Thursday, December 21, 2006


me and hedda snowboarding

i took advantage of the change in drivers to try a new style of train surfing.

This was when lachy got to drive the train, well not really but he got to sit there and pretend

THis is how i carried hedda and ran to get to the train in tällberg. yeah so i ran for half a minute like this but so what im still a man.

This is me at my bank ... or my tombstone of the future because we went to the future in a time travel machine... ok no

this is how the glasses at the icebar looked. they are obviously made of glass. appreciate my modern art photgrapher

us at the icebar in jukkasjärvi which is part of the icehotel

this is åre

an elk or moose or whatever you want to call it älg in swedish. not the one we ate brad

me at the icehotel


us at the castle


this is how we slept for part of the night on the boat to finland

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

end of åre and Kiruna the awesomeland

HOWDIE!(have to find interesting ways to open)
So since last post much has happened. We didnt snowboard the last day cause we were so good so it was just embarrassing showing everyone else on the mountain how to do it. so we cleaned up our appartment and ate all the left overs that we hadnt eaten (nice mix we call it eggy-cheesy-beer-moose) Then with full stomachs we went ice skating on the lake in åre. got some cross country skates which was a bit different as the heel actually lifts. Lachy got the hang of it pretty quick but hedda had a bit of trouble(as she does with most things). she finally learnt how to get anywhere by just basically walking. So after much screaming and tired legs we left and went back to the room and had spagbol. after dinner we jumped on the train for the long ride up to kiruna. Had to get off at 10ish in bräcke which was yet another shithole. nothing open and the petrol stations were too far away for my lazy legs to walk there. So got on the next train and tried to get some sleep. Here is a tip to connex peopel if they happen to read this. GET RID OF THE STUPID SEAT SEPERATOR. We had two seats each to spread out over but the stupid thing poked you in the ribs so that you couldnt sleep. and the heater is set WAY TO HIGH. lachy woke up and thought he was on fire and his arm skin had melted. Luckily he was fine no third degree burn but dangerous still. Ok now more crazy people. First some people our age decided to occupy the seats opposite us. They were trying to get drunk which was great for them but they didnt need to wake me up to ask me for grog. and then they started playing swedish reggae which was weird. But they got kicked off the train which was cool. Then in morning this guy and his kid sat down opposite me. WORST BEHAVED KID EVER. He hit his dad with a glass bottle like really hard and 6 or 7 times before his dad just told him camly ''nej Marcus nej'' and he kept pretending it was a gun and he'd shoot me and then kick because i didnt play dead. And i could hardly understand a word the dad said cause he had a tromsö accent. so got to kiruna and stepped into -10 degree weather. didnt seem to bother lachy or hedda that much which was good. Nice town kiruna. Got to our hostel and found out the reception didnt open till 1400. so went and had some lunch and looked in some shops. Then checked in nice room with three beds, pretty cheap. Place was called yellowhouse, guy wasnt too nice but it might have been cause he was speaking english. Anyway got a couple hours sleep to catch up from the train ride. then at 1800 we were up and standing outside waiting for some people to pick us up for dogsledding. A shabby looking minibus drove up with two people inside. after some brief english words ''dogsledding, only three?'' we got in trusting they wouldnt kill us. They drove us to their home a 15 or so min away. Got shown into a room where we put on overalls and boots and furry hats and gloves. Then got shown to the kennels where the dogs were waiting eagerly. We helped take the dogs to the sled and get them attatched. I had to keep one of the leader dogs Kira from turning around and getting tangled. And lachy had to stop booster from biting his harness and barking at the dog infront called erik. After a while we took our places on the sled and we took off. It was awesome. Very cold so fingers and toes froze but so much fun being pulled that fast by dogs and it was down a squiggly track that was part downhill and had bumps so it felt like we were going 120km/h though it was probably more like 35km/h. Was a bit sad that we could take any video of it because it was so dark. We saw some reindeer.. well we saw the reflections from their eyes. Then we saw some northern lights, wasnt as clear as it is in some photos but it was visible like a bright greenish cloudy type thing. eventually we made it to the kåta which is like a sami version of the native american teepee. Crowded around the open fire and had some tea and chocolate cake. Talked with the musher and his wife lindsay who drove a snowscooter. Found out they were belgian and thats why they didnt speak swedish. They looked shocked when i told them i had a siberian husky in australia. Oh they didnt have siberian huskies, they had alaskan huskies that dont really look like siberians at all. more like shorthaired sheepdog but looking slightly more arctic. then we headed back to their house. Saw more of the northen lights. When we got back we helped put the dogs back in their kennels. Hedda in taking the dogs to their kennels her gloves came off and two dogs ran off with one each. So tried to find them, one was returned the other was swallowed. Then we went and saw the puppies. they had two puppies. Very cute. They were 8 weeks and when you barked at them they would bark back. after a good half hour atleast we went back inside and got changed back into our clothes and got driven home. AWESOME EXPERIENCE, if you can do at some point in your lifetime.
Went to sleep when we got home.

