It's been a while....

Alrighty guys,

How's it going? I know it's been quite some time, but when you're a jobless bum it's difficult to fit everything in. The days are just too short.

Since I last wrote we have been through Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and we are now in the Czech Republic heading towards Prague. Needless to say it has been brilliant. All the above eastern European countries are a weird mix of higly developed in the cities with old style horses and carts etc out in rural areas. In Estonia especially we were surprised by how developed and westernised it is (apart from maybe the road maintenance which leaves something to be desired).

So, what have we been up to? Well, we spent a good few days in Tallin, Estonia, including a memorable night out in the cheesiest club I've been in in a long while. Now we're out of Scandinavia we can afford to have fun, the beers in the Czech Republic are less than 50 pence. Since hen we've just been travelling, staying in campsites and picnic areas. Lithuania and Latvia were a little lacking in tourist attractions, Latvia's best was their biggest cave, which was well.... small. Lithuania however has a big sandbar in the baltic sea which is basically just a 50km long beach. As it's been about 30 degrees everywheree we've been for the last 3 weeks that was particularly nice and we sepnt a few days just beaching it up, swimming in the sea and all that jazz.

Poland (the land of my fathers) was nice as well, Warsaw was good but Krakow was the highlight. It's a stunning city and they were having some kind of military tatoo while we were there, we even met a Scottish pipe band! They had been doing some drinking though, the guy with the big drum could barely stand up, never mind keep time. Their pipe master wasn't too impressed. We spent a good while in Krakow, visiting their salt mines and also Auschwitz, which wasn't the cheeriest of outings, but we felt we should as we were very close to it. It's a sobering experience, they actually have about 30,000 pairs of shoes and two tonnes of human hair from the victims on display.

As I said, we're now in the Czech Republic, the home of beer (yas). Going to spend a while here then head for either Austria or Slovakia, depending on how we feel.

I've attached a couple of photos, including one of a "hilariously" named hotel we saw in Lithuania.

We've got wireless internet in the van these days, so I'll try and update this guy more often.

Cheers to my work chums for the photos of my leaving night, I was relieved to see here was only one of me dancing, but WHO was that random I'm arm wrestling?

Anyway, bye for now.

Ski.

Finland, the land of reindeer and drunken jakeys.

Guys.

How's it going? We're now in Helsinki, Finland. We came in from Sweden in the North, and headed further north for a bit, into the Arctic Circle. It certainly is nice up there, but fairly chilly, as I suppose it was always going to be. It doesn't get dark at all either during the summer months, it plays havoc with your body clock when it's still bright daylight at 1 in the morning. We went and visited Santa's post office up there as well, sent postcards and got some tacky soveniers. We drew the line at visiting Santa himself, though when we peeked in there was a fully grown man of about 40 sitting on his knee. It was a wee bit disturbing to be honest. It's also absolutely hoaching with reindeer up there, they're everywhere you look. One jumped out in front of the van and I must have been within about a foot of smacking right into him, but fortunately for all concerned managed I to brake in time. Another time we were on a walk through one of the national parks and one jumped out about 3 feet in front of me and made a bolt for the hills. Just a wee bit further down the path was a carcass with it's insides ripped out by some predator, possibly a wolf ot two, so I suppose the wee guys have an excuse for being a tad stand-offish.

From the north we travelled lesiurely down the country, visiting a good few national parks on the way. At one we were parked up beside a retired Finnish fisherman on a fishing holiday. He was a friendly chap, but unfortunately spoke very little English. That didn't stop him coming round and extending the hand of friendship at every opportunity though, I think he was perhaps encouraged by the fact that he was absolutely steaming from morning till night. The first night we got there I somehow ended up drinking straight brandy with him in his caravan while he kept telling me that "Russia, no good!" and offering me one of the fish he had caught that day. I think I got it across to him that I wasn't into meat, but he didn't like it. The next morning, as soon as the van door was opened at the crack of noon (I've always been an early riser) he was there, proferring shot glasses of straight vodka and we had the exact same conversation as we had had the night before. I was left with the impression that he wasn't a huge fan of the Russians (from what I can gather one of their favourite hobbies over the last couple of centuries has been invading Finland), but wasn't adverse to a little drink now and then.

