We got up at eight and were by the Battery Park by nine thirtyish. You guess right, today was the time to do the boring sightseeing that all the tourists do. We had tickets for the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island cruise and went through the inspection (as tough as any airport customs) to get to the ferry in no time. It surely was not the best weather to see the symbol of freedom, but tomorrow it’s promised to rain, so cloudy Liberty pictures it was.

We decided to skip the statue itself, since there’s not exactly much to do there on the Liberty Island and just went straight to Ellis Island instead. This turned out to be a great move – Ellis Island has loads of history to see and we had very detailed audio guides once again to help us. I have come to appreciate Audio guides on this trip. They are really good for the museums as well as the visitors for several reasons: 1) You don’t need a tour guide who is yelling at a tourist group, 2) you can move along at your own phase and 3) you can skip things that might be boring to you, or 4) you can hear more about things that are actually interesting. 5) You don’t have to read, you can concentrate on the atmosphere and area and 6) If you are a museum, you can fit so much more detail, story and drama into the audio guides than you ever could to some wall texts that people don’t stop by to read anyways. Overall, whoever thought of audio guides was genious.

Ellis Island served as the immigration port for years and years of people immigrating to America. And of course, there was a lot of people. They were inspected in Ellis Island, to be fit to the society with their physical and mental health. If you were suspected to have a mental disease, you’d be marked with an ‘X’ on your jacket. If you had tuberculosis with ‘T’ and so on. The island also was a hospital to those who might get well and be fit to the society.

Looking at the exhibitions, I was surprised to realize how bad the life must have been in Europe, specially for those whose religion was not accepted. America served as the safe haven, the place where you are ‘free’ even if you do work 14 hour days, or even if you need to work as a child. Even now, sitting on the subway, it’s clear that this country is a melting pot of all the races together. No wonder they have issues!

I was touched by the gallery of ‘what did you bring with you’? The audio guide asks you, what would you bring if you only could bring a suitcase filled with things. Now a days it’s a very different matter, I feel. Memories and entertainment doesn’t have to take space. Clothes to me a quite irrelevant, as long as I’m warm or cool enough – it doesn’t matter. I bring my life on three different hard drives. All copies of themselves. All texts, all emails, all the pictures. Or better yet, access to internet gives me much more access to memories than any of these men and women immigrating had. Somehow seems more simple back then. At least they knew where the limits of the world laid.

It’s an interesting thought that America was something so much better than Europe. I’ve had Americans telling me on this trip that they should get out in the next ten years because it’s all going down hill. Who knows if that’s the way of the world. Perhaps our children will visit it with very different eyes. The current depression really shows on the streets with goods been sold in the internet more than anywhere. Unlike some, I don’t believe the postal services have come to their ends – I think shipping is a fair cost in today’s world. The Airlines are really pushing anything that isn’t the flight cost – as extra. Your luggage will cost. It’s still possibly cheaper than shipping, but for how long? I have faith in living in Europe for now. If there is one thing I’ve learned on this trip, it’s that I know where my home is and I’m pleased with it. Give me a couple of decades and I might even develop some patriotism…

We had some time after Ellis Island, so we took number 1 to 50^th street trying to get to the empire state building… Instead we stumbled onto Times Square. It was a slightly sad sight after the Virgin Megastore had closed. There was nothing I desperately wanted to shop – actually I’ve had that kind of feeling for two days now. New York crap is what you can buy anywhere in the world, so it doesn’t seem to attract me at all. Could also be that all that I’ve seen and bought on this trip has been so much more interesting… Or perhaps I’m simply tired of shopping. I certainly wouldn’t want a plastic statue of Liberty to my shelf.

It’s a great feeling to see that perhaps going home isn’t such a bad thing, I certainly have started to feel road-weary for a while now. Only one more day to go and then we are flying to London.

Day 46

After hopping onto the tram from Carl Street to downtown, I decided it was a good idea to get coffee. We stopped at a takeaway shop in the tram tunnel of Embarcadero. This was probably the worst coffee experience I ever had. I ordered two regulars with milk, but never received them… After fifteen minutes of standing by, I went to ask for them and got a surprised woman, who had seen me stand there for fifteen minutes without the coffee which she happily had taken money from. The coffee tasted really awful and I spilled it when walking around the harbor. Not the best morning ever.

At Pier 33, I realized that our tickets were for Friday and not Thursday, which didn’t really improve my day. I was convinced that we couldn’t get on, since they seemed to be very strict that the next ferry free was the next day. However the woman at the counter was nice enough to change the tickets for a half-an-hour later than the one we should have taken, so we only missed a little time.

It was a great mist in the crispy California air that morning, even with a sun shining through it. Once we were on board the ferry, we couldn’t see infront of us… While we were on the ferry back, two hours later though, we had brilliant visibility. That’s San Francisco weather for you.

