I Am Still Here

You poor things, you thought I'd forgotten about you, what with all the fun I've been having and many many countries I've managed to cram in since I last posted. (That would be four countries, if anyone cares!)

I left you in Norway, back when I was about to start having hissy fits if the people on my tour didn't leave me alone for half an hour. I am nobody's Siamese twin and I'm not in a thriller movie being tailed, so let's all just back off the Nicola for a moment or twelve.

After leaving Bergen, we had Fjord Day. We spent three hours on a ferry burbling up and down two arms of the Sognefjord. Beautiful. Huge huge rocky mountains, little houses and occasional villages on the edges of the fjords, seagulls drifting along with us on the ferry, warm sunlight and icy shade. Pretty relaxing way to spend your Saturday!

Back on the bus and off to Fagernes with a quick stop at another stavkyrkje. Fagernes was very pretty, our hotel was on the edge of a huge lake, with plenty of ice still on parts of it. After dinner I managed to duck out without anyone following me and wandered out to a little tree-covered mini peninsula into the lake while the sun went down. It was incredibly quiet and gave me a chance to breathe and unwind, let some of the tension from my fellow travellers go.

The next day we headed for Lillehammer, home of the 1994 Winter Olympics. They actually only had the ski jumping and opening and closing ceremonies IN Lillehammer, so headed up to the ski jump stadium. Obviously not much happening, but it was a nice view over Lillehammer. For my Mt Gambier readers, Lillehammer is about the same size - can you ever imagine Mt Gambier getting it together to host anything bigger than a BBQ for all the locals?

We were off to Sweden after that, so our tour guide put the 'Mamma Mia' DVD on for us, to get us in the Swedish mood as it were. The Swedish meatballs we had at the truckstop for lunch, bang on the border, also helped get us in the mood. Stayed in Karlstad that night, again about the size of Mt Gambier and even less to see - no Blue Lake in Sweden!

Finally we were off to Stockholm! Had a walking tour of the old town and a 'traditional' Swedish dinner after we arrived. I was imagining Stockholm to be all slick and contemporary buildings, steel and glass. In reality, it's built on HEAPS of little islands, some of which are built half on land fill from the 13th century, and the heart of the city is the old town. It was all built around the 13th century, everything had been burnt down a few times, but it was all wonderful. Really pretty and so unexpected. Our 'traditional' dinner did include more meatballs and nothing else that I thought was particularly traditional, but it was good food despite its inauthenticity!

On the way back to the hotel that night, we went quickly out to Drottningholm (where the royals live, include their unmarried prince who looks like Orlando Bloom, hello!). The palace and gardens were based on Versailles, but not quite as big and the gardens were a bit prettier, less stark.

The next morning we had a city tour, then two others and I watched the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace. One of the people I was with said it was a million times better than the one at Buckingham Palace so I'll be skipping that one. The Swedish one went for about an hour, we were about a metre away from the soldiers, there were horses and swords and a band all on horseback doing formation type things, great!

Went and did a little bit of shopping that afternoon, had to get some genuine H&M since it's actually a Swedish company. For anyone unfamiliar with H&M, it's like Ikea for clothes. Heaps of stuff, cheap, decent-ish quality, best accessories for the ladies EVER. I now own three H&M scarves for example.

Had our oh so sad and teary tour farewell dinner that night, wasn't quite as emotionally wrenching as my Contiki farewells!

The following day I decided not to try and cram in more of the excellence that Stockholm had to offer, but to go with my gut and go and visit the BIGGEST IKEA IN THE WORLD. Hell yeah! They run a free bus service to and from the city, so hopped on that and headed to the 'burbs for some storage solution goodness. Turns out Ikea's no fun when you can't buy anything and everything. And it was just like every other Ikea in the world, sad. The one thing they had different were a range of Ikea toiletries (shampoo, sunscreen, towels) so I bought an Ikea deodorant!

That night I caught the overnight ferry from Stockholm to Helsinki, which is a HUGE ship and is packed to the rafters with tax free booze. The next morning when we got off in Helsinki people were literally rolling shopping trolleys full of slabs of alcohol off the ship. Personally, I opted to go and see a movie ('The Boat That Rocked', cute) and then get an awesome night's sleep so I was fresh and perky for Finland.

In Helsinki I stayed at a hostel in the 1952 Olympic Stadium (have for some reason managed to fit in all this sporty action very late in my trip). So at least my hostel was easy to find, tucked right behind the HUGE Olympic tower! Helsinki was not what I was expecting, it was less European and Scandinavian and a lot more Russian than I was expecting. Not the prettiest city, although the White Church was incredible, you could see it from everywhere. The harbour area and Esplanadi were really cool too, little orange tents with some seriously good food happening. My first day there I had Baltic herrings with tartare sauce and salad - yum!

The second day I was in Helsinki was May Day and a public holiday and crazy fun for all the Finns. The whole city packed its picnic blankets and booze and put on little white sailor caps and headed for Kaivopuisto Park to celebrate graduation and the end of winter. I mingled with the masses, had a huge plate of whitebait and potatoes and then tried to catch a tram. Not the best day to be relying on public transport.

From Helsinki I also did a day trip to Tallinn, capital of Estonia. It was only an hour and a half on the ferry to get there and it is a very pretty city. Very small, I wandered around, had lunch, visited the Photography Museum, bought some postcards and was back on a ferry in 2.5 hours, but definitely worth it.

There was also a highly entertaining, if a bit crazy, Dutch guy at my Helsinki hostel too. The three main countries that I haven't visited on my trip are Germany, Belgium and Holland. When I tell a German I'm not visiting their country, they are okay about it and agree that it should be top of my list for next time. The Belgians are sad that I'm not visiting their country, mainly because I'll miss out on all the good beer. But the Dutch! MAN are they cranky when I say I'm not going there! So this Dutch guy at my hostel proceeded to tell me how my entire country and life were all because of everything the Dutch have done for us Aussies, from Gus Hedding coaching our soccer team into the World Cup, to the Dutch naming New Zealand and inventing Heineken. He then took great joy in showing off his new pimp shoes that he'd just bought. He was fairly interesting.

I left Helsinki on Tuesday, just, and arrived that afternoon in London, just. That story is a special one though, which needs my full attention and wittiness so I'll leave this here and leave you with the super tantalizing to be continued....