At the moment we're on a ship heading for Stockholm. The boat is similar to the Spirits of Tasmania I think (haven't actually been on the new ones) and has a reputation as a bit of a party cruise. Zilla's currently having a little snooze to recover from last night, when we went to the biggest nightclub in Scandanavia. Don't ask me what it's called, but it was a pretty cool place. They were selling 1 euro beers, which were a little flat and didn't taste great but were cheap so I shouldn't complain. The place had three floors, each with at least three areas playing different types of music.

We feel kinda bad that we're did just 3 nights each in Helsinki, and the same in Stockholm, and Copenhagen but we have to make it to the Grand Prix in Germany next weekend, where we'll be meeting up with Ben and Ann from Hobart. Can't wait to catch up with you guys if you're reading this and I get around to posting it before we meet up in Bonn. We really would like to explore Finland and Sweden for a couple of weeks, but time is money up here. The Finnish guy in our hostel room was telling us that we were not really seeing Finland at all by just seeing Helsinki. (cue the bad Finnish accent) "Do you know how many islands we have...?" of course we guessed a couple of thousand. "One hundred and eighty six thousand, five hundred and twenty three!" Wow. "Do you know how many lakes we have?" again, no idea. "eighty seven thousand two hundred and seven!. We were dumbfounded. We heard this bloke give the same speil to a couple of other people, so we're pretty sure he's working for the touirist board.

The bit of Finland that we did see was really nice. Helsinki is centred around it's harbour, where our ferry from Tallin came in. There's a market right by the harbour which was kind of like the Salamanca market back home; a fair bit smaller and with more Finnish souveniers, but with a similar vibe. We ate some Reindeer meatballs and Salmon soup there, both quite tasty. Just a couple of streets back from the harbour is the Senate square, which was modelled on St. Petersberg's main square. A huge set of stairs on the back side of the square leads up to the Lutheran Cathedral, a pretty impressive looking church with lots of gold bits shining in the sun. There's also an orthodox church a few hundred metres away with it's own shiny gold bits.

Also by the harbour is the famous mermaid fountain (Statue of Havis Amanda) which I don't think was a real mermaid since she had no tail. This fountain was pretty cool since for once there were seals spitting water instead of Lions. At least this part of Europe hasn't made sculptures of animals that they don't actually have like everywhere else seems to have.

We went for a walk to the North of the city, towards the Olympic stadium, and saw the temppiliaukio church which is kind of built into some rock, and has an amazing ceiling made from concentric circular copper strips. Past that there was a lake and the winter gardens which we took a look at.

We decided that Helsinki would be a good place to live during the summer, but the winter would be a little unbearable.

We also managed to plan basically the rest of our trip until I go home, which means we have booked hostels about a month in advance!! Our plan is to go from Helsinki to Stockholm, Copenhagen, Fly to Dusseldorf, then Bonn where we'll stay for the F1, then on to Munich, Prague, Berlin. Then we'll fly to Paris, on to Bruges, and finish up in Amsterdam where we'll meet up with Nicola, Sian, Brad, and an Aussie girl from Nicola's work. Will be a big weekend. From there I've got a nasty couple of days on planes and in Airports, as I have 5 consecutive flights to get me from Amsterdam to Burnie (via London, Tokyo, Sydney and Melbourne) where my folks are looking after my car. Looks like about 44 hours from the time I leave Amsterdam to landing in Burnie! I'm dreading it already, probably mostly coz I know I'm going back to work soon after I get back.

Paul.