In fact, in general the Finns like a bit of a drink it seems. When we stopped at a petrol station for bread last Saturday there were about 10 guys just sitting having a good old booze. I stayed in the van while Katie went into the shop and every single person that went into the garage came out with as much boze as they could carry. It was only lunchtime, but you could see that they had their day well planned. Here in Helsinki as well, which is lovely, there is plenty of drinking in the streets on the go, and not a few alcoholic tramps brightening the place up and generally enlivening the atmosphere. I've also just seen the best xylophone player I've ever laid eyes on. They have a higher class of busking out here, just round the corner there is a guy belting out opera tunes with a wee tin in front of him. He seems to be doing all right as well, better than he would be in Glasgow anyway.

Next we're going to try and sort out our entry into Russia, despite the feelings of our new pal. Failing that we're going to get the boat over to Tallin in Estonia and see where we go from there.

That's my lot for now, no pics this time (awwwww) because this internet cafe doesn't have the technology, but I'll fire them up as soon as. They're better than the mainly black efforts of last time as well.

Anyway, catch.

Oh, and happy 30th to our oldest pal.

Sweden in Pictures

Chums. How's it going? We're now in Stockholm, Sweden, having come into Sweden to Östersund and then south to the capital. We've also bitten the bullet and bought a digital camera, so you now have the debatable pleasure of seeing photos of us in various exotic locations. If anybody is partcularly into self harm they can see them all at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kelvinski, but there are a few with this post.

So, what have we been up to? Well, civilised doesn't even begin to cover it. We've been taking pleasant walks, visiting museums and generally seeing the sights. Stockholm truly is quite nice, set over loads of wee islands with some pretty good architecture, if you're into that kind of thing. The kids are right into goth as well, so walking about the town centre is guaranteed to raise a smile. Today we were at the museum displaying the salvaged Swedish warship Vassa, if I know my blogging onions there should be a pic somewhere, it's quite impressive and really well preserved. After that we ate our packed lunch in a park in the sun, and we've just paid 8 quid for a pint and a half of lager in a nice pub in the town. Altogether a pleasant day. Oh, and we saw a wee guy on the tube this morning who was the living image of Byron. He was only about 8, but boy was he rubbery.


Tomorrow we intend to start heading north again to get ourselves into Finland, and from there try to sort out or visas for Russia so we can get to St Petersburg. That should be fun. Still, the Finns are supposed to have a terrible problem with raging alchoholism, so there should be some quality banter going about, if only we could understand it.

Anyway, that's me for today, I'll try to satiate your salivating desire for our news some more from Finland. Catch.

The Joys of Norway

Chaps. I don't even know if anyone reads this guy, but I'm going to update it anyway. We're currently in Trondheim, about half way up the west coast of Norway. We're heading for Sweden from here. We think we've seen most of what Norway has to offer and the cost of living is killing us, a lettuce cost us 2 quid the other day and 6 beers are about 16 pounds. Norway is gorgeous though, if you're minted I would heartily reccomend it as a holiday destination. The scenery is truly amazing, you can be beside a spectacular fjord with mountains towering above you on either side, then an hour later you can be in the high country with snow and ice as far as the eye can see in every direction. A couple of times I've stepped out the van and found myself almost up to my waist in pristine white snow. Lucky we brought plenty of socks. We spent a day at Europe's largest glacier the other day, which was pretty good. You can just walk about on the ice sheet and the scale of it is quite intimidating. The Norwegians are ultra-friendly as well (and I'm into friendliness), they just have to see you looking at a map and they are over offering assistance and advice. Anyway, no doubt this internet time is going to cost me my not inconsiderable weight in gold and jewels, so I'll end it here. Will try to update you all again from Sweden, as if you cared.

Ski & Kelvin

1st post and pictures of the van.

Guys. This is our new blog for when we go away travelling. I feel pretty geeky just having a blog, but this is the new millenium and everybody seems to be at it so I'll fight down the urge knock this on the head right now and press on. We leave on Saturday probably and are just putting the finishing touches to the van, you can see how it looks in the photos (really?). I'll add more when we actually get ourselves tae.