Finnland – full of finns

So this post finds me in a the world sucks mood, I seem to have somehow managed to loose my phone this morning, and am obviously somewhat pissed off about it. Have had an iPhone since about 7 years, have never lost one, this one was already an old iPhone 6, was thinking about picking up a new one this year, and now have no phone. No idea how it happened, had a phone, got in the car and sometime later discovered now do not have a phone. We actually stayed in a youth hostal last night, which was brilliant, actual beds, warm room, and breakfast which was impressive, have called them a couple of times today and unfortunately no phone found. Terrible timing too, as new phone won’t be around until September or later and have not got one now, will have to see what I can do about picking up an old one when back in Hamburg.

But life sucks and continues anyway, drove away from the North Cape today, after a repeated great breakfast, kept driving and hurrah discovered a museum about the Sami people here, about the size of a small Penny market, with an entrance fee of 11 euros, the culture experts of the team went in, the rest wandered off to look at some houses they built next to the museum for free, and that wasn’t even true as there was a notice that one house had been built 75 kms away, anyway short form, seen one wooden hut, you don’t need to visit here.

Kept driving and suddenly we were in Finland, everything going to plan, weather better, seriously a lot warmer, roads amazingly straight, countryside slightly different. Stopped at a supermarket, discovered again, that shopping with 4 people is a recipe for disaster, everyone wants something different, and no-one ends up happy. In future we should split the shopping, one day go two, the next day go two, this way you will always only have half the team unhappy at one time. Also discovered that as opposed to be being finally early somewhere for a change, we were not, as we have just lost an hour due to time zones.

Carried on to meet the Sahneschlitten team we have spoken to the couple of days, who are entertaining, at a campsite near the Russian border, we are now only about 25kms away. Met them and some other teams, as todays task was to burn a piece of wood we had been given with as many teams as possible, we managed 11, some of them were questionable, but had at least brought beer with them, which was good as we are running out. Grilled, guacamole, asparagus, chicken, and ate.

Then finally with the sun still out, it was time to go fishing, short form, we are totally rubbish at fishing.

Long form it was very entertaining, we started fishing directly in front of a hut, which turned out to be a sauna, with people in who were very very unimpressed and told us to sod off. Then went and started in front of a caravan, which also was not ideal, moved up the bank (a technical term for the ground next to the river) and found a bit of space. At least one of the other team had fished before, which meant we had 100% more expertise than before, tried using as bait some crap dried fish, which we all hating and were trying to get rid of, then read the instructions in a box of angler stuff we got lent, and tried using bread. Due to our now new found expertise, got the second fishing rod and attached some sort of spinning hook thing, spent a couple of hours in the sound watching people through things in the water and making sarcastic comments, fishing as a team sport is very entertaining. Another camper, not part of the rally gave some tips, and found it so amusing, went and got a beer and a chair to watch. Sometime later, no alcohol, nothing left to smoke, and not surprisingly no fish, we gave up. From the general talk on the way back, I suspect none of us is going to take this up as a new hobby.

Now late, still light, no longer sunny, and getting cold again, time to stop.
Tomorrow is Russia!