Photos

Nothing but links:

https://picasaweb.google.com/JackHoughton90/June12012?authuser=0&feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/JackHoughton90/TravellingAdventure?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCPTEuvv_mfH4bA&feat=directlink

I didn't keep my promise :(

Tampere - Ryga

I admit, it's been a while since I've updated this. The reason being that whenever I sit down at a computer either someone suggests a better thing to do or I get a fun idea myself.. selfish I know. I'll guess I'll try and start from where I left off.. so I must cast my mind back to Tampere - Finland.
It was tough to leave the city after meeting so many good people through Veera.. and this task because harder after I was invited to a house warming party on the last night.. a great chance to meet some new cool people who I would have to leave to next day. Reluctantly, the next day I was heading south to Helisinki with the prospect to spending one night there before taking the ferry to St Petersburg. In a bar in Tampere I met a guy who was to be in Helsinki that weekend and he offered me to stay with him and his fiancee. He gave me his number so I could call him when I arrived but by 9 o clock in the evening, 5 hours after arriving, he was yet to return my calls. I wasn't too keen on spending the night in a hostel and I found out about a couchsurfing get together in a bar.. so I head there instead, I met people from all over the world there.. Americans, Chinese, Austrians, a Brit and even some Finns. Due to the crowd being full of couchsurfers I was in no shortage of offers to stay and, along with a fellow Chinese couchsurfer, I stayed the night with a native Helsinkian (?) Hanna.

It's strange how singing karaoke with some Russian tourists in a ferry bar at 2 in the morning because the cheap cabins are too noisy to sleep in so the natural decision to to drink until one passes out becomes an almost ordinary event - I recall not realising the absurdness of the situation until somebody asked me the next day what I did on the ferry. The decision turned out to pay dividends.. I fell asleep and I made friends with Sveta - the news reader for one of St Peterburg's radio stations. She told me she would meet me each afternoon and show me to some cool places and she also advised me on how to spend each morning. This was particularly useful because I had only 3 days to spend in the city.. I was restricted to this as I had no visa for Russia and it was only through a special agreement through the ferry company that I could enter Russia at all.

It turns out the St Petersburg is an incredibly beautiful city.. no surprises there you'd assume but even with its reputation it is surprisingly beautiful. In the main centre of the city it is almost as if every buildng were a palace. On my day of arrival I was introduced to the city by two couchsufers Anna and Timur. The following day I went to he Russian Hermitage museum, which in itself is a reason to visit the city, and is by far the greatest museum I've ever been to. I met Sveta and she took me for another tour of a different part of the city, showing me a cool cafeteria and a crazy Beatles fan who had turned his home into a shrine to John Lennon and the Beatles. It was to be my only full day in the city before I had to leave but on my last day I managed to squeeze in another museum visit and a final meeting with Sveta who wished me farewell. It turns out 3 days isn't nearly enough.. I think 3 years would be a more appropriate amount of time to get to know the place.

I recall it being 1pm on friday in Tallin when I was meeting my host Ilona for lunch at her workplace. I had spent the morning sight seeing round the old town and had just left a free tour. I asked her if there was anything she would recommend to me to do in the afternoon and she half heartedly pointed to a she places on the map. I then asked, what would you do.. and she eagerly pointed out all of her favourite bars and pubs in the old town and recommended her favourite beers to me and told me where she would join me later. I don't really remember how I spent the rest of the day. Ilona and her boyfriend spent the next day driving me to some of the sights around the city.. including the national singing field. The Estonian singing festival is held every 4 years and is held dearly in the hearts of the Estonian people. As times of desperation, oppression and rejoicing, the Estonian people have a long tradition of turning to singing to deal with problems or celebration - I was to learn this in my first day in Tartu where I spent the night with Lauri and his family. I spent the remainder of my time in tartu with Doris and her friend Elisa. I was interested to find out that Doris spends some of her free time in the winter ice rallying.. I unfortunately didn't get to try my hand at this. After visiting an old KGB prison and going to a jazz concert I decided to leave Estonia for Latvia.

I left Tartu at around 6 in the evening on a Friday. I was feeling the need for an adventure so I attempted to hitch hike the 250 (ish) km to Ryga, knowing that I had no place to stay if I made it. I had no idea how busy the road/s would be but guessed if I got lucky with rides I could make it to Ryga by 10pm. By 9 pm I hadnt made it halfway when I was taken to Valga - a town which half is in Estonia and half is in Latvia (in pre-Schengen times, residents would have to cross border control to get to work, go to shops ect.). The non-English speaking driver who had taken me as far as Valga dropped me off and pointed down a dark, empty and pot hole ridden street and said 'Ryga'. I reasoned I would not be hitch hiking the rest of the way to Ryga.So I walked into a nearby petrol station and asked the attendant whether she spoke English, she didn't, so I tried to communicate (using available props and a lot of pointing) whether it was possible to get to Ryga and if not, were there cheap places to stay. I was getting nowhere when, out of the toilet, stepped a guy in his early 40s. The attendant spoke some Estonia to him and he turned to me and asked, with a slight American accent, 'so you need some help translating?'. He explained to me that there was no possibility to hitch hike out of town that night and there was only one, up market hotel in town. This was not good news, so I asked whether there were any bars in the town where I could try my luck finding somebody kind enough (or drunk enough) to offer me a place to stay. He conversed with the attendant and reported that I may find somehwere in the centre of town and proceeded to show me the dircetion in which I should walk. As I started walking towards the centre he asked 'hold on, where is it that you are heading?', 'Ryga' I replied. 'I think you're the luckiest person in the world tonight because that is exactly where I am heading and I'll give you a ride' - music.

