friday 29: Stockholm-Mariehamn-Helsinki

Happy birthday Ben and Betty Lou! :-)

We’re on a real slow boat to Helsinki now, just as Doug Sahm sings (or used to sing) and right now we’re docked in the harbour of Mariehamn, a big island between Stockholm and Helsinki and I think its cool to finally see it cos normally we arrive here in the middle of the night. (does it really excist?? Yes!) We’re sitting in the pub listening to a guy named Steve Webb singing he is pretty good.

We arrived in Stockholm around noon, everything went well, and I felt so happy to be back!! We had to find out first where we had to check in, then parked the car and went for a walk on Södermalm, one of the island that Stockholm excists of. Bought some food and a little shop had a big sign on the window “liquorice from Iceland and Holland!!” I couldn’t care less about the dutch liquorice but Iceland; yes, they had my favourite!

We had an icecream and walked around a bit more, I noticed there’s a lot of very hip people here, but I think I’m out of Amsterdam for too long already, maybe I turned into a girl from the country :-)

Around 15.00 we were able to get onboard of the Mariella, and thanks to Robert’s good booking deal, we have quite a nice cabin. Its very small, but it has a sofa that turns into a bed so we can sit a bit, and a table and bathroom, just all we need. Too bad it doesn’t have a window for fresh air.

We went to sleep straight away, but woke up when the safety instructions were announced through our radio (in 3 languages) I slept a bit later, but the lack of fresh air woke me up and found out Robert hasn’t been sleeping at all.

We explored the ship a bit and already there’s people running around half naked and drunk :-D There are pubs and a club here and it’s a bit weird/funny to see all those teens going crazy like they’re on their first date out/clubbing in a fancy town in stead of on a ferryboat.

Tomorrow Fogerty!! We both don’t realise it, but the mood will be there as soon as we meet Anne and her parents and Alessio! Weather forecast isn’t that good, it might even rain L

So after tomorrow I have more to share here and probably less time to put it here, but I will go online when I can!

Apologizes for any typo’s or weird words, didn’t have much sleep… (yes yes, will go back to bed in a few moments!)

day one: Hasselt-Stockholm

28 juni:

Hasselt-Stockholm, Sweden.

On the road again!!

Fun didn’t last long, within 1,5 hrs, we were stuck in some crazy trafficjam. I was just getting bored, when all of a sudden a trucker drove up to us, honked, and told me in sign language that we had a “flat tire on the back” Huh, flat tire?? When we stopped again, Robert quickly got out, and came back half in panic “omg the tire is almost empty” AAAARGH!!!

We didn’t know what to do (and stuck in traffic on highway) and then I was so smart to look for garages on the gps, and we left the highway asap, and carefully drove to the nearest garage. Not fun driving with a flat tire, and behind us was some ASSHOLE honking and honking that we had to move, while we were driving with all the blinking lights on! (and no space to pull over anywhere)

When we pulled over at the garage, we got out to take a look again (flat as a pancake) and there was a huge nail sticking out. So at that moment we were just glad that we were able to make it here, and that it happened in traffic jam, and not in fullspeed on that german highway!

Mechanics were very friendly, though they probably added “tourist tax” but hey, we were super glad that they had the right tire AND that they were still open, it was already 4 o’clock.

One hour later, back on the road again. When we came near the highway we saw traffic was still not moving, but we made a detour to the next entrance and the highway was open there. Only 3 hrs delay, and we were only 150 kms away from home with still 1600 to go :-)  (we can laugh at it now but not really at that moment)

Rest of Germany went faster. I had made a delicoious take away meal, with salad, good sandwiches and veggie snacks, but it was still standing in the fridge at home, sigh… but as it turned out, our GPS has a supermarket function too :-D !!!! That’s all we need!! LOL took the next exit and bought some stuff.

We were getting very tired (not enough sleep last night) I tried to take a nap but that didn’t work until I laid down on the backseat, between the sleeping bags and matrasses. Did I already mention our car is already stuffed and we need room for two more + luggage + big tent?!

Napping away I missed entering Denmark, but woke up for the ubercool Store Belt bridge (probably spelt it wrong) what is about 20kms long. Tried to find a toilet/gasstation but the roadsigns were a bit weird (to us) so we missed them all, and when we finally could drive off, there was only a toilet that needed 2 crown coins and I don’t have Danish crowns :-/

Yes, we’re gonna need 4 different types of money here, only in Finland they have euro’s. We stopped a few times to take a quick nap at gasstationparkings.

Anywayyy… I was napping when entering Sweden too (via the oresunds bridge, we avoided both ferries we usually take to get here, cos this is a bit cheaper) but at least now I feel a bit better! And it feels good to be back in Sweden again! Always a special place in my heart. We just saw a stunning sunrise, at 04.30 hrs J (one hour earlier, it was pretty light already)

For the Ikea fans: we just passed the town of Klippan, and we’re singing along LOUD with BRR1 now. The highway to Stockholm is almost empty, I mean even EMPTY right now.

Robert listened to the soccermatch germany-italy when we were still in Germany, funny to hear, I think Germany lost, Robert turned the radio off when it was 2-0 because I was sleeping, but it might just be that Germany won with 3-2 hehe.