Allicia and I are still having a wonderful time, and better yet still getting along! ;) We realize it has been a while since we have written, but we have had a bad run of hostels charging for dodgy internet. The last we heard from us we think was in the British Isles and now we have been through Scandanavia!
We flew from London to Helsinki to validate our eurorail in a convienient corner of the nation. We had a few setbacks in Helsinki; Jeff got quite sick with a flu of some sorts and had to go to a doctor and get some meds. However, it was quick and not too expensive, and it should be covered by our travel insurance. He is doing much better now, but both of us have been fighting colds for awhile and miss our mommies:) Also, we found out that we are only allowed to stay in the Shengen Countries (Mostly the EU) for 90 days without a Visa. We hadn't actually activated our three month rail passes at that point, so we may run out of time on our passports before we run out of time on our pass! We'd only loose a few days though, but it might make it harder to find a cheap flight back to the states if it has to be out of a non EU country and closer to the holiday season.
All told, Helsinki was a very enjoyable city. The buildings themselves were not as stunning as some others we have seen, but the llifestyle seemed so much more enjoyable. People seemed to live simple lieves, drove slowly, and seemed to find happiness in simple things like watching soccer games.
We took a day trip via speed ferry to the city of Tallin in Estonia, which was breathtaking. It was a quaint old town that had not seemed to change much over the years. Beautiful structues and fun shops including Europes oldest pharmacy (featuring ailments such as viper venom and dried toad) and lots of marzapan goodies(which originated in Tallin).
We ferrried back to Helsinki which made us very green. The next day, we took another ferry to Stockholm which made us very happy because it was only 65 euro for the two of us for our own room and the ferry turned out to be more like a cruise! Some of our favorites of stockholm incuded "The Vasa"-the world's best preserved Viking ship. It was built in the 17th century and sunk just outside the harbor on the first day it set out and was forgotten for 300 years and restored in the 80s. We also enjoyed and enxcellent Salvador Dali exhibit.
We couldn't find affordable accomodations for the rest of the weekend, so we decided to tour Sweden instead. We hopped on a night train that took us North almost to the arctic circle, spent a few hours touring the city of Boden, and then hopped on anoher night train back down to Oslo, Norway.
Sleeping on the trains has been a different adventure every time. Our first time we ended up having a 6 person couchette to ourselves. The next night, there were only 2 seats available in a compartment for people to travel with their cats and dogs. We tried sleeping that night sitting up with two different dogs and their owners. Jeff got along surprisingly well. We just never know what's ahead.
In Oslo, we spent a while in a sculpture park called Frogner park, and toured an Edward Munch Museum. We also found out that Oslo's reputation as the most expensive city in Europe is well deserved, and decided to leave while we could.
From Oslo we trained to Bergen, which was a beautiful route through the Norwegian countryside. We also stopped halfway and took a boat tour of the fjords at Flam. Then we took a night train to Gothenburg, which was a very pretty city. We walked their old town, climbed a tower to get a view of the city, and ate fresh shrimp off the docks.
We then took off for Copenhagen. It was a big and beautiful city, and its wealth had been spread across many buildings in the city. There were bicycles everywhere! Old people and young people alike were zipping boldly along the streets on generally derilect bicycles. Allicia and I used a very neat bike rental system in which we unlocked bikes with a deposit of about $4.00, rode them all over town, and then returned them to get our deposit back. How cool is that!
Finally, we took another night train to Amsterdam, which is where we are now. One of the most moving parts of our travels so far was to walk through Anne Frank's house. Amsterdam is an amazing city built on a huge network of manmade canals. There are even fewer private cars than there were in Copenhagen whcih is to say that one simply does not see them often. People bike everywhere, and that failing they ride the trams which run all over the city, and on electricity. As a result the city is devoid of both pollution and fat people. This is despite the fact that a person can buy at Burger King a burger, fries, and drink for only 1.99 Euro (under $3.00)! The city is, in accordance with its American reputation, very soft of prostitution, marijuana, and muchroom usage. However, we did not know the reason for this until we got here. These poeple are such hard-core capitalists as to make the U.S.A. look like the U.S.S.R.! They allow all forms of commerce because they all gnerate revenues, exhibiting an almost literal form of Laze-faire (sp) economics. They charge for everything here. If you want a condiment for your french fries, it cost you, and that condiment is more likely to be mayonaise than ketchup :p
We are having a grand time widening our cultural scopes, trying out new foods and new ideas. Strangely, we've been largely unable to broaden our taste in music because, as of yet, everywhere we have been seems to listen American rock!
We love you all! Photos to come later.
Jeff and Allicia
Haggis and Iron Brew; now we're really getting Scottish!
The city of York
Yorkminster Abbey