Next day we had to go venturing for breakfast which is hard cause nothing opens till 12. Then got a taxi to jukkasjärvi approx 20min drive. Icehotel is awesome, Again an experience to fit in at some point in your lives. The whole building is made entirely of ice and snice(mixture of man made snow and ice)taken from the lake nearby. Artist from around the world are invited to come and design a room. Then come april it all melts away and the water returns to the lake to be used the next winter in the same way. So we had a guided tour of the hotel and the church. Hard to say much without pictures. anyway it was awesome. Then we stepped into the icebar and had some drinks. I had a absolut jukkasjärvi with absolut vodka and blueberry liquere , elderberry and lingonberry juice and blue curacao. SO GOOD. Drinks were served in glasses made of ice which was awesome so i got a replica thats made of glass to show you when we get back. It was -25 outside but slightly warmer even inside the icehotel. Then we went back home. We got in our sauna gear and had a sauna this time properly. Well no pine tree branches but we saunad and then me and lachy jumped into big heaps of snow outside. As we alternated the hot and cold asian tourists looked in confusion out of their dining room windows at the crazy white boys. When that was done we went to sleep. Next day we got up and went to the tourist office to find out what we could do, pereerably with samis. Oh by the way the samis are the aboriginal people of northern sweden. they are nomadic like many aboriginal races and live with and off their herd of reindeer. Found out there was a museum so we went to that. VERY small museum like 2 rooms of some ladies house pretty much. But interesting reading about their struggle cause people are wrecking their reindeer grazing lands. Left that and saw some awesome clouds as the northern light reflect and are projected onto the clouds so they were like glittery rainbow clouds..very cool. Then we went to kiruna church which was very beautiful. Massive church made mid 1700 i think made entirely of dark oak and iron. and there was miniature which was ridiculously accurate. MADE ME FEEL LIKE A GOD. left there and went back to our hotel to get our bags and then got on the train to go home departing 1845. nothing much happend on the way back here. Got back to södertälje yesterday at like 1o clock. Went out shopping for food and got a christmas tree cause hedda was like crying cause she so desperately wanted one. shes like a 5 year old i swear. then we made dinner. We had Deer(Hjort) and Moose(älg) roast with herb sauce and potatoes. Very nice lachy and hedda really liked it. Then we had icecream vanilla and chocolate chip with frozen raspberries and blueberries. Lachy and hedda went to bed after that and i stayed up with gramps till like 0130 then had a cough attack and eventually vomited. Then it got better and got to sleep at 0230.
so now we are up to today. felt much better. Had bfast and left to go to ikea. Hedda desperately wanted to see the first and biggest ikea in the world so walked around that WHICH WAS GREAT FUN.... NOT. i havnt done a not joke in years wow they still work. didnt buy anything what with it being a furniture store that exists in every country of the world. then we went to heron city again which is the entertainment complex. and got a massive bag of lollies 1.9kg and some music cds. and we had maccas something called Big and tasty tell us if its out in aus yet. Then we saw a dejavu with denzel washington and val kilmer and the big strong guy from d2 the mighty ducks but now hes old. Good movie! dont let the plot brief of some guy going back in time to stop a crime let it stop you from going. it was very smart and as always denzel is awesome. then we came home. Ok good night got to get up early tomorrow.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

sorry no photos got uploaded for some reason, will do it when we get back to södertälje.