I spent the 2 hour journey listning to him speak about Estonian culture, history and his connections to important Estonians who had roles in WW2. His grandfarther had even worked as a body guard for an American diplomat in pre WW2 Nazi Germany who had a girl friend that worked as a secretary to Hitler! It turns out my driver was American who was born to an Estonian family in New York. He told me that if I were ever to be in New York I should go to the Estonia house there and I could meet him in the afternoon for some drinks and conversation - an I offer I hope to take up. By midnight I had reached Ryga and was taken right up to a bar in the old town where my driver thought I'd have a good chance of meeting some similar minded, English speaking Latvians. As I left his car he handed me his business card - CEO of a financial consultant company located in the Empire State Building. Heading into the bar with my huge rucksack on I attracted a few curious looks and within minutes I was chatting to a group of friends about my adventure of a trip from Tartu. After realising I had nowhere to stay, I was offered by Sanita, one of the group, a bed for the weekend at her apartment. Completion.

I'll add some photos when I have fascilities to do so and I'll continue the update soon (promise!).

Seinäjoki - Tampere

The snow covered boots are a better clue to the temperature in the hut rather than the fire

Esa and the beers.

A guys night out in the fire hut of a hunting camp in the forests surrounding Seinäjoki.. not the cliche Valentines scene but the one I found myself part of on my last night in Seinäjoki. After picking up the necessities; beer, sausages and fire wood.. Esa and I went on a little adventure to find the hunting camp a friend of his had recommended we travel to. After a few dead ends and  emergency consultation, we found the fire hut and Esa taught me how to make a fire the lumberjacks way. Esa is from a farm in the country and during our conversation, recommended I find a host with a similar way of life to discover the 'real' Finland. So I took his advice and found a host who lived in an old house on family land next to a lake.. perfect.

Anni's house.

I met Anni outside her house in Lappajärvi and inside I found a house full of family antiques and, of course, a sauna. The area she lives in shares her family name.. a connection that reminded me that some families and some people haven't had to move from their ancestral lands to find work in towns, cities and factories. I had wanted to go for a walk in the forest and after checking with Anni that I wouldn't be attacked by any bears or moose I set of walking towards the snow covered trees. I was competing with about a metre of snow wherever I was walking but the struggle was worth it as after an hour of wading I discovered I was surrounded by nothing but nature for as far as I could hear.. silence.

Horses aren't known for their kisses.

The next morning I was asked by Anni what I planned to do. 'Probably go for a walk towards the lake and enjoy the scenery' I answered. Anni replied 'Well I could give you a horse riding lesson if you'd like?' I immediately dropped my plans and the next thing I found myself doing was grooming Kukka, the horse who I placed my trust into giving me a good introduction to horse riding. 'They say the world looks more beautiful from horse back' Anni told me as we were leading Kukka outside after a quick lesson on the basics inside the maneesi and I don't know if they were right or it was just particularly beautiful in Lappajärvi but riding around the fields and roads was a supreme pleasure.

I'm on a horse!

Next on my agenda was an activity not too dissimilar from "late night bathing in the arctic sea in the middle of winter in sub zero temperatures". Anni told me of a sauna club just a couple of kilometres away from the house so I grabbed my trunks and headed for the sauna. I opened the sauna door to be greeted by four old Finnish men were clearly surprised to see a young foreigner speaking English at them. None the less I managed to communicate it would be my first time walking from the sauna to the hole in the ice just outside and climbing down the steps into it.. a prospect they all seemed to be excited for. As one of the men lead me outside the others gathered round to watch and as I stepped down into the water I realised why.. involuntarily panicking because of the dramatic change in temperature, my breathing raced and I forgot how to think. I tried to stay in for the 30 seconds the men had told me to aim for but I managed around 5 before I had my sights set on the warm haven of the sauna. The pain was about to increase as the men said to 'get the full experience' I had to roll around on the snow before I could return back to the sauna.. that felt like being stabbed by a thousand tiny needles because of how sensitive my skin was feeling after the dip in the ice. Then, finally, I returned to the sauna - heaven. I repeated this (crazily) twice more and by the 3rd time I actually could bare the water and stop myself from panicking.. and once I returned to the sauna for the final time I was overcome by an odd emotion that I haven't yet been able to describe and retrospectively I'd probably do it all again to experience that emotion again.

The next day I left Lappjäarvi and Anni for Tampere. Arriving in a big Finnish city on a Friday I had one thought on my mind.. party! It would turn out I was to hit the jackpot. I had been told by my host Veera to meet her at the amateur theatre she volunteers with and I discovered there is something particularly odd about being welcomed to a city by a whole troupe that knew my name. Veera later joined us and it was explained to me that it was the premiere of the troupes latest play and I was invited to watch the show and join the after party once it had finished! Watching the Importance of Being Earnest in Finnish is a stranger phenomena but one I wouldn't say avoid. IT was good fun to compare what I thought had happened to what had actually happened after the show and besides, horny priests and drunk waiters are funny in whatever language.

Veera having some fun with her guitar.

The next morning, or should I say afternoon, I woke with the characteristic symptoms of a hangover an not before long I was being introduced to the commune Veera lives in and the city of Tampere. The commune looks as if it hadn't been renovated since the cities and my explorations of it would suggest it hasn't. Amoughst the 60s furnishings and decor I've found all sorts of fascinating odd bits and bobs.. including an old gas mask - just in case.

Classic pose.

