Scandinavia

Scandinavia in late October is cold, as you might imagine, but overall we were very lucky with the weather. The weather hovered right around freezing for our time there, but with minimal wind, it wasn't unpleasant.

Toompa, above Old town, Tallinn

To start the trip, I flew to Helsinki and tried catching a night ferry across the Baltic Sea to Estonia. Unfortunately, my flight was well over an hour late due to the strikes happening in France, so I ended up getting a later start in Estonia than I had planned.

I made it to Estonia just after noon on Thursday. The capital city Tallinn, has two historic sections: Toompa, located on a cliff and the favorite haunt of the German and Scandinavian professionals, tradesmen, and settlers back in the day; and, separately, Old Town, which is between the harbor and Toompa. Old Town is where the local Estonians lived and worked.

Old Town, Tallinn, Estonia

Both areas were really interesting, but I especially liked Old Town. It looks pretty much what you think the towns in fairy tales look like, including their cylindrical towers with conical roofs. Old Town looks much as it did in 1540, when it was decreed that all new buildings be made of stone in order to prevent fire. Wandering the cobblestone streets made for a good day and a half.

City Wall, Tallinn

Estonia will be joining the European Union on 1 January 2011, which they seem to be happy about, but their recent past was pretty rough. They were basically abused by both the Nazis and Communists beginning in the 1930s, which is something I didn't know before my trip there. In the city museum there was an old curator who told me quite a bit about life during the Cold War when Estonia was a Soviet satellite.

Although much of what he spoke about was tragic, he also told me of how Estonia played an interesting role in the final downfall of the Soviet Union. The people decided that they had had enough abuse and began a "singing revolution." Beginning in 1987, Estonians began gathering around the country to sing folk songs (which the Soviets made illegal) and call for independence. After years of progressively larger protests, the Russians tried to stop the revolution and sent in tanks, but the people blocked their paths by putting boulders in the roads leading into the city. The Soviets were unable stop the revolution and it showed how weak the Soviet Union had become. Estonia declared its independence and the Soviet Union collapsed a few months later. While there were much larger issues at play and the Estonians were only a small part, singing is certainly a pretty unique contribution to the dissolution of a failed system.

After two days in Estonia, I took the boat back to Finland in order to meet Kate in Helsinki, which was a nice city. We rented a small apartment for the weekend (full kitchen!) and did a lot of walking around and visiting museums. Finland was interesting in that it became part of Sweden due to war, then in 1809 a Grand Duchy of Russia due to war, and achieved independence in 1917. They were able to maintain independence throughout both world wars.

Looking across the harbor in Helsinki

5,000 year old stone axes, Helsinki.

After Helsinki, we flew to Norway to visit our friend Lewis in Oslo (I met him in New Zealand in 2009. We went car camping). We had planned to rent a car and do some car camping near the fjords. As it turns out, Norway is painfully expensive. Quite possibly the most expensive place on earth. The quote I got to rent a car for two days was about $450. That was for a two door economy car. Basically, if I needed to rent a car for two weeks in Norway, it would literally be cheaper to buy a used car and take a ferry across the North Sea.

Lewis

I feel a bit bad of talking so much about money, but I couldn't get over the prices. Would you like a cup of tea at a cafe? That'll run you $7. How about a tiny frozen pizza from the grocery store? Yeah, $11. A small jar of store brand spaghetti sauce? On sale for $5! (woot). Do you like cheese? Then I hope you like shelling out $20-50 for a pound of it.

Seeing the sites was painful as well. Lewis was kind enough to track down two bike cards for us (more on that later), but to even go to something as simple as the universities geological museum (it rocks.), it was $14 per person. Yes, we spent that much to see rocks. Well, $14 total. The guy at the front desk felt bad that Norway was so expensive and he gave us a 50% discount.

Stave church in Oslo. One of the oldest wooden structures in the world.

While in Oslo, since we didn't end up leaving, we did a lot of hanging out and riding bikes around the city. One thing both Oslo and Stockholm had was a system where you could get a bicycle from a stand, ride it anywhere in the city, and drop it off at another stand. It was all swipe card and electronic locks. It made seeing the city a lot of fun. The cities are also made to handle bike traffic, so you aren't as worried about getting smoked by an errant truck. At any rate, we used those bikes a lot and really enjoyed how convenient they were.

Riding bikes to the palace, Oslo

After 4 days in Oslo, we spent our last day and a half in Stockholm. I have to say, I had the most fun in Oslo, but I think Stockholm was the most beautiful city. It had a lot of great architecture and a really cool layout. With limited budgets, we did a lot of walking around and went to one museum for an afternoon. The museum, called Skansen (the worlds first open air museum), had a lot of neat displays and had historical actors in the town, which was set in the 1830s. We watched some glass blowing (nice and warm in that shop...) and made our way through the displays of traditional housing and other exhibits.

Quiet street in Stockholm. The metal bars on the wall show the age of the building. The ones on the orange building show that it was built in 1740.

The view from our boat cabin in Stockholm

Fast fact: Sweden has a big tobacco culture and almost everyone had city gardens back in the day to grow their own.

Fast fact: Sweden used to control the whole of Scandinavia.

Fast fact: the Stockholm Archipelago is made up of over 24,000 islands.

Seasonal houses in Scandinavia were built on stilts because of the deep winter snow and to keep animals out.

Stockholm

On Friday, we returned to the UK. On the walk home from the train station, we stopped by the grocery store and stocked up on the things that we had been missing out on, including multiple types of cheese, fine meats, and delicious milk. All in all, it was a really good trip and we had a fun time seeing the cities, but I'm ready to get back to prices that are more inline with my salary.

On the bright side, I did get to reminisce about the good old days and revisit some meals and recipes that I hadn't enjoyed since college. All the same, I think I am all set on sauceless, butterless spaghetti and hot dogs for a while.