Mora and Åre

Ok so since we last left you hanging much has happened.
We got on the train and went up to mora. SUCH A SHITHOLE, well not really but nothing was open due to it being sunday so pretty boring time. Well no thats not true we spent a sufficient amount of time investigating the different petrol stations they have in mora because they were open and were our only option for food basically.
so theres statoil: good service but price was a bit steep
Shell was the most accessible but prices again were pretty high and service was awesome funny guy commented on how we bought icecream and julmust(we shared a chuckle)
Q8 close to our other food option the hotdog place and pretty good in terms of variety.

so we bummed the first night as it was pretty late when we got there. by late we mean 3oclock but its dark like midnight. Next day we got up and checked out mora where everything was closed. GREAT PLANNING! then we asked the receptionists at the hotel what we should do. she looked at lachy confused and then said basically ... uh theres nothing. so we got on a train and went to a christmaas market in tällby which is like 2 stops from mora. but hedda packed our scanrail tickets in our bags back at the hotel so we had to pay which was pretty expenive for the little enjoyment we got. Anyway got to tällby and saw that the next train back left at 3oclock so we kept that in mind as we made our way to the other side of tällby. i had greenhotel in my head so we went there which ended up being the wrong place because they had had the xmas market the day before, so we had to go even further to get to where it was. got there just in time for it to finish damn walking speed. But we had waffles with hjortron sauce and cream which was awesome and hedda got to buy some tourist crap. Then we realised were gonna miss our 3 oclock if we didnt hurry. By hurry i mean RUN! so we started off walking fast cause hedda was really against running. then we forced her to run (she made funny sounds) then she (thought she) couldnt run anymore so we had to carry her. First i slung her over my shoulder and sprinted up a hill (SHE MADE EVEN FUNNIER NOISES LIKE VOMITING!) then my legs died and i was wow that really takes it out of you. So the man lachy stepped in and piggy backed hedda the rest of the way like steed. Safe to say i felt pretty emasculated. He ran like three times further than me. anyway we got to the station and the train was 10 min late so we could have walked probably. Anyway got back to mora and got our bags and got on the train to go to åre. On the train we met tony the frinedly Fat controller(not really fat but thomas the tank engine joke for those of you out there with any culture) He was nice. gave us free tickets to his nightclub and let hedda and lachy see the train drivers cockpit and rode between two stops. We went back to stockholm cause otherwise we would have been locked out of the station at uppsala. Got on the train in stockholm and went all the way up to åre. Nothing much happend on the rifde here. We got here and went shopping fixed rental gear and found our awesome house. $20 for and awesome 54msquared appartment. next day we went to åre björnen cause the lift like 100m from our door isnt open cause snow cover here is kinda crap. Björnen is open though and is pretty good for beginners so we tried snowboarding. we are all beginners so it was good though it was really icy first day so falling over was REALLY painful. I have problems sitting on chairs anymore. hedda gives up a few hours into it and goes inside to read. but me and lachy seem to be improving dramatically although we havnt had lessons. They even invited us back for the world championships which will be held here next year. but we told them we had to go to uni. So last two days have been much of the same just improving and its been snowing yesterday and today so falling isnt quite as painful though falling on previous bruises kind of counters that. Gonna go have dinner now. Oh in åre we met another crazy guy who works the lift. He talks a lot and tells really unfunny jokes ''what do the birds over stockholm say'' ''piip piip piip... hahahaha'''