I had been in contact with Toni since I had met him at the ice hockey game in Vaasa and he had invited me over for lunch with his girlfriend on Sunday afternoon. His girlfriend works at as a freelance translator which basically means she gets paid to watch tv shows and movies at home all day everyday. Toni is a history masters student but also works as a guide in a couple of the museums inVaasa so invited me to the museums the next day... but not before he invited me to his winter swimming club - meaning that once again I plunged myself into the cold waters of a frozen lake for the sake of immersing myself in the Finnish culture. This time there was no sauna to warm me before or after but I somehow convinced myself to get up early and join him for a morning swim. Once I got that tourture out the way we headed for the ice hockey museum where Toni introduced me to the history of the Finnish game along as showing me the virtual ice hockey simulator. We pounced upon the simulator when, for a rare moment, it was abandoned by children and I proceeded to prove how useless I was at the sport.. and I wasn't even wearing ice skates!

Östersund - Seinäjoki: a few photos

At the top of the Åre ski resort in Sweden.. still feeling the cold despite the mass of clothes I'm bundled in.

A bit of music at the 'Tillsammans' (a popular Swedish film) themed party in Östersund.

'I'm in an igloo!'

The opening face off  at Vaasa arena, taken shorty before I met Toni.

Östersund - Seinäjoki

I have to issue an apology to those wishing for descriptions of my travels as detailed as previous posts. This is because I have failed to keep the blog updated and thus leading to a too great a job to update it in the fashion of previous posts. My thinking being if I can bring the blog up to date quickly, then I can continue a more detailed and, dare I say, entertaining account of events in future posts. So, I'm going to have to briefly describe my whereabouts and doings of the past 9 days:

Östersund

I stayed with Maria over the weekend. A lovely host whom I had many an interesting conversation with. She took me to meet a lot of her friends including taking me to a themed party on the Saturday night where we played some funny games, sung songs and I got to learn some more about Sweden and the Swedish. The party was after a long days Snowboarding in Åre following a beautiful mornings train ride to the mountain. It was cold.. so so cold.. -33 C at one point. It's so cold that the moisture in my nostrils froze when I breathed through them. I still had plenty of fun snowboarding, as I tend to find it hard not to enjoy it, and the cold wasn't really too much of a problem. Maria, being a student, took me to a games night organised by the student union where I learnt a lot about politics in Sweden from a friend of hers called Johan, played some chess and ate some pizza. I left Östersund on Tuesday morning and took a bus to Umeå. The bus route went through some of the vast forest that makes up Sweden and provided some stunning morning views.

Umeå

My host in Umeå was Jonas.. a couchsurfing veteran who has hosted many couchsurfers in Umeå. I found music is a large part of his life; he spent the evenings rehearsing with his band, he took me to a Jazz club with his friend Maurine, and whenever he is in the apartment good music is playing. I spent a lot of my time on Umeå relaxing in his apartment, Jonas creates a mellow atmosphere, as I was still a little stiff and exhausted from snowboarding. I spent Wednesday and Thursday nights out at the bars in Umeå. On Wednesday I met a trio of college students, Johannes, Ellen and Erik. They were keen to practise English and so we had fun chatting about, England as well as Sweden. On Thursday, after the Jazz club,  I spent the night trying out different beers with Maurine and having interesting conversations on psychology, Paganism and she taught me a new English word. My stay with Jonas was to be my last stop in Sweden before I took the ferry East across the gulf of Bothnia and it was certainly a pleasant and enjoyable stop at that, I put it down to his refined hosting skills.

Vaasa

I arrived in Vaasa at the awkward time of 00.30 Saturday morning but my next host, John, was there waiting for me to give me a lift to his apartment in central Vaasa. He lives with Marianne, both experienced couchsurfers, and the next day they gave me some advice on what to do and see in Vaasa. I decided to try out the Berlusconi pizza at Koti pizza, a famous Finnish pizza chain that originated in Vaasa. The Berlusconi is named after the Italian after he complained about Finnish food on a visit... The Berlusconi beat the Italian pizza chefs at an international pizza competition. The pizza's meat topping is reindeer meat - a Finnish delicacy. Later that day I went to an ice hockey game between Sport (the home team) and Hokki. The names didn't seem too creative to me. I asked the guy next to me what was going on and he was happy to explain. His name is Toni and, after chatting for a while, he offered me to a place to sleep, dinner and a tour of Tampere (a city I was planning to visit in Finland) where he now lives. After a few beers and sampling of the international beers snacks John and Marianne had accumulated on their own travels, we went to a bar across the road I met some of their friends and enjoyed beer and wine. I decided that night I'd get up at sunrise to use John's ice fishing equipment to catch a fish, ever the optimist me. At midday the next day I had found an old Finnish guy help me out with fishing, tricky as he spoke little English, abut despite his expertise and experience we both failed to catch anything. The rest of the day was spent collaborating with John to make a hybrid Finnish/English roast.with boiled Moose meat. It turned out to be quite successful and afterwards John spoke to some friends of his that live in Seinäjoki to see if they could host me.

Seinäjoki

I arrived in Seinäjoki yesterday afternoon where I met Wuokko. She took me back to her apartment where I later met Esa. When they showed me round their smallish place they casually mentioned they had a sauna in their bathroom. I had been warned that the Finnish have a love for saunas but I was still shocked to see it! I spent the evening going from shower to sauna to balcony and found the combination of the three very relaxing.

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I'll expand on this post some time in the future but I could not possibly speculate when. I'll upload some pictures soon as I don't have to availability to do some here.. plus I only have 3 minutes remaining on this machine as I'm in Seinäjoki public library.

Stockholm - Västerås

I left the idyllic island of Tranholmen and headed back to the city to spend one more night before I traveled West to Västerås. My host would to be Benozir, the Bangladeshi student who I went ice skating with earlier in the week. He had cooked me a curry which he described as 'sweet'..  it turns out we don't share the same definition of sweet.  A few glasses of water later and I was off down the hall to play some indoor cricket with some of his friends from Bangladesh and classmates from Sri Lanka thinking I was not the best person to represent England.

