Helsinki

I left for Helsinki with a hazy head and a high gag reflex, and sat on a ferry soothing myself with encouraging words to stop from vomiting into a little plastic bag. I managed to save face and stepped off the boat back on Scandinavian ground without having to carry the night before’s hot dog in a squidgy plastic bag to find a bin. Winner. I decided that a walk with my double turtle backpack would do me well. 45 minutes later I am congratulating self on a good navigation, only to find no hostel and be pointed to a road with two different letters in it. Well fuck you google maps “did you mean Diddlysquat, or Diddlaysquot. I meant what I meant, the one that led me to the room with shower and bed. Alas, I did not lose hope, and with some more encouraging self soothing words and a “now just force yourself to laugh, hardy ha” I arrived at my hostel, ran across the road for a pack of ham, a tube of chocolate digestives and a fanta.

I woke a few hours later feeling a little a little disappointed with self for the amount of crumbs, and the lack of surviving biscuits, but generally happy with life. I wandered the market in Kaampi square, nibbled on cheese, wandered some more and turned in for a good night’s sleep. On a Friday. Prime of my life.

I had one day in Helsinki, with a good night’s sleep in a comfy bed. I devoured the pack of chocolate digestives like I belong in Texas. I walked around the grid of the city getting myself happily lost in the pursuit of quiche. Its intermittently pissed with rain, weakly, the limp handshake of rain, not like the tropical torrent of Tallinn. I have climbed all over the Rock Church (quizzically enough a church constructed out of a big rock) amongst some fellow tourists of the Asian persuasion.

I went charity shop shopping. I hunted down coffee shops and marvelled at the architecture of the Museum of Modern Art. I ate Asian food in a crowded restaurant with the waitress screaming across the small restaurant floor at different tables. It seemed to be part of the charm of going as I saw shoulders shaking around me. On the advice of someone I met, I watched a 5 minute YouTube clip of Russian Alphabet Introduction. I finished my Theroux book and am looking forward, with some wide eyed naivety, to the chaos of China.

Theroux wrote “…any travel book revealed more about the traveller than it did about the country”. I think we can all gather by now that I am in the most incompetent of guides to any particular place… I can only wander, notice stupid things, overlook other things, eat to my budget, visit things to my budget. Sometimes I am so introverted that I cannot muster the smile to talk to anyone. I feel rude asking questions, I do not seek out the local to get the inside track. I hate imposing, I prefer to float as an observer. I would be the most rubbish of journalists. My understanding of a city or country is through the keyhole of my eyes in my particular mood. I would be ignorant to state how a place functions in any one way. You’d hope for the diversity that makes a city interesting, even if you were not there for enough time to see it, and so for me to attempt to explain wholes would be ridiculous, arrogant and futile. So I hope you don’t mind this blog will never be information.

I am beginning to feel consistently content. If my head is in a book, or I cannot muster to chat to anyone, I know that it really doesn’t matter. It might have taken me a while to feel like this is a positive thing I am doing and not a hedonistic escape from a fear of establishing myself somewhere. I think my peace of mind has to do with a variety of things. The people I have recently met, with stories and adventures and positivity, wise heads on their shoulders and years of living life well to their name. Perhaps it has been Scandinavia, the Baltics and the way people live life there and the type of tourist that they attract. It is excitement for Russia and beyond, and the part of the journey that flings me far away. Perhaps also it is the excitement and fear of the alien; the discomfort of being the alien, and having to get by that makes me feel alive. The curiosity for the weeks and months to come.

I could not find a bed under 60 euros in Helsinki on Saturday night so I cancelled my 6am train and got on a night bus to St Petersburg. I have been so giddy to get to Russia, to get on the big train, that I couldn’t wait longer. I got pushed off said bus at 6am in a place in St Petersburg that was definitely not a bus stop and, with a vivid 6am memory that H is N – found my way to Nevsky Prospect and through ploopy rain in wet shoes navigated my way to my hostel here. I have really taken to talking to myself and I almost sang my way down the streets, from excitement, from finally feeling in the swing of this trip, having grasped a bit of control and knowing that the most of it is uncontrollable. I spent much of 2 months around Europe split between an uneasy feeling that I had made a bad choice to travel, and trying to convince myself that it was ok to do it. Perhaps I was zig-zagging around so close to home that it felt like a limbo with the goal of the trip.