its hedda _ krishna glad you got my postcard already and thanks for standing up for me yay. and brad happy birthday in about a week. in case i dont write

done
btw krishna is a poo head

Friday, December 08, 2006

Hello Hello,
Seb here again
So two days since last post, so time for the update.
So yesterday we got up early and got ready to go meet my mate jesper. ended up running a bit late so we took the car instead of taking the train. First time since we got here i think that we didnt get lost. We got there pretty much exactly on time which was good. So met jesper, played on his xbox 360 some halo type game and table tennis which was cooooooooooolan!. Oh and we got our photos uploaded. so happy time for you guys. Then we went to huddinge centrum to get some lunch. They have some stupid parking sticker you need which essentially is just a piece of plastic that you put in the time you got there. thats fine but apparently if you just write the time you got there on a piece of paper you still get a fine. Then we had kebabs which was yumm. slightly different to aussie kebabs in that there was no bread. but i thought the meat was awesome. then we went to älvsjö to go gokarting. Jesper was reading the map and he was ridiculously crap. like 8 times id go ''so we turning off here?'' and id get a ''no........ umm.... yes...sorry''
funny but well kinda annoying. finally got there and did some gokarting which was awesome. I did shit 1st lachy 2nd jesper 3rd seb 4th hedda. hedda was funny she was driving REALLY slow, i think she thought there were speed limits. anyway after that we went to heron city and went bowling. Again i did shit this time hedda did really well. Again funny because of her.... umm.....unorthodox bowling technique. for those who have been bowling with her you might be able to describe it better but i would say of the energy she gathers for her bowling 80% of it is translated into a vertical motion straight down hard onto the lane. and yeah 20% goes into pushing the pink weight 7 ball down the lane so that it just touches the pins. And although i would normally say such a bowling style is just crap, she did awesome she got like 4 strikes or something where i got none or one. After that we went to the arcade section and played some games. they had an airline game i remembered from last time i was in the country. SO FUN! i did quite a bit better this time. Then we went and rented some videos and got some icecream. Went home to jesper and had swedish meatballs and macaroni and then watched inside man(denzel washinton, clive owen), the new world(colin farell, jesus man from passion of the christ) oh and some of date movie. Inside man was awesome, very smart. new world was SOOOOOOOOO BORING and date movie was funny but it broke down half way so i was sad. So then we watched movies and ate icecream till midnight. then we went home cause we were tired. got home 1:30am. Then
(HEDDA SAYS: chen and ash i need ur adress. well more so your numbers of ur hus) ok that was like an interlude
So today. got up and went to pickup my sister. then went to stockholm and went to the vasa museum which is a really cool museum. Essentially a giant ship that was built in 1625-28 for king gustav adolf XII. ok its hedda again takin over. seb has to go pick up his granddad from his party night with the guys & he says that i hvae to finish it because we wont be able to update for awhile cos we´re on the big trip (tho i rekon he´ll somehow sniff a computer out because he loves u guys so much). so here i am. vasa museum, definitly the best one we've been to and will go to this whole trip. the ship looks awesome. most of it that was showing was originial so thats pretty cool. after that, we went to get sebs long anticipated pilot jacket. it was like $500AU at first but he could get it tax free thank goodness so its like $300AU now. he loves it. and then we walked around a christmas market type thing for a bit before heading home. we went out pretty late during the day so by this time it was already like 6-7 so we got back, originaly was meant to have delicious yabbies but the supermarkets were closed so they had pizza again instead. and now we've just been packing, getting ready for our big trip. the guys are a little disheartened because snow hasnt really set in yet so our skiing plans seem to be not as good as thought to be. not all the slopes are open. in fact not many are.

alex! that was really good to hear from you! i was just about to send you an email to REMIND YOU to send me postcards =) hope youre doing everything you had planned to do, email me or something if you can

oh and ashraf, that is the grandpa we're stayin with. and hes really nice. on the first day we went to the supermarket & we saw that the bananas were really cheap so we got some & now hes been gettin me bananas ever since and he says 'i got you some bananas that you like' which is very cute. how hot is it in aust now??

