Well I am writing these blogs in Gothenburg, currently making use of the free internet in the hostel lobby.

We arrived yesterday late afternoon just after 5. After walking around for ages in the direction of the hostel we found actually we were going in completely the wrong direction and jumped on a tram. (After asking directions from a Swedish girl who Karl and Sam were particularly taken with!!!). We dropped our stuff at the hostel which from the outside looked quite shabby but the rooms are newly decorated and in our room of 4 there was a plasma tv mounted on the wall! Also there are lockable draws under the bunk beds which are really handy. We went to dinner at an italian just down the road and had an amazing meal....lasagne and tiramisu. Came back and chilled listening to sam's recommendation of the Ricky Gervais podcast....actually hilarious. We then met our room mate who is from Bergen in Norway. He is here for a lecture series at university. He was saying Sweden isnt as expensive as Norway which is a relief as we had assumed that Sweden would be more expensive!!! So it was a pleasant surprise to only pay 20 pounds each for our meal last night!

This morning we got up in the hope of hiring bikes from the hostel so we could get around. Gothenburg is by far the largest place we have visited so far on this trip so after walking 13 miles in Oslo on our first full day there we thought we would leisurely cycle round. Our hostel said they didnt have bikes anymore and suggested to go to a hostel a couple of miles away to try theirs. We got there and most of them didnt have brakes and all the saddles were too high for me so we passed and headed down to the old part of the town. This area is beautiful....cobbled narrow streets lined with cafes or small shops that sold some really quirky stuff. We stopped off at the train station to enquire about trains to Stockholm tomorrow on the way to the city viewing tower but when we got there we found out it had been privately hired for the day which was a shame. After wondering for another couple of hours me and karl especially were getting really tired so when we couldnt find the park sam was trying to direct us to we gave up, got the tram and came back to the hostel. Later we will head out for some dinner and maybe drinks before heading to Stockholm tomorrow.

I will update again in a few days, probably in Finland before heading to Russia. Keep you messages on here and facebook as well as emails coming as its lovely to hear from you all. Missing you all loads x