I cannot put my finger on it, but something settled me in the Baltic states; as above, the people, the hostel buddies, my short fuse for negativity, and I finally grasped that this was only positive, and completely what I want to be doing right now. I am caring less about “how it should be done” and just doing it my way. Tis the only way. Sporadically reading a friends blog on Indonesia which is another exciting future. Have a look at it!

Everything is unknown and unplanned, and I am so utterly content with this that I actually feel a bit proud. Not something I feel too often so am writing it down…

Off to make borsch… And it will be awesome.

Stockholm

I am rolling out of Stockholm on a massive cruise liner watching the islands pass like a conveyor belt on the Generation game. “Swedish flag… beautiful house… swimming pool… lighthouse… fancy boat… seagull… house I want to live in, ummm, sailing boat, speed boat, pontoon, diving board, did I say Swedish flag?”

I have just spent 2 glorious days catching up with an old friend I know from diving and her adorable little terror. He is 2 days younger than one of my favourite living things on planet earth, Harry Barclay; so thought I’d just say “Hi tall man! Hope all is well, and you like your new house!”

And I did the big thing that is on everyone’s list when they visit Sweden: Go to Ikea. When in Rome… Feel like I really got under the surface of the Swedish culture. That and eating Thai food…

Oh, just looked up and the conveyor belt has offered up a rainbow. This place is silly beaut. Fingers crossed for dolphins next.

Two days of talking diving and Asian food has got me excited for the other end of the Trans Mongolian express – which I step on to two weeks today I think… that and realising that another of my crap packing skills was my Surface Marker Buoy (for those not in the diving-know, essentially a balloon you inflate and send up on a safety stop. Utterly useless in Siberia, unless I manage to organise a dive in Lake Baikal) which has now found a home in north Stockholm – in a bin if Charlie has any sense!

As well as thanking Charlie for being such an amazing host, I will also give praise where it is due to TripAdvisor, for telling me the number one thing to do in Stockholm is to visit the Vasa Museum. It is one of the best museums I have ever been to. Won’t spoil it, but well worth a visit if only to find out the logistics of raising a 400year old 68metre long boat from the bottom of the sea in the 1950s. Perhaps this will reveal my inner geek (or my dad’s enthusiasm for all things digging), but that is exciting stuff.

Also noted today: a t-shirt of Klamydia’s World Tour. Heavy metal band. Not sure if the irony is intentional. But the guy wearing didn’t seem like he’d be taking too active a role.

Ha! Just seen a speed boat with a doughnut flying past. They were so busy waving at this monstrosity I’m sitting on, that as they turned they swooped the kind flipping off the back. And one of the most kickass sunsets. Viewfotainment.

A bit regretful that I didn’t have Swedish meatballs with lingonberry jam, but hey, there’s always Ikea at Lakeside Shopping Centre…

Sognefjord

I have a condom on my index finger. But don’t worry folks, this one’s filled with blood. Eww. This morning whilst I was packing with gusto I sliced the top of my finger off with my razor; irony being that I actually have quite hairy legs at the moment. I wrapped it in a plaster and strapped it with tape but a girl I was sharing the bus back to Oslo with turned out to be a doctor and she gave me these finger condoms to stop infection. I’ve been sitting on the bus for 6 hours occasionally catching myself looking like that bored 16 year old staring out the classroom window holding her arm in the air with her other hand waiting to ask to go to the loo. Now I am typing with an ET-phone-home bulbus pointing at the laptop screen. Last time I looked it was reminiscent of a cater on the moon so think I will just leave this tiny condom on for a few weeks and ignore it so I don’t have to see blood. Safety first.

So, wow. The last few days. Norway. Gosh. I could gush all day about vistas but I’d bore myself more than you trying to think of adjectives. And I still wouldn’t be able to describe the feeling of being in amongst this place. The simple fact is that Norway is incredible. Incredibly expensive, but incredibly beautiful. I still can’t believe my luck with the view I’ve had for the last 3 days staring out over the Lustrafjord, the innermost arm of the Sognefjord. I have enough photos to be strictly embarrassed. One day I even said to myself, today will be a day just for the memory, a photo will never do this justice. And yet out came trusty Canon to have a go. I couldn’t stop, everything was outstanding. But I won’t talk about scenery, I will just tell you that it would be well worth a trip to Norway to see some natural epicocity (now a word) and do some amazing outdoor adventures. SO MANY ACTIVITIES.