ok really sleepy, and i think we've covered everything,
good night =) xxx h

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

hello again
so today we split up and did seperate things ill tell you first what i did and then maybe lachy or hedda will post on the happenings of their day. so i got up and waited till hedda and lachy left to go to stockholm. Then i made a few calls that i needed to do to organise some stuff, ie what we/I am doing tomorrow. Then i went and picked up my sister from centrum and we went to see my other grandad. Again i trusted my sister when she said ''oh yeah i know how to get to his place'' .... Which actually ended up meaning i know what the house next to his house looks like. oh i think i forgot to tell you about how we got lost a couple of days ago when we were trying to get to my cousins place. anyway i blame both these incidents on my sister. I might not know how to get to anyones place but it was 3 years since i was here last and i didnt drive then and most importantly i dont claim to find my way around. anyway we had to call him cause she didnt have a clue and then he came and guided us back to his place. then i went and stopped off at the cemetary. Lots of fun to be had there. Then back home for dinner. Made the foreigners dinner, falu korv(sausage) and macaroni (equivalent of spaghetti bolognese in terms of cheapness and frequency of serving).

seb just finished off there. great ending seb. this is hedda by the way. hey brad, glad you appreciate my sexy bathers-butt paper story. its a great story. anywho, yeh so me and lach went to skansen today cos seb divorced us. he dint really wanna go cos hes probly been enough times in his life oh right and the fact that he didnt want to talk to me probly played into it. anywho, skansen was coolan. its like sovereign hill minus the gold ie there is olden life imitations. the place looked cool AND I SAW MY FIRST MOOSE. DO YOU KNOW HOW BIG THOSE THINGS ARE!!??? omg it was scary, but i dont think theyre harmful, wen we get on a good computer, oh there will be pictures. oh & we saw a wolverine which i thought were female wolves, but theyäre not, in fact they look nothing LIKE wolves. theyre like furry black things (tho i also saw a wolf) so yeah, skansen is cool.

OH by the way, i havent told you guys about Lennart, sebs grandpa who we're staying with. HE IS VERY CUTE. OMG. he says funny things and hes a very nice man.

hows indoor going btw? whos filling in?
what are u guys doing?? been out? TELL ME WHAT IVE MISSED OUT ON. oh and can someone email me nolans home address. And chens?

ok, i think thats it for now, see you in 2mths
hedda

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Hej Hej,
So after hedda signed off we went to centrum to get some food. We then went home again and made isterband which is a swedish spiced sausage served with dill potatoes. Didnt have a recipe really so i had to wing it but it turned out good. Hedda and lachy seemed to like it which was good cause its my favourite food so i would have killed them otherwise. then we raced to centrum again and saw casino royale as per nolans reccomendation. I like the new bond, the action scenes especially the fighting coreography was awesome, but what the hell was with that romance novel shit. the whole bit after the torture scene was just crap. come one another baddy with eye problems. anyway back to sweden, then we went back home and played cards with grandad. a game coincidentally called casino. Then we we got ready to go to sleep