Benozir had talked of a lake in a nearby park that had frozen over, meaning people had been cross county skiing and ice skating on it. I went on a walk the next morning to check it out and it was nestled in the middle of a forest on the outskirts of Stockholm near one of the royal palaces. There were, sure enough, people skiing on the frozen lake and an area cleared of snow with the characteristic scars of ice skates covering it from the previous day. I later wandered into the forest to enjoy its beauty but was interupted by a couple of young teenager girls shouting something at me in Swedish. 'Kan du prata Engleska' I shouted back (the only phrase I had needed to learn to get by in Stockholm) and they explained, in English, that they had spotted some reindeer and were scared in case the deer would attack them. The deer weren't reindeer but the variety I had came across on Tranholmen so I knew that the deer would be timid.. information that the girls were pleased to learn.

I said farewell to Benozir, and to Stocholm, that evening and boarded a train to Västerås with the hope of getting to find out abut Swedish people. As it turns out, it is't actually hard to met Swedish people in Sweden. Within minutes of arriving in Väasterås I was in a car with three Swedes with the prospect of joining two more once we arrived at Emma's, my host, apartment. Emma treated to me to what I believe to be my first vegan meal, a tasty one at that. Emma enlightened me that evening that it was now the week, I tend to lose the concept of a week and weekend, and that meant she would have to work the next to days. This wasn't to be a problem because her friends Linda & Martin had the time to hang out with me and show me around the city. 

Definitely more of a summer house.

Västerås is built along side Lake Mälaren although you could easily be forgiven to think this lake was a sea as it covers about the same area as Greater London. Lake Mäleran, like most bodies of water in Sweden, was frozen. This didn't deter the lakemen(?) though as they ploughed through the ice with their boats making a delightful sound that I didn't tire of listening to. As I look out from the lakeside over the frozen mass of water I spotted what looked like a little house. Linda explained it was a small hut people could rent out an live in when the lake was a lake and not ice. She continued to explain there was an artist that had built three huts which people could rent out to stay in, the one on the lake,  one down a mine and one in atree opposite the city hall. I could understand why somebody would want to rent the tree house and the lake house but the mine hut seemed hard to wrap my head round. It turns out the artist also has plans to build a hut for placement on the moon.. but don't hold your breath.

After a brief tour of the city I was asked if I like Swedish candy which I knew to be pick 'n' mix. I replied 'of course I like pick 'n' mix' and was subsequently taken to the best 'Smågodis' shop in town.. and by best I mean it had the greatest variety of sweets to choose from - over 600! Between the three of us we bought 2 kg of sweets. We returned back to the apartment and continued to pretty much finished them all before the night was out.

All smiles before the 'haunted' island.

My last evening in Västerås was spent on an island a short dive away from the city. On that island stood a Swedish castle, a past residence of the ruling monarch of the time. The island itself it rumored to be haunted and Emma warned me of all the things I shouldn't do if I wanted to avoid the ghosts. I spent the evening doing all the things she told me not to in hope of tempting a few ghosts out of the shadows.. although I stopped short of walking backwards around the castle's church 7 times in order to be confronted by the murdering ghost of a monk. Unfortunately I failed to tempt any ghosts into existence and we left the island unscathed.

I used the opportunity of spending time with Swedes to ask them about the country.. particularly where I could go snowboarding. Emma and Martin mentioned that a place called Östersund had applied to host the winter Olympics on a number of occasions so it could be a good place to start looking for a couch. I did exactly that, and the morning after the island trip I was saying my goodbyes to Emma at the train station hoping it wouldn't be too delayed so I could catch my connecting trains to Östersund.. easier said than done in snowy winter Sweden......

Kabelvåg - Stockholm Continued

From the sureal nature of my morning on Bodo, I returned to relative normality. Bodo isn't the most architectually beautiful of places, in fact it is rather ugly, but this small downside was made redundant by the kindness of the people I met there. By lunchtime I had made my way to a popular coffee shop with Torstein (an excellent name), who had responded to a plea of mine on CSing (couchsurf = CS) to spend some time with a local.  He had spent time in Leeds and, as a keen sportsman, was happy to talk football with me.. an opportunity that hadn't arisen often in Norway. Not only is he a football fan but also a keen floor-ball player... but an injured floor-ball player. This meant he was spending time coaching the disabled floor-ball team in Bodo and he invited me along to their training session that evening. So, once again, I dropped my plans to take the train that evening to Oslo and joined in the session.

Me with some of the El-Innebandy squad.

The sport is called El-Innebandy and was created, and is widely played, in Denmark. 'Start with gear 2 or 3 to keep your speed down' Torstein told me as I strapped myself in to one of the buggies the sport is played in, 'and then move up to 4 and the highest 5 when you get the feel for it'. Naturally, I started in gear 5 and was whisked straight across the sports hall with little, if any control. After a while, after reducing the gear down to 1, I managed to get a little control over the buggy and was taught how to pass. The can be described as go-cart hockey, where two competing teams attempt to encourage a stubborn ball into a goal 10 cm short and 2 m wide goal (roughly speaking). When playing the game my attempts at passing and shooting were easily mopped up by the opposing players who could show refined control of the buggies. It was refreshing to see people who had difficulty to enter the seat of the buggy confidently manoeuvre round me in control of the ball.

Torstein was unable to host me that night but had been in contact with a friend of his, who is also a CSer, who had agreed to host me.. Jan. He lives at home and studies at the city university and has CSed China.. meaning he had plenty of stories and advice to share. The family were used to CSers staying and has a comfortable room in the basement for me to stay in.. and after an extremely long day (remember, as I struggled to as I laid my head on the pillow, the day started at 2am wandering in the city after leaving the Hurtigruten) I fell asleep and continued to do so for the next 13 hours.