The boat from Bergen up the Sognefjord was full of Chinese tourists and a drunk Norwegian guy who spilt his beer at 8.15am and hung his head like he’d given up hope. Photos opportunities were plentiful, but I didn’t take advantage of this like my fellow passengers. What was disconcerting, was that though the whole fjord experience was mesmerising, it was no more so than watching an old Chinese man in a shiny Emporio Armani tracksuit do lunges and hip rotations as I tried to look at a waterfall or a pretty cottage. Quite hypnotic. And lucky for me, this lasted (in between cigarette breaks through a decadent cigarette holder) for 3 solid hours on the back of the boat. Felt like a right perve sitting on my plastic chair, eyes flicking back to press ups against the railings, or ankle rotations.

I left the boat at Leikanger and ended up in Solvorn after a 3km hike with bag down to the fjord-side town from where the bus dropped me on the hillside. 30 degrees, in jeans. Thank god it was downhill.

Then it turns out I have sneakily entered some Scandinavian paradise at Eplet Bed & Apple LINK! A small scale juice farm and B&B. I reasons for going there was that it was a cheap option when I was hunting for a bed. I wanted to see Norwegian countryside and had no idea how to when every time you step on a mode of transport, or off one, you’ve spent 80 pounds. Eplet is owned by a guy called Trond who after many years of travelling wanted to set up a place in Norway that reflected what other countries charge for rooms in order to invite people to actually get involved with what Norway has to offer. A dorm bed was 200NOK. Thats £22 but most other places were charging that to pitch your own tent. And to that effect, the owners are inviting and the place is like a family home. Bikes in the shed to use to free, a well thought out history and guide to Solvorn and its surrounds, with hiking trails, bike routes, where to buy groceries. I never intend for this blog to be a guidebook (ugh; far too much effort) but I will recommend this place ruthlessly and often.

So I take a bike to see the second highest waterfall in Norway (in it’s freeflow it drops 218m) across the fjord by boat to Urnes. Ten minutes in to the cycle and I have a realisation. One of my fears in life is fitness. This sounds absurd, but there I am, sweating balls (that doesn’t look right written down, must only say this verbally. If at all.) on this bike thinking, I am so shit at exercise that it actually scares me.

Despite my lack of sustainable fitness, I love the outdoors. But exercise works best when I don’t know I’m doing it; a hike to a powder field, bringing tanks off the boat after an amazing dive, swimming against current to sommersault through the fishbowl in Komodo again. I know that a hike is always well worth the view from the top. But that’s not going to stop me complaining en route, and when there is no one next to you telling you you’re a whining arsehole, you must find some self discipline. And I’m not sure if I can always locate it, hence my perpetual flab.

That morning I walked out of Eplet with shorts on. I should not wear shorts. As a dutiful kindness to strangers my upper thighs should never see the light of day due to their flan-like consistency. But once in a blue moon I think, “I’d really like my legs to be the same colour as my arms” and so I walk out in shorts and spend the rest of the day cursing. Here I am on a bike looking down at my legs thinking, why won’t you diminsh, just a little. In London I went to the gym 4 nights a week. It became a part of my working week and though enjoyable was never the word, it was something on my weekly list that I felt bad when I ignored. When I was “rolling in it” with the old full time employment thing, I even went into debt by getting a personal trainer called Salvatore who used to laugh at me whilst I peddled, and would ask me questions about my life and work as I literally jumped through hoops for him. “Just. Not. Sure. It’s. Whatiwantant. Tobedoing,” I’d puff as my face went puce. He’d tilt his head at me and smirk and I knew he was thinking that he should get an I-Pod that colour. Like a Dulux paint advert. My thighs never firmed, and yup, I’m a little bit angry that if I was a short-wearing leg-baring kinda gal the material used to clothe me would be halved and my backpack considerably smaller. Curses!

So yes, I need someone with me when I exercise or doing something physically challenging where there is nothing else to concentrate on. An inner monologue of “view view view thighs thighs” almost works, but the latter seems futile, so the former should always be exquisite. Norway did the trick. I could have stayed longer and I am already kicking myself I didn’t fork out the money to do the Blue Ice Trek and kayak on the Jostedalen Glacier.

A place to go back to. And to see in the winter. Skiing down until you reach either the road or the water and wait for the bus or ferry that shuttles back and forth to Sogndal’s one lift access to untouched champagne powder. Yum.

