe. In fact, until now the largest cities I´ve been to have only been 1/5th that size! It´s very much a hustling, bustling city in the summer, with lots of tourists wandering around at all hours of the day. Lots to see, and not enough time to see it all! This evening I´m taking a short ferry across the gulf to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Hopefully my ferry won´t be delayed so that I can get there before the info centre closes and not have to wait until morning to find out about transport!

And that´s about it for now. Until next time!

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