You may be wondering why we’re back in Helsinki, it’s because we took a ferry here. Stockholm is a really nice city, probably, we didn’t really see much of it. When we got there we met up again with Linn from the north, as in her name’s Linn and she’s from the north, not like William of Orange. She introduced us to Gunnar and family and they invited us to stay there, despite Bish’s new look. We did spend some time in the city and I beat an old guy at chess, then lost, won again and left. Maybe you don’t care about that but I was pretty chuffed and wanted to tell you. We also visited a museum. On the ferry back here, in our cabin down below the car deck, we met a guy called Noah. He is also travelling and was planning on heading south to Estonia but liked the sound of a train journey to China and so now he is joining us. He has less facial hair than Bish but he’s pretty cool.
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Since we got back here we have been staying with Anu, and then with Harri and Virpi. Except the first night, when we hadn’t bothered to sort anything out and didn’t have our tents, bivis or sleeping bags, just the silk liners. So we stayed in a bar until 3am to avoid the rain, then tried to sleep in a set back doorway, which was OK for a while but at some point I woke up to see a drunk guy about to piss about a metre from Bish’s head, then he changed his mind or couldn’t go or something and so left. Anyway, since then we have been well cared for. Tonight Harri and Virpi gave us a send off dinner and then presented us with leaving presents too. Really they are amazing people - if any of you reading this ever come to Helsinki then we owe them some beers.
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Tomorrow morning we’ll take a train from Helsinki to St. Petersburg, presumably swapping to a steam engine at the border, where electricity stops. So we’ve been told anyway. I’m not too sure if they’re joking so I’m writing a blog now, just in case. Alas, we are shortening our cycling leg as we were planning to pedal there. Sorry. It would have been pretty tight with our visa, which is just 2 weeks for all of Russia. At least we got the visas though, they didn’t even mind that Tom had mis-spelt his middle name on the application form.
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So, our bikes are dismantled and crammed into a bag and from here we will be travelling at a slightly better pace for a while. Roll on Russia (that’s pretty funny if you think about it).