'Where did all my matches go?'

Jan had returned from uni by the time I had awaken and showed me a good spot out of town to walk to. After 45 minutes I arrived at the coastline and was greeted by a setting sun of the Norwegian mountains. I sat down on  a bench for lunch only to notice a small boy and his puppy setting alight a bundle of dead grasses in a small fire place. The fire flared up intensely and during this brief period of light and warmth the boy invited me over to warm up at the fire. The boy was exhilarated in his creation but had little foresight and by the time I had sat down next to him the grasses had burnt out. He was surprised and disappointed but I explained that he need some pieces of more substantial wood that the grasses could set alight to.. I also said I would help him and instantly he went running off, with a knife he pulled out of his bag, to cut branches and twigs off trees. I feared the live wood would not work but with little else to use as firewood I could see no reason to dampen his spirits. We tried in vain for about an hour to get a good fire going but resources were scarce and the boy had used all of his box of matches in his first attempt at lighting the grasses.

I returned to Jan's with numb hands but found out I'd be enjoying a traditional Norwegian dinner called rommegrot before I left for the train station. The meal was porridge, topped with sugar and cinnamon, and femalar, cured lamb thigh, accompanied with a shot of Aquavit. I hoped the strangeness of having such a sweet main meal and the strangeness of shotting 41% alcohol with dinner would counter act each other but the in fact the strangeness synergised into something very odd. The lamb was very tasty though.. I ate a lot of it. After dinner I left for the train station where I met my train for the 17 hour trip to Oslo.

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Despite sleeping most of the train journey.. I did get a glimpse at the reason why Norway is regarded to have some of the best train rides. The railway travelled through and above the valleys of mountains, along the sides of vast lakes and even to ski resorts. My next host was to be Ingrid, a student at the university in Oslo. I felt unease at being back in a busy city, Tromso and Bodo wouldn't come close to classifying as cities in Britain, but I was glad to be in a place where the sunlight hours extended for more than a few hours. The first thing I noted as I stepped foot in Ingrid's apartment was a stack of cross-country skis in the corridor, I made a mental note and thought how Scandinavian this sight was. Ingrid is a politics student but also an aspiring journalist which meant she had to spend some of the time I was surfing with her working on the university paper, which, I am told, has the largest circulation in Europe. Despite this she found time to take me out for dinner and (dodgy in my case) dancing.

The one picture I look stable in.

I had expressed interest in cross-country skiing whilst in the North but had not found anybody able to show me how its done.. but Ingrid and a friend of hers took me up into the hills surrounding Oslo for an afternoon skiing in the forest. The hills offered downhill slopes too and being half an hour away from a skiing area is a fantastic aspect to city life in Oslo (mental note for a future place to live). I was confident that I would pick it up very quickly, due to previous skiing experience, but my experience was more similar to Bambi on ice than the confident carving turns I am more used to when donning a pair of skis. To be frank.. I never really got any better at the technique than what ever awkward and energy wasting movements I made to make myself move forwards. I was playing constant catch up with my guides and could barely appreciate the forest around me and the brief, panoramic glimpses of Oslo I was intermittently gifted as we made our way around. I was exhausted by the end of the day and, thankfully, spent the evening watching a film with Ingrid and some more of her friends.. although most of the time we spent eating popcorn and Swedish pick 'n' mix. We also spent some time discussing Norwegian language and I was told of a Norwegian phrase equivalent to 'the cherry on top' which I've taken a liking to - the raisin in the sausage.

After a well deserved lay-in, my body still protesting about the previous days skiing, I took myself for a brief sight seeing tour of Oslo before I to catch the train to Stockholm. Whilst waiting for the train I reflected on my time in Norway. The land.. stunning, completely stunning. The impression from the people was trusting, honest and treat each other as equals. I have many stories of incidences of a lot of trust installed in strangers from Norwegians.. I admire this side of the people perhaps the most. I speculated this quality my roam across Scandinavia, well.. there was only one way to find out.

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'I've got to head to the lab tomorrow to carry out some western blots and analyse some proteins' - not a sentence uttered by me, but my host in Stockholm, Kelly. A Columbian molecular biology student carrying out a ERASMUS in Stockholm from a Danish university, Kelly is studying for a PhD. In her spare time she teaches herself German, is learning to play the guitar and participates in the CSing community in Stockholm.. truly an inspiration for us all. Despite all of this, she found the time to accept my request for a place to stay for the night as I had arrived in Stockholm with little option for acommodation. In fact, I ended up sharing her small flat with her, and later two other CSers, for 4 nights.

As she had to work in the lab during the week.. I spent the next day, Tuesday, with a Dutch traveller and a Pakistani 'serial entrepreneur' - in his own words. The entrepreneur has been living in Stockholm for over a year so provided myself and Gerda with some knowledge about the city as we went on a walking tour towards the modern art gallery. After the gallery I left their company and met a Bangladeshi guy called Benozir to go ice skating.. he warned me he was a beginner and he lived up to his assessment with the accuracy of an engineering student.. he is, in fact, an engineering student. The next day I met the two other CSers before-mentioned that I would be sharing Kelly's flat with. Two girls from Brussels.. Lotte and Carmel were fun to explore the city with and I by days end I had been convinced to visit Belgium just for the beer.

Swedish reggae in a impressive theatre venue.

You may have noticed that everyone I had been spending time with was not from Sweden. This trend continued as Kelly took me and the two Belgians to a Mexican restaurant and a reggae club. However, at the reggae club a Swedish band were playing. There is something odd about an indie looking band consisting of blond Scandinavians playing reggae, but none the less I had good fun. The international theme continued as I had to leave Kelly's on Friday to find myself meeting a Norwegian friend of Filipe's - Tanja - who was to me my next, and current host, and her god-daughter named Liv. Tanja was taking Liv to a competition called street star - an international dance competition mainly concerning street dance.

