What is it with these countries? where are all the stickers??

We’ve been looking for 7 days and 5 countries and just can’t find any. We found a shop this morning that sells plastic dogs, 50cc mopeds and wine making equipment but no stickers. We were hoping to plaster the car in them but it’s not proving easy. I guess stickers (the national flag, symbol, country code type) just ain’t cool up here. We finally managed to get a shinny ‘FIN’ sticker this afternoon with the help of our hosts but still…

Anyway, we’re still having a lot of fun in this pine-tree wonderland. We’ve been having a picnic with Krista in Jyväskylä, laughing at a chubby kid in the internet cafe who was devouring 4 large energy dinks and making funny noises, being baffled by strange toilet things (see picture) and drinking ‘bear’ with a bar man from the 80’s …and that’s just in the last 24 hours! We even slipped a real Finnish Sauna in for good measure. Also, in an attempt to stop myself from becoming completely car-shaped – I’ve even been jogging twice. Once along a Swedish river where I got attacked my a Goose and once through the Finnish forrests where I got lost. Luckily, I survived both and still have enough energy to write this rambling update.

We’re now in Lappeenranta on the south-east frontier of Finland and the north-west frontier of Russia and we’ve been hosted by the kind & friendly Jaana and Toni. We explored town this afternoon, saw the biggest sand castle ever (a whole wild west town) and let Toni joy-ride us to the supermarket in Ralph, the car. The drive here from Jyväskylä was short(ish) about 4 hours and we stopped on-route for tea, pasta and canned Moose meat.

If all goes well we’ll be leaving europa tomorrow and (if they let us in) we’ll be dancing with the big, red, Russian bear tomorrow in St Petersburg. We’re on schedule so hope to spend as long as possible in Russia soaking up slavic hospitality and being confused by cyrillic symbols.

In good BBC fashion, we’ll keep you posted with news as it unfolds…

Hei Hei (bye bye (for now(can you put brackets like this?)))

Ian (typing this) and Pete (drinking a Marskalkka beer).

PS. Did you know that…
> Unless you were born in Finland, 78% of Finnish words are impossible to pronounce
> 22% of finnish words have over 60 double letters and 33 syllables
> In 2007 2671 English people died trying to read or speak Finnish

PPS. Despite my repeadted warnings to remove it and offer of a truce, Pete has chosen to turn this page into ugly photo warfare. He’s done it to himself. So, I leave you with the following…

I say no more

Idiots

This holiday is turning out to be one big wig-fest

Can you work out what it is? We think we’ve worked it out. See if you can guess

Wey-hey a finally a sticker!

Loose Moose

Picnic ontop of Finland

Superb days driving yesterday through fantastic lake filled forests en route to umea. We stopped regularly and swam in the lakes when it took our fancy. We picked up a hitcher called Hannah who told up lots about her glorious nation. upon arrival in umea we tidied the car before turning it into our bed for the night. It was dusk at 11 and by 12 it was dawn again. Zero hours of darkness! Currently on the ferry to vaasa. time to blog and relax before a might out in finland. Thanks for the messages do keep them coming. Pete and ian.

We’ve seen a lot of this and to be honest, I’d be happy to see a lot more of it. Scandinvia is undeniably pretty.

…and you can stop almost anywhere for a swim…

…and the towns are so pretty…