Finland

Looking down from 37000 feet(despite my dislike of imperial measurements, metres just don't feel right to describe altitude.), I can see the territory below me. Its now three hours until we touch down in Melbourne, and the trip ends. Although, to me the trip won't be over until I've found a new place to call home in Melbourne.

So our whirlwind through Scandinavia ended with Finland. Despite my thinking it would be the last country we visited, I was wrong, as a few days later we ended up in Estonia. My cousin Shannon picked us up from the airport, and we stay with him, Saara and Nicolas for most of our trip in Finland.

If Iceland is Niceland, then Finland would be Fineland. Our first trip out was into Helsinki itself, to check out the town. Its a fantastic city, full of life and character. And its beautiful, as with the rest of Scandinavia, very neat and clean. We explored the city, check out the markets near the harbour, and wandering around out to a monument to Sibelius we saw on a postcard.

The next day we took a ferry out to the Island of Sumelinna, a 15 minute ride away. Its an old fortified island, with the walls still intact. It would have been an imposing naval stronghold in days past, now its dotted with restaurants and cafe's. Again, it reminded me of Rottnest, with no cars except for service vehicles and minimal settlement. After that, we headed over to the sports ground to watch Shannon play cricket. Finland isn't really where I expected to find a cricket league, but there it was, a Twenty20 match in Helsinki. The cricket teams are mainly expats from Australia, New Zealand, England, India, Pakistan and South Africa. For some its social, for overs its more serious, but it seems like they all have a good time.

And then it was Liz's Birthday! We went out to a lake the next morning for a swim, the water being colder than I expected but pleasant once you were in. Then we headed into town to stock up for the meal I planned to cook. And we spent the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen, making a pesto for the pesto roasted potatoes, and preparing Liz's favourite, pan fried salmon, but using Finnish salmon, which turned out pretty well.

The next morning we got up early, as I was taking Liz to Estonia for her birthday. A two hour ferry ride later, and we were in Estonia. Tallinn is another pretty town, with a famed old town, reminiscent of Cesky Krumlov for Bruges, but with a charm of its own. Estonia was quite cheap compared to Finland, so much so that the ferry was full of Finns loading up on cheap booze and the sailing back.

We wandered around the old town, full of cobblestone streets that seemed much easier to navigate when your not lugging a suitcase around. We spent most of our time looking for somewhere good for coffee and cake or some other meal. We had a drink in the 'Ice Bar' attached to our hotel, famed for its frozen glassware. Turns out they were just frozen shot glasses, but we had a shot of vodka and I ate most of my shot glass. We had a bit of a wander through the new town, enough to see it was like any other city of its size, ad then caught the ferry back to Helsinki.

Went out to Turku, as Angela had been telling me for months to go see the Turku castle, which we did. It was an interesting castle, but the third of forth one we had been to recently, but it was interesting to have a wander around inside. We resolved that that was it for museums, and headed off the next morning.

Not really sure of where to go next, we got on a train to Jyvaskyla, a small town in central Finland, skirted by lakes. Liz wanted to stay near a lake where she could go for a swim, and we would have, if the weather was agreeable, but it wasn't. Still, we spent two night in Jyvaskyla, relaxing a bit and exploring the town. We hired some bikes and rode around for the day, which was great fun riding along the lake. We tried walking the bikes through a 'nature trail', but after three lots of knocked down barriers we came to a river that the bridge had been sealed off. We took that as a sign to head back.

We took a boat ride on a steam ship down the lake, all the way to Lahti. Although we knew it would take all day, Liz thought we might be able to get off at the stops to look around. We couldn't, so I spent most of the day reading, which Was an entirely pleasant thing to do whilst chugging down the lake. It was very pretty though, when I did turn my head up to look.

So then we had one last day in Helsinki. We tried to fit in as much as we could, heading into town again for one last trip around, some last minute shopping and another trip over to Sumenlinna so Liz could have a swim at the beach. We then had a really nice meal at a traditional Finnish restaurant with Shannon and family, and went home for a Sauna.

It was really nice spending time with Shannon and Saara, Again we were so fortunate for their wonderful hospitality. We also had a great time playing with Nicolas, my little second cousin (I think he's my second cousin... My cousins son, whatever that is...). He even managed to teach us some Finnish. And we will never hear Mama Mia the same way again.

And now were on a plane. Its just over two hours until touch down, I'm doing my best to ignore the fact its been roughly thirty hours since we got to Helsinki airport. Or that we have a few hours in the car before we get to Kyabram. Or that my body has no idea what time it is. Or that we need to find a place to live. I'll just smile, as I can see the Great Sandy Desert below me.