Oh yeah... Where is Christons?

Well he's in Vilnius, Lithuania today but he will be leaving very early in the morning to go to Minsk in Belarus.

So what happened to Finland, Estonia and Latvia? Well, basically I passed through them so quickly I barely had chance to see them. My boat from Stockholm took me to Turku on the south west coast of Finland where I took a nice 2 hour train ride into Helsinki. Eliel Saarinen's classic central station building was stunning yet you'll have to take my word for it as it looks like the photos are gone for good :-( The city itself was like a ghost town as the midsummer holiday had led most locals out into the country for the festivities. My hostel was OK but as it was run by Sodexho so I wasn't too impressed with the free breakfast. After a good look around the city for some of Alvaar Aalto's buildings I spent some time catching up on all things online in a few of the free hotspots around the city. With good architecture and free Internet I quite liked Helksinki but with my stupidly agressive schedule, I had little time to enjoy much more apart from the incredible Lutheran cathedral near the harbour.

The next day I took the superseacat on its 100 minute voyage to Estonia where the scenery changes completely into what is quite rightly regarded as the best preserved old town anywhere in Europe. There was lots of activity in the hostel as it was one of the girl's birthday night and so we partied until dawn leaving the next day for recovery. Boy did we need it. Nobody could function properly and so we had little choice but to get back on it later on that afternoon ;-) On Monday morning I took the slow bus to Riga where I'd finally get a few days to myself.