Tonight I am in Tampere, spending my only my second, out of the last eight, night in a bed. Also, as of yesterday when I got off the train, I had spend significantly more time traveling than actually being in places. So it will be nice to spend some time in Stockholm. And tomorrow I'm going to Moominvalley! Apparently it is unseasonably cold here, but I do not understand how people live in this country. I think I would have to become migratory.

It is raining in Helsinki so I am hiding out in the tourist office, using free internet on a superbly disfunctional computer. I have counted that my total country count will be 20 after this trip, or 21 if I decide to go to Tallinn when I'm back in Helsinki on Saturday (but I would like some time to explore here when it is nice). The ferry over was quite nice, with beautiful views of Sweden's coast and a room dedicated for deck passengers sleeping. Now I've left my pack in a locker and will take an overnight train (12hrs after an 18hr ferry ride) to Rovaniemi, a city 8km south of the arctic circle (and Santa's village). It will be cold there (I had to convert to celsius to rember what 52 degrees felt like) but less rainy, I think. If I were coming a month earlier, it would be light all the time, a month later and I would be able to see the northern lights.

p.s. People aren't joking about this whole scandanavia being expensive. The cheapest (filter) coffee I can find in Helsinki is 2 euros.

Some highlights of my past two weeks, since I haven't been updating with details:
-Took the train jaune into the Pyrenees
-World Petanque championships
-Crazy local goat's milk curd/ cheese
-An awesome art exhibit inspired by Rabelais all over Montpellier
-2 euro jeans
-24 hours of straight trains
-The world's largest cukoo clock
-Karl Marx's birth house
-Two new countires: Luxembourg and DENMARK (and Sweden tomorrow)
-Seeing my first 7-11 in almost a year (because there are a ton here)
-The world's smallest coffeeshop
-Five+ hours in an art museum with a design inspired by Dante's Inferno
-Lots and lots of cool people and new friends

I'm leaving Copenhagen today, heading to Aarhus in the Northwest. Its pretty rainy and cold, and I discovered my raincoat doesn't function anymore, so that sucks a little bit, but other than that I was pretty much in love with this city. For example, this morning I went to the world's smallest coffee shop (with 5 seats, and about the size of a large walk in closet). I also met some really cool people in my hostel, and now have a person I can stay with if I ever come back here (a Norwegian starting university) and potentially someone to take me around Oslo.

p.s. my rail pass is for 30 days

I don't have time to type up any journal entries, but I just wanted to say that after 24 consecutive hours of train travel, I arrived in Freiburg, the cutest little German town. Yesterday I saw the world's biggest cukoo clock. Now I am Trier, Germany's oldest city and the birthplace of Karl Marx. Tomorrow I am going to Luxembourg and then taking an overnight train to Copenhagen. Cool!

I don't really feel like typing up any of my journal entries, but I'm in Montpellier now, after spending a couple of days with Sara in Millau. Tomorrow I'm heading to Nimes, and then after that I'm heading towards Copenhagen via Germany. I have my rail pass, after much struggling, so now I'm all set to go.

Bayonne/ Anglet, Tarbes/ Cauterets

Wednesday, 6 August (Bayonne, Anglet)

I'm in a really bad mood and I don't even really know why. I think pqrtly its self-fulfining missing Spain--I actually felt a wave of relief when I got back into France, but now I'm super annoyed by French + French people + the French way of doing things, including that there are no lockers at the train station, chich meant I had to haul my bag around... There's not even a park where I can lie in the shade + I was in too bad of a mood [after dropping my stuff off in the hostel in Anglet] to go back into Bayonne... Also, people here drive too fast...

[later]

My mood has gotten magically better, mostly because I discovered that I'm still getting CAF, which means I should have 560 euros more to spend on this trip. I don't know why, but I'm much less comfortable in this hostel than I have been in any of the others I've been to. I think all of the others ... had good communal spaces to hang out in... Plus, I find it much hqrder to start making small talk with French people, I think because they don't really do it that much and also I feel awkward starting conversations in French when I have such an obvious accent. I guess that was actually less of a problem outside of France; because then me and the French person are equally tourists.



Thursday, 7 August (Bayonne)

Better mood today, even though its rainy and supposed to be rainy tomorrow. I don' t know what I was expecting from basque country-maybe all of the tiny villages I slept through-but I don't think this wad it. I did get to learn more about the language at the museum, which was in general pretty cool, but didn't have as much history as I would have liked... Bayone is also known for its chocolat, so I got myself some of that.



Friday, 8 August (Tarbes + Cauterets)

It is so amazingly beautiful here. I got up at 7, caught and 8:30 train to Tarbes then a 9:30 bus to Cauterets. It was already worth it for the views on the bus ride. Then I got a 12pm shuttle up the hill a bit (after buying groceries and figuring out what I wanted to do), hiked past 6 waterfalls, then got to the Pont d'espagne. After that it was another 40 minute hike to this lake, from which you can see the highest peak in the French pyrenees. I saw it a bit before the clouds came in. There are a ton of people here because the lake is so accessible (you can do it walking all of 10 minutes on a paved road) but it is still totally worth it. I am also really impressed that I'm doing this myself, getting out of places that are easy to go to and really seeing things. When else in my life will I get a chance to do this?


This is the lake I went to!