It was toasty warm in the apartment when we woke and it didn't look so bad when we looked out the window either. Sure there was a bit of snow on the trees and the branches were moving a bit in the wind, but then we looked at the thermometer. Minus 25c!! David double checked the temperature on the weather site and discovered that yes, it was -25c, but with the wind the Real Feel temperature was body numbing -32c. We would be putting on an extra layer today before we dare step over the threshold.

Wrapped up like Michelin Men, we set off in the car to Keminmaa, about 8km outside of town, to pick up Maria’s new credit card. On Friday we had walked to the Kemi branch, but Maria’s account is still registered in the small village so a trip into the 'sticks’ was required.

With the new Finland emblazoned VISA card safely in Maria’s pocket, we decided to go to Sweden to do some shopping. This might seem a bit extreme, but the border town of Haparanda is only a 20 minute drive away. Haparanda has a few sports stores, an Ikea and the biggest candy shop you’d ever imagine. There were plenty of things that we ‘could’ have bought but we didn’t. The only thing we really needed was a pair of jeans for David because the pair he had were worn through in the seat of pants – literally; his **** was hanging out of them.

Back across the border into Finland, we went to the Tornio mall and managed to find a relatively cheap pair of jeans. What made David smile the most though was not the price, but that the size that fitted was a size smaller than the worn out pair.

Feeling peckish, we went into Hesburger, a Finnish burger chain that a) cooks to order, b) has awesome chilli mayonnaise and c) lip smackingly good, flavoured salt for the fries. Unfortunately they didn’t seem to give out the salt anymore and the fries tasted lame without it or perhaps our Max burger experience in Sweden was still in our mind and Hesburger had slipped down the pecking order a wee bit.

Back at home, we booked our flight back to Auckland with Qantas and it would our first time flying with them. The flight time of 28 hours was reasonable although we would only get one piece of luggage because the first sector is with Finnair. It wasn’t the cheapest flight, but okay considering it’s less than a week between booking and departing.

So we’ll be leaving Helsinki on the evening of the 19th with Finnair to Singapore where we’ll transfer to a Qantas flight to Auckland via Sydney. We finally arrive back in Godzone on the afternoon of the 21st. Yep, it really does take that long…

The clock is really ticking now, we have a lot we need to fit into the coming week. For a start we need to head back up north to collect all our stuff before heading down to Helsinki to meet friends and family. We’ll think about that tomorrow though. Time for a beer, it’s been a long day…