Hotel Porvoon Mitta

... days.

Porvoo is one of the most touristed areas in Finland. It has an old town with cobblestone streets and mostly wooden homes from the 18th and early 19th century. It has the feel of an American colonial town. It is small and only takes an hour to see. I use up the remainder of my time at an all you can eat Thai restaurant. This is the first filling meal I have had in a long time.

On the boat back, several of us are getting some sun when a big cloud rolls ...

... myself inside as I wrench open the next door. This was positively sedate - a push of a button and everything opened as if by magic. The doors in the museum here are even worse - you just walk up to them, and *poof* they open. Getting on trams, you have to go through the whole 'push the button' routine, and it's very confusing. The trams themselves are so quiet compared to Russian ones that they seem to sneak up on you. They don't thunder down the ...

... s purposes. Somehow I managed to do it, though, without even throwing away any clothes, except my old beat-up shoes. I need some new kung fu slippers anyway. I need a lot of things.

Of course for my ‘re-entry into the real world’ I’m assuming that the weather will be good enough for the ferry to make the crossing, but looking at the sky on this the final morning, that may be overly optimistic. Oh, well ...

... I got that sorted. With the time off all sorted, I booked the flights to Helsinki (cost a bit more than the bargain I first found but still OK) and found a hostel to stay in. I decided that since I was going to watch hockey I should stay in a hostel located in the Olympic Stadium. How cool would that be? (it turned out to be excellent) I left Edinburgh on April 11 and after transferring in Heathrow Airport, I was in Helsinki, the capital ...

... forked out a few Euros and got onto the internet and brought up the e-mail I had received with the booking details on it. Unfortunately whilst I was doing this a bus load of Russian tourists turned up and spent the next three quarters of an hour arguing with the receptionist, then, as a result, the last room in the hostel was given away to them. Our patience was holding on by the last thread. Fortunately for us the kind receptionist was happy to ring around other ...

As the world's longest day one of any holiday ever drags on, with a further 8 hour flight and then a whole afternoon in Osaka still to come, we find ourselves in Helsinki where, for the past six hours, it's felt like a marginally slow six episodes of Keifer Sutherland comedy 24. Traipsing from town hall, to docks, to cathedral, to American themed diner, we've seen pretty much the entire right hand side of Helsinki. Although I guess that ...

... a few theories. According to one, it came from the Vikings living in Sweden a few centuries ago. The Vikings at this time raided their neighbors habitually. When they came to Finland, they were perplexed to find that there were hardly any men around, only women. The men were out hunting and gathering, as the local people had lived for centuries. But they left the villages to be run day-to-day by the women. The Vikings began calling this place Kven-land, "kven" meaning "woman ...

... Again I had to play the entire game both ways and it is really starting to wear on my body, especially my arms and shoulders. I am only about 255 lbs. right now, so I have to struggle to not get pushed back against some of the bigger guys in the league. I also had to long-snap this game, and luckily I didn't botch the game-winning field goal snap. The funniest thing I think about the amount I've been playing is that I am 2nd in the league in sacks, and leading the league in ...

... economy seems to be obvious in all areas - we saw grain terminals, huge thermo electricity factories manufacturing steam to warm new housing developments, expensive real estate and "datchas" which are the summer houses that people have out in the country. The word means gift in Russian and came from the old practice of Tsars giving landed to the favoured. There were illegal migrants working in the construction business from the "Stan ...

... It did not seem like an island as the road network was so good. On arrival at Krista's parent house we were met with a glass of champagne and stood around nattering and enjoying the sunshine. Dale and Krista were lucky as it was a beautiful day and they were able to be married on the rocks next to the sea. After the milling around and being introduced to everyone we went down to the beach and their the local minister(ess?) blessed Dale and Krista's ...