My favourite competition, by far, was the break dancing and I will do my best to describe it:
-two crews of around half a dozen people (mainly males) face each other over an area of about 3 m acting rather cocky and with as much swagger as they can muster.

A particularly tame moment in a breaking contest.

-one person, the process of this decision remains a mystery to me, steps forward, seemingly to taunt the opposing crew, gestures boisterously to signal that what he is about to do will be the greatest thing the opposing crew has ever witnessed and continues to fall to the floor in a flurry or arms, legs and outrageous poses many of which he is upside down for.
-after 30 seconds of flurrying, he rises to his feet triumphantly and with his own crew reaching near insanity with the plaudits they give towards his performance of flurrying.
-meanwhile, the opposing crew laugh of the attempts of the performer to show them up and proceed to show them how 'it' is done. It being more outrageous flurrying, poses and attempts to show their opposition up.
-this repeats for 10 minutes during which time the competition almost becomes a fight on a number of occasions but finally ends when the music stops.. at which point the crews become best friends - hugging and showing a lot of respect to each other as if the whole competition was merely a choreographed performance.
-a decision on which crew won is made by the judges, presumably based on who can out-flurry who, and one of the crews proceed to the next round.

I watched this competition for hours, entertained constantly.

A deer running as I approached to closely for its liking.

We left to Tanja's place which is on an island called Tranholmen in the north of Stockholm. On the sign that is by the only bridge to the island - a foot bridge - it reads 'the community here on Tranholmen say hello to each other'. There are around 50 plots of land on the island amongst the forests here.. most of which have a main house, a guest house and, if bordering the water, a jetty. Tanja lives in the small guest hose (15 sq m) of one of the plot owners here. It is rather intimate but, in her words, koselig. This morning I went on a walk round the island enjoying the sound a ice sheets creaking together on the shoreline and being surprised by deer and a playful kitten. I could most definitely get used to life here.

The remainder of my time in Sweden will be spent trying to spend some time getting to know some Swedish people.. a task that has been surprisingly tricky in Stockholm. I'll attempt to do this by taking a train on Monday to a less multi-cultural city called Vasteras where I've already arranged to stay with some Swedish people. Other than this I have no idea what I'll be doing for the foreseeable future.. a prospect I relish.

 Hey då!

Kabelvåg - Stockholm

I sit writing this in the inspiring main hall of Stockholm library. it is a circular room with 3 floors of stacks surrounding the outer walls.. as I type this a couple of guys discussing which position they can get the best photo of the room from. I can't, unfortunately, upload a photo of it so I suggest you have a search for it on line. Despite this, this room is in the shadow of the rest of Stockholm. From its many bridges the city provides stunning views in all directions, similar to those you'd see on the Westminster embankment.. only with more varied and attractive architecture, stretching in all directions, covered in snow and with less tourists.

I can only briefly summarise my travels of the last week in this post as I have a limited session on the computer here in the library but I will do my best to paint a good picture as I type. I hope you understand that between travelling from the dramatic Lofoten Islands to Stockholm I have found little opportunity to find time to sit down and take rest to type up my experiences. This is mainly due to the varied activities I find myself doing. In Kabelvåg I spent time with Roy - a self titled music technician who spends his retirement creating midi files of whichever one of his favourite songs to play in his band. I still get a digital rendition of 'Coutry Road' spinning round my head if I don't keep my mind preoccupied with other entertaining thoughts.

Entertaining thoughts were not hard to come by after I took my second, and more uncomfortable, trip on the Hurtigruten. I arrived in Bodo at 2 am with the promise from a number of people that the train station would be open for me to sleep in before my connecting train.. it was closed. After a bit of wandering I found a hotel that would allow me to spend the rest of the night in their lounge - and almost immediately a fellow traveller followed me in looking for the same arrangement. They, however they are, say that there is a fine line between insanity and genius and I this fellow traveller balance precariously on that line. He was a 40 something Norwegian who spent the next 9 hours telling me of his plans to run for Norwegian Parliament based on the risk of foreign invasion to Norway, discussing his encyclopedic knowledge of World politics and history and sharing his stories of how he managed to change Norwegian law when he was 10. For a while I thought I was hallucinating for sleep deprivation but he was not an apparition but in fact very real.

I'll have to finish this post at some other time as the countdown on my computer session has reach a disappointing low number of minutes but I can tell you I had my go at Cross-Country skiing and a sport called El-Innebandy...

Photo of the aurora!

Tord kindly sent my the photo he took of me with the aurora and a few friends. This is one of my favourite photos already!

I am with (from left to right) Andrea, Linn and Rita.

Good memories!

From Tromsø to Kabelvåg

"Hey! You have to get your head under the water too!" These are Johan's words I first here after plunging myself in the Tromsø sea. For some crazy reason that escaped me as soon as I quickly stripped off my warm winter clothes down to my swimming shorts, we had decided to go for a "late night bath in the arctic sea in the middle of winter in sub zero temperatures" (Note: I must make up a word for this). The worst part was scrambling to put my clothes back on.. in the panic of having the biting wind strip my body of warmth I managed to put on all but my coat on either back to front or inside out - not a good look.

With this being my last night in ABC Hotel I had managed to agree a couch at Johan's apartment for the next night (Thursday night) if I ended up staying in Tromsø. I had made preliminary plans to travel south on the Hurtigruten ship, a legendary cruise liner that travels along the Norwegian coast, to Lofoten where I had a couch agreed with a guy called Roy who I found on couchsurfing. I had taken some of Filipe's advice and kept myself flexible by not booking a ticket on the Hurtigruten as a new opportunity can arise at any moment.. and how right he would turn out to be.

