I got up this morning, walked to the station, for several reasons and was extremely hot by the time I got there. I left all my stuff in a locker and good thing I did because I´ve gathered a lot of stuff by now. I did the shopping thing and then I got my bus to Seurasaari, which I´m probably spelling wrong and I have no idea how to pronounce where I got menaced for a piece of chocolate by a squirrel and generally pursued by some very very tame birds. It was lo...

I had a lazy morning this morning - after four very busy days, I just wanted a day off. But this afternoon, I forced myself to go for a walk, managing to get back on the tram that goes past the hostel by magic. I didn´t get off there, though. I went past the main station and wandered around that area. It´s damp and grey and getting dark and Sunday afternoon. It´s not too cold though, I have my hat and scarf out of habit but I´ve only got my hands up my sleeve...

I couldn´t quite figure out how to get a local bus to some of the Helsinki suburbs so I went to Tampere today instead of tomorrow. Another train and this time I definitely had a return ticket, after the woman who sold me the ticket yesterday being more concerned about my pronunciation of Turku than whether I came back again. It was cold in Tampere, but that wasn´t surprising. It´s further north than anywhere I´ve been so far and it wasn´t nearly as nice tod...

I got my first long-distance train, to Turku which is on the west coast, or Åbo as it´s called in Swedish. The Swedish is actually much easier to follow than the Finnish and most signs are in both. Sometimes there´s English but it doesn´t necessary make sense. I walked through lots of little streets and more by luck than judgement found the market square, then the Tourist Information where I got a map and found how to get to the castle. There were lots of t...

I started the day by wandering around Helsinki, having got off the tram after two stops. I hadn´t really realised just how much Helsinki is by the sea and everywhere I turned, I seemed to run into more water. I found the Subway I´d spotted from the bus last night and although I recognised a lot of places on the way to the station, I couldn´t find the station itself so I got on another tram, this time with a ticket. I had decided to go to Suomenlinna and manag...