Funny part #1
lachy had taken a shower at lunchtime and before that asked for a towel. I thought sure i can find a towel, so we went searching and found one. it must have been marinated in like poison ivy juice(if that even exists) because he realised after the shower that he had gotten an allergic reaction and had a massive rash all over his back and chest. HAHAHAHAHA I LAUGHED AND LAUGHED!! Then we fell asleep
Funny part #2
the next morning lachy found out his rash had moved to his feet and his face. His eyes were all swollen so he looked more asian than hedda. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA again i laughed and laughed!!!! then lachy punched me and i rubbed my arm for a bit. as i regained my compusure and wiped the happy tears from my eyes and lachy struggled to keep his swollen eyelids from closing completely we started planning the days activities. We dedcided to go to stockholm and then planning halted as we had to race to catch the buss. planning continued on the train and we decided to go to the church and gamla stan(old town). We got off the train and walked towards gamla stan. Sadly by this time lachy's face had regained a somewhat normal appearance. on the way we went into an old church and made numerous jokes about lachy being the swedish quasimodo. he didnt laugh. the priest didnt agree to take him in as he didnt see anything to abnormal about lachy face. so we continued on to gamla stan. as we walked down the cobblestone paths between the 17th century buildings hedda AGAIN decided to look in EVERY SINGLE store at EVERY piece of touristy "!¤"%!. I was getting quite annoyed and stressed as an hour and a half had passed and we were still not near the castle. We finally dragged Heddasaurus away and continued on to the castle. We looked at the musseum parts and then saw the changing of the guards all of which was pretty cool. i was looking forward to looking at the armoury but it doesnt open till late jan so that wont happen :( then we walked back throgh gamla stan and hedda and lachy found a bakery type place to get some lunch. i starved myself for 25 min to get cheaper and yummier ''korv i tunnbrödrulle''(shown in picture below somewhere)then we tried to get home but more heddasaurus interruptions occured. then i saw a leather jacket store with a pilot jacket i could get for AUD$305 which I want. hedda ran off and then backtracked and we had to go get her and pry her from the bookshelves. As we dragged the angry dragongirl along the street she yelled at me and angry words were shared. We continued the travel home in silence. and still havnt spoken. I am avoiding any confrontation with the devil lady so that there will be no blood spillage. Ok not much else to write. now we are home gonna have late dinner soon. I miss pepsi he doesnt get mad at me, but there is some blood spillage sometimes though its minimal. ok gonna go now
regards
SEB

Monday, December 04, 2006

Hi again,
just got back to sweden. good to see you are all keeping up with reading what is going on. Sorry that the last post was a bit rushed we were on free internet which you are only allowed to stay on for like 15min each and well it took me atlest 30min to type that post and check my email so yeah felt a bit bad. anyway as i said we left the hostel and went and climbed the olympic tower which is 13 stories high, pretty good view from the top, we(well I) wanted to take the stairs cause they were cool steps that come out of the wall with no visible means of supporting each other(other than the wall from which they extrude)but you had to take the crappy elevator that screeched and was rusty .. you know for safety reasons ofcourse. ok hedda wants to write now so get ready for crapness.. no just kidding(not really)

hey thats mean. i write good. i am english student
after olympic tower we basically just walked around helsinki which has one main road that you should all learn - Mannerheimkatu. so if ever in helsinki, know that all roads lead here.
we had hot choc wich was 52% choc it was yumm and i tried to go 2 shops 2 buy stuff and seb was like you are crap man always buying stuff and groaning and crying and kicking and screaming. so if i come back to australia and i dont have gifts for all of you, youll know why.

oh and about serena. i was reading pretty much the whole time, i didnt join in the festivities because of monthly cycle (for those not familiar with the female anatomy ie chen, that means my period). anyway, that was fine since i had some 12/13 year old boys said hi to me. yep, i bring my A game even without wearing my sexy bathers

oh butt paper by the way is this piece of paper u have to sit on in the sauna that the guys didnt know about.

so we got back on the boat and actually got a cabin this time. yes i know seb keeps saying hut, i think its like a swedish translation thing but he ment cabin. i slept for most of it but seb & lachy went to party but ended up just gambling and losing money on the pokies (lachs words - actually winning money but then losing money (not that much money dont worry, like 4 euros)). we were very proud of our cabin too by the way, it was cheap, on the bottomest floor even below the cars so we woulda been the first to go if titanic happend.