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Kvaløya is an island linked to Tromsøya (Tromsø island) by bridge and tunnel. Reindeer roam the island, they were brought there to be farmed, and can be seen to be holding up traffic and wandering around the suburbs that serve Tromsø there. The island is mountainous, thus providing excellent views of Tromsøya, and on Thursday evening I find myself walking uphill, unsurprisingly, with Andrea and some of her friends I had met just 20 minutes before on a bus from the centre of Tromsø. We were heading to the birthday party of Peter and Frida, a couple who have both just turned 19, and within minutes I am introducing myself to a dozen Norwegians who are surprised to see an English traveller at their friends birthday party. Despite this, I am warmly welcomed by all and most people there are fascinated to hear about my travelling plans so conversation comes easily.

Tapas was served, my first proper meal since I arrived, and within half an hour I find that the group of friends have plans to go ice fishing in a fjord 30 minutes away from Tromsø the next evening. They invite me to join them but reluctantly I decline because I was planning to leave the party by midnight so I can make the Hurtigruten before it leaves at 01 30. After tapas I end up speaking to Frida who asks if I've been to the Polaria, the polar aquarium in Tromsø. I hadn't been but had wanted to and instantly she offered me an out of hours tour to feed the seals there as she works part time at the Polaria training them. It is at this point I drop my plans to make the Hurtigruten that night and commit myself to a few more days in Tromsø with the prospect of an ice fishing trip and an opportunity to feed the seals ahead of me.

The Chunky Monkeys!

After dessert, Peter and two of his friends gather around the piano with some instruments and introduce themselves as the 'chunky monkeys'. Peter Estdahl, it turns out, is recording an EP at a music studio in Tromsø and had played gigs at a number of venues and festivals in Norway as well as performing in Liverpool, Manchester and elsewhere in England. His sound is similar to that of John Legend and I was blown away with his talent.. by this time in the evening it felt like my birthday! That feeling was to get stronger as, after routing through my passport, people found out that it was my birthday the week before and the chunky monkeys, as well as the other guests, sang happy birthday to me.

When the band had finished playing I went up to Peter to find out more about his music and during the conversation I got a text from Johan - "Aurora Now!". I instantly headed outside with Filipe, who had also made his way to the party, Andrea and Erick who guided us up into the hills surrounding the suburb. After a few glimpses similar to those I saw on Monday, we made our way to a dammed reservoir where we saw the Aurora dance and change colour for around 20 minutes - my dream realised. At first, when the aurora was weak, Erick and Andrea found my own and Filipe's excitement funny because they were so used to the lights, but by the time the how had got going they were also mesmerised by the majestic, beautiful, inspiring display (Note: I'm going to run out of superlatives to describe the aurora soon). The party was over by the time we returned to the house and Peter offered a place for Filipe and I to stay.

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By Friday evening I was helping to make dinner at Frida's and Rita's apartment just outside the centre of Tromsø. Erick and Peter were there too and we had fun talking about Norwegian and English comedy as well as playing Amerkana, a card game. After a dinner of salmon, the first of many more fish orientated meals, more people started to turn up at the apartment in preparation for our trip to Ramfjord to go icefishing. 30 minutes later I was standing in the lounge of a traditional Norwegian house on the banks of a frozen fjord. The house was a hive of activity as about 20 people, varying from ages 13 to 23, were spending the eveing there. A number of bored games had been set up and a few people were preparing snacks or waffle and lefse - a Norweguan dessert consisting of wheat pastry sandwiching cinnamon sugar. After an hour or so the resident of the house, Simon, announced he was going ice fishing and the next thing I was doing was driving a giant corkscrew into the frozen fjord outside.

Torsk!

I was taught how to ice fish without bait, the idea being the shape of the hook attracts the torsk (cod) and by constantly moving the hook up and down you literally catch the curious fish with the hooks. After an hour of rhythmically raising and lowering the line, with some encouragement from Linn, Rita and Andrea, I had gotten two "bites" but on both occasions the fish had escaped the hook to my dismay. My time on the ice was to be rewarded with another, even more incredible aurora display. Being even further from the city than Kvaløya the lights were even brighter than the previous night and transversed the sky above me in vertical streaks and a multi-coloured dance. I'll just describe it as leaving me speechless. A guy, Tord, had a tripod and a SLR camera which could capture the aurora perfectly so I managed to get a picture of the lights with me in the foreground which I am still chuffed with.

Even though I wasn't to catch a fish, Simon managed to catch a torsk of which I took inside and was taught how to prepare it for cooking - an uncomfortable and smelly experience. It was definitely worth it as the oven cooked fish was so so delicious.. my suggestion of battering the fish was dismissed by all. Later in the evening I got speaking Elisa. She was showing me the trailer of a film made by the Norwegian state TV about her experience of spending the spring/summer travelling around and living outdoors in a hammock - I think this is a pretty cool way to spend the summer.

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I woke the next afternoon to the smell of home smoked salmon and the anticipation of heading to the Polaria. After listening to Peter's real band, currently known as the glass owls, practice in the basement of the house, I got a lift to the Polaria. Filipe had been with me at the house too, both of us in disbelief about the experiences we had stumbled across, and was particularly excited as he had never seen seals before. Given this, Frida and Andrea tried to trick him into believing the catfish were seals - typical of Norwegian humour - but his naivety wasn't as strong as they had suspected.

Andrea, Filipe and Frida on her spark.