Bergen Fish Market

As soon as I wrote that thing about rain it was as if this place was boasting. Its been a hot sunny day, and I stepped out into the heat to see ominous looking darkness on the mountain side. Not going back for jumper. within 4 minutes it is plooping down (you know, the rain that ploops) and I’m running head first into e stench of 4pm fish market. I was hungry (I’m always hungry) but I decided to try and distract myself as 5 4cm prawns on a skewer wrapped in a paper napkin is 150NOK (18GBP). For the hoards they put the euro price on the dishes. A small seafood plate with a wee taste of everything is 42 euros. I punched my stomach and walked on.

I started to feel like a war photographer. I was taking pictures of giant crab in a tank and me and one of them, I’ll call him Mr Jones, had a bit of a stare through the glass. Disassociate Emily and get the photograph. You watch Deadliest Catch more than you should. This is just the “autumn years” that the programme doesn’t show.

The tank next door had by far the largest lobster I have ever seen. Its head was as big as a can of beans. Sad for the thing and yet mightily impressed with his physicque, I wondered whether he was going to be saved from the chef knife by the fact that none of the tourists that parade the market would ever be able to afford him. Eat my pretty, eat it all! At the end of the fish sellers we reindeer pelts. Interestingly a big dish of seafood fresh off the boat costs 550NOK here and a whole reindeer pelt 650. I’d have taken the fur if I could’ve fit it in the bag… They dangled next to the foxes and the white as white snow foxes. I was overwhelmed with a need to watch Ace Ventura.

Bergenhus is beautiful; old and wooden and cobbled and charming. What I imagine 30km up the coast might be an literal selling of fresh produce off the back of the boat, has mutated here into a tourist trap. And like the traps they use to get the foxes, it is effective. Despite the grumbling stomach as I cannot justify the money spent, I didn’t mind. Everyone looked like they were having lots of fun and interacting between stalls. Spaniards, Chinese, Portugese all had stalls set up.

This place has capitalized on the tourist coming in for and from fjord cruises, there is no doubt, but it is not painfully inauthentic. It is a show for incomers who want a show. And from the giant lobster and Mr Jones, to the pristine white snow fox furs and taxidermy of bears and birds, none of it really affected me in any negative way. Elk meat is sold next to elk fur. Norwegian caviar next to North Sea crab. Its exciting to see the local produce, if it involves some stereotyping, then so be it.

The stereotype that did make me a bit uncomfortable, but weirdly more curious than anything, was the pink florescent pen above a dark red meat stating “Whale meat” in capitals with a little picture of a smiling whale next to it. I wondered what type, where and how it was caught? was it accidental catch? is it sought after meat? what does it taste like? is it not illegal here? do you have any personal qualms with selling it? is this the norm or for the tourists?…. Instead of plucking the nerve, I smiled at the guy behind the counter and walked on, though he probably would have answered any questions he knew the answers to. Not the investigative journalist. I’m not here to judge anything. Interesting to observe. Sad to see.

The Oslo – Bergen Railway

Before I explore Bergen, just want to say that I have just been on one of the best railway routes I reckon the world has to offer. Sorry to not write up Oslo but I felt a bit run down and had a cold. It is another city. One with some awesome architecture and cool bars but I definitely did not do it justice. I sat and coffeed, blew my nose, and tried not to think of the one word which people use to describe Norway before they say beautiful; “expensive”. I just about managed to get this trip to Bergen and up to stay on the Sognefjord for a few days tomorrow, with a bit too much time trying to find places to stay and means of transport. But here now!

Bergen is known as one of the rainiest cities in the world. A Canadian guy in Austria told me it holds the world record for most consecutive days of rain. It averages 240 days of rain a year and their record is 80… 80 straight days of rain. Imagine that with 5 hours of sunlight a day. That London winter you had doesn’t feel so grotty now eh?

Anywho… 15 minutes ago I disembarked from an epic train journey accompanied by 3 American blokes who were pretty good value. From Olso through the lakes, up to Finse at 1222m with glaciers everywhere, and back down through the fjords. Some of the most visual arousing sights my peepers have had the pleasure of. If my eyes were penises, I’d look like a coat rack. And let me bless the comedic gods for showing me mercy that my eyes are not thus.

Odd to put photos up that I took an hour or so ago but whilst in between a shower and a poo, why not… and pretty chuffed some of them are not just of trees and rail posts. (A lot of them are, Americans are sending me theirs as they had more luck and I gave up.)

Off to explore Bergen, home of Ron Burgundy (we’ll agree to disagree) and beautiful old Norwegian port town of Bergenhus. and in the morning take the fjord express up to Sogndal for 3 nights on an apple orchard on the Sognefjord. Time for a proper swim!