oh krish, its not actully that cold yet. and the branch thing IS actually a common thing but they didnt do that

ok weäre gonna try 2 figure out what weäre doing tonight so we will talk 2 you guys later

take care all
h

Sunday, December 03, 2006

greetings from finland

Sorry for the delay in letting you know whats been happening the last few days.
This is seb by the way.
Ok so we left for finland on the thursday nothing much happened that day before we got on the boat. i got sprayed with car wax at the car wash and we had swedish pizza again oh and hedda was feeling really ill so she decided to throw up as you do. Then we went to the boat called the Mariella part of the viking line fleet that takes people between sweden finland åland and talinn. we went from stockholm stopped off in åland and then went on to helsinki. Boat ride was so funny. we didnt get a hut because everyone i had spoken to said there were armchairs you could use for free. well there werent we searched every inch of that boat then we asked two different information people and well they just dont exist so then we went and ate at the buffet even though none of use were very hungry(waste of money really). were pretty bored and decided to make a very short version of the titanic using the movie clip version of our digital cameras, lachy was rose and i was umm that other guy john maybe. oh then we found a nice corner on the floor to sleep in. It was just outside some guys hut so we felt a bit weird but he didnt seem to mind. Anyway we slept there till about 1oclock when i woke up from a guy saying ''wake up!'' ''why are you sleeping here?'' Lach-cause we havnt got a hut ''dont you know someone could kill you?.... do you want me to kick you. L-no.. ''why not'' L-because it would hurt ''have you seen james bond?... i am the evil russian guy i just want to hurt you..... im from the russaian government'' stare off.... ''wake up... do you want me to kick you'' and then eventually he left. funniest thing ever. anyways eventually we left so that he wouldnt come back and actually kick us. so then we went and found these round sofa type things that were quite comfortable were we spent the rest of the night. we bumped into these two drunk girls who talked a lot about stuff we didnt understand and they saw that hedda was chinese and was like ''chi chi.. chi chi.. it means hello'' and hedda was nice and was just like no its che che and its thankyou but they ignored her and when they left were still saying chi chi.
anyway next drunk person i met was when lachy and hedda were sleeping. it was this finish guy who was just saundering around at 4 in the morning and then walked up to a locked closet with no handle and pressed the keyhole with his finger and waited cause he thought it was an elevator. then he came and sat down next to me and spoke finish to me for half an hour and i kept saying sorry i dont understand you and the only word he understood was sorry. so he repeated sorry like 40 times. anyway eventually he left and we slept till the morning and got off the boat. Lachy got stopped by the cops here because the sniffer dog thought he smoked drugs but he got off cause he answered no to all the questions he got asked mainly ''do you smoke anything illegal'' ok so we were in finland and decided to walk from the harbour to our hostel. saw a few sights on the way two cathedrals and parliament square etc. then got to our hostel which is at the olympic stadium where the olympics were in 1952 we actually live where some of the athletes lived. and theres soccer training most nights like outside our window. anyway we left our bags and went back out to see the national museum(pretty boring) and the mountain/cave church(called something else but essentially is a church built inside a mountain. the church was awesome really beautiful. then we bought some souvenirs and food and went to kampii which is the main shopping centre. walked back home and went to sleep. ok so now we are up to yesterday. We woke up and got ready to catch the bus 30 min to espoo slightly outside helsinki to go to the serena waterpark. hedda didnt swim but me and lach did. basically its a complex with 4 slides and river stream thing. oh and theres skiing and outside swimming but they werent open. It was pretty good. lachy had his first taste of sauna and he was shocked how hot it was. for those of you who have no clue its basically a room filled with really hot steam and you get completely naked, get your butt paper(vital step we forgot first time in) and then you go in and sweat out all the bad stuff inside you. then you go outside and jump in cold water and then repeat over and over again. Its good it makes you feel really clean and relaxed. so yeah we left there at like 4ish and came back to helsinki and ate at an american restaurant called chicos (anyone else reckon its weird that an american restaurant has a spanish/mexican name.) food was awesome and not too expensive. then we went home cause it was raining and was kinda cold. still only 5 degrees celsius and no snow anywhere so they havnt seen nothing yet. today we plan to buy some stuff and climb the olympic tower just 20m from our hostel. ok ill write more later see ya