We arrived at the closed aquarium at about half 5 in a giddy of excitement. After watching a brief video of arctic scenery and wildlife, we were let loose into the empty aquarium to explore. There were four seals in the aquarium in total, two young seals that would follow your hand as you traced it along the underwater tunnels, and two older seals that were around 250 kilos - we would be meeting these two. Frida started with showing us some tricks that they could do in the water and she them called them both out onto the land. Once there, she calmed them so I could feel their skin and blubber. After they performed anything they were trained two they were rewarded with fish - it was my job to throw the fish which was pretty fun. If I were to throw the fish out of reach, they were awkwardly shimmy along he floor to reach it. Frida showed me how to let the seals kiss me (more of a headbutt) which Andrea took an excellent video of. After 15 minutes more of playing with the seals with some toys, we left them to rest - I'm pretty sure they were tired after our VIP visit.

The Hurtigruten!

Filipe had been in contact with a fellow couchsurfer who happened to work for the Hurtigruten company. This meant we got the tickets at a fraction of the price, making 2 beers more expensive than the 15 hour trip from Tromsø to Svolvær. We said our goodbyes and gave our thanks to Erick and Andrea who had come with us to the ferry terminal to see us off.. they, and all the others I met, will be sorely missed. The discounted tickets meant we had no cabin to sleep in.. but after a couple of hours exploring the ship Filipe found an open cabin that the cleaners had left their card in so we both had a comfortable few hours sleep. Filipe left the ship at 08 30 in Harstad.. he taught me so much in such a short space of time and I hope to meet him again one day (hopefully he can offer me a couch for the 2014 world cup in Brazil as he lives 100m from one of the world cup stadiums). The Hurtigruten is known for the beautiful route it takes along the Norwegian coastline but, coupled with rainy weather, the dark winter days meant I couldn't see the scenery well. At 18 00 Sunday I arrived in Svolvær and met Roy at the ferry terminal. Roy took me to his house in Kabelvåg - about 6 km outside of Svolvær.

I'll have to leave this update there for now, there is a lot of people I haven't mentioned and experiences I haven't added which I'd love to but I haven't the time to. I'm staying with Roy for a few days before heading south towards Oslo, although I'm not sure where I'm heading next. The last few days have been truly incredible.. I couldn't have imagined a more amazing time!! If I'm honest I haven't proof read this so if anything doesn't make sense let me know and I'll edit.

Ha det!

Tromsø

Hello from the Arctic!


I'm writing from a homely hotel 10 minutes walk from the center of the town called ABC Hotel Nord and it was the first hotel I called upon when I arrived in Tromsø albeit the second that I stayed in. This very hotel was fully booked so I had to walk to find another hotel, AMI Hotel which, thankfully, had vacancies. I quickly dropped off my belongings, eager to start looking for the northern lights, and found a group of people in the lounge area discussing over a computer and pointing at maps. They were all friendly and offered me to join them on their search for the northern lights that evening and with the conditions perfect to view the lights if they did turn up, I couldn't possibly turn their offer down.

My lips had frozen solid so this wry smile is all I could manage.

I agreed to join a Lithuanian couple Vida & M (his full name escapes me) and an Australian girl, Louise, on a hike towards the hills away from the city. Within one hour of walking M had spotted a suspiciously green cloud which quickly distinguished itself as an aurora to our delight. The activity was forcasted as low so the band never waved or focused, as you often see in pictures, but it spread across the whole sky and 3 more auroras briefly joined parallel to it for about 15 minutes. I was even fortunate enough to see a shooting star travel within one of the aurora! The aurorae faded but we continued out trek up into the hills in hope of them appearing again but unfortunately we were unrewarded.

Filipe and I after signing the guestbook.

The next day I moved over to AMC Hotel and agreed to meet Johan and Filipe, two guys I met through couchsurfing.org, for a walk into the hills on the mainland (Tromsø is on an island located off Norwegian mainland) hoping to get an excellent view of the lights, but as we met at 6pm the sky had already clouded ruining our chances to see the lights. Undeterred.. we went hiking up a barely visible path in the snow and through snow covered trees in a stream valley. Johan is Swedish and had spent 5 weeks cycling and camping accross Sweden and seemed to be able to read the land well as he guided me and Filipe around frozen lakes and kept us on the path when we were wandering off. We came across another group of hikers who told us of a guestbook we could sign if we made it far enough up the valley so we made that our goal and after 2 hrs of walking we etched our names into the near frozen book. Filipe, a Brazilian who had spent time in the military, decided he wanted to make it to the top of a ridge that over looked the guestbook spot so we scrambled up a snowy and rocky ridge that was harder work than getting to Cribs Goch on Snowden. We didn't make the top, as most hill climbs have a habit of fooling you with another summit once you reached what you believed to be the summit, and we decided turned back to ensure we made the last bus home. So we turned, took a short run up to gain some speed, and slid on our backsides for as long as we could until we reached the bottom of the ridge.. great fun!

Filipe is a couchsurfer but had no place that night so I offered him to stay in the spare bed in the room I was staying in at the hotel. He agreed and he had some great stories to tell and lots of good information to share on couchsurfing. He is so committed to couchsurfing and refusing to pay for accommodation, that one night in Bodø, another norwegian city in the Arctic Circle, he started collecting cardboard to sleep on in the street as he could find nobody to host him. He did, at the 11th hour, find somebody to host him but I still admire him for his commitment!

Tromsø at midday.

The perpetual night is hard to get used to, I constantly feel like its time to go to sleep yet to turn to a clock and see its 3 30 in the afternoon. It does get lighter around midday but its looks like evening light as the sun doesn"t rise above the horizon. I'm currently thinking of heading to a place inland called Narvik so I can see some Norwegian fjords but more immediate plans include meeting Johan once more to brave a dip in the Norwegian sea!

Farvel!