Alcatraz is an island that has a long history, but of course it’s most famous for the thirty or so years when it served as the maximum security prison. It was also the only one of its kind back then in the time of Gangsters – 30’s to 60’s. The prison was determined at 1963 for being too expensive.

Visiting the prison is a spooky, but great experience. They have come up with an award-winning audio tour, which includes inmates talking of the time they served in Alcatraz, and they demonstrate and visualize the places where the most famous events happened. They show you where the Battle of Alcatraz started – where the inmates killed the guards, where the marines came in with hand grandees (see the holes in the floors) and where the three inmates climbed through the ventilation pipes to freedom.

Of course you’ve seen bunch of the films about this place, and at least the Sean Connery one… It’s great to stand there and feel how it must have been for these men… Alcatraz clearly was no way the place where you wanted to be. It must have been constantly cold and damp, with wind blowing through the bars, without the possibility to ever be warm. The prison was also built in a way that the inmates could see the city from their outdoors area – perhaps even hear the voices of the city. It must have been so close, yet so far.

They believe that no one ever successfully escaped the Rock. 36 prisoners were involved in 14 attempts, two men trying twice; 23 were caught, six were shot and killed during their escape, and three were lost at sea and never found. So technically, three of them might have survived, but the chances are minimal. It’s not only that the water around is so cold that it kills your body temperature in only five minutes, but there is also loads of sharks, so the chances were very small indeed. But who knows, if you are an optimist, you can always think they did escape.

After reaching San Francisco again, we took the historic tram to Embarcadero and then went back to the corner of Carl & Cole, to look for a post office. We’ve now posted out so many packages from this trip, that we’ve lost the count of them. Some are on airmail, some on sea mail, some on surface. It’ll be a treat to get them while the long winter evenings start flying by in Finland. Our quest of the mail lead us to the hippie movement area, in Height Ashbury, which even by San Francisco standards, is a free and flower power area even now. There is plenty of small shops to buy clothes (the most weirdest clothes you might ever want), books, dvds and whatnot.

Halloween is coming and in America they take that very seriously. There is at least one costume shop in every block. There are areas to carv pumpkins in. All the weird inflatable witches that you’ve seen in the tv-series… well, they are all true. Halloween is at least a two week event for Americans… We think we’ve inherited it in Finland, but it’s no way near as mad as in here. I mean, our houses are not covered in spider webs three weeks before the actual date on the 31^st of October. Luckily my husband and I will spend that night in a plane from Vancouver to New York, so there is no trick-or-treating threat… Or is there?

Day 44/63

My first San Francisco day begun by a lovely walk, up one of those hills that you’ve all seen on television… Fred took us for a tour with a view point over the whole town as well as the Golden Gate Bridge. His flat where we are staying is near the University of San Francisco, Medical campus, so we visited the hospital’s cafeteria, library and whatnot. I’ll say it again, Fred is an incredibly wonderful person and listened in very closely on me and Jonathan talk about Finland and history books that you can write in our smallish country, which doesn’t have one percent of San Francisco’s culture…

I then took the cable car or ‘Muni’ to the city, to Powell Street, where the old street cars go to turn. I was meeting my friend from Finland there. He is travelling around the world vice versa way in comparison to us and by a non-planned chance at all, we shared one day in the same city. So today I spent with him.

Now the weather broadcast said: Heavy rain. But the weather looked alright, so we decided to go ahead with our original plan and rent bikes to ride for the Golden Gate. We got down to the harbor, the ferry docs and had a small look around there. It’s an incredible place as it is… And had a small lunch catching up with our travel lives. We then made it slightly further on, only to discover a huge down pour which we waited out by someone’s garage door. There was actually so much rain that the sewers completely blocked out and then had to push through rain like Geysers coming up in the middle of the road. That’s not something you expect to see every day… We have waited out the rain many times before, since we used to play outdoors tennis since we were kids back in high school. Waiting this one out was mainly just fun.

On a quest to dry out our socks, we stumbled on what happened to be the Palace of Fine Arts, originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition. It’s like a huge Roman sight with pillars and lakes – a breath taking place to visit. Without the rain, we would have definitely missed it.

We decided not to give up, even though it rained for an hour. We reached the Golden Gate at 4:45pm or so and right then it pissed down rain again. There was a gift shop but the problem was that we didn’t think anything would have made it through the rain even if we’d make any purchases. After the bridge, it’s pretty much down hill to Sausalito, which was a relief… The signs and maps are not the best in the world. But we made it and were happy to catch our 5:45pm ferry back to the city. The timing could not have been better, it was magic hour and we saw not only pelicans but a seal swimming by as well. Not to mention great city views, Alcatraz views and even Golden gate views. I pretty much have pictures looking like I’ve seen most of San Francisco in one day only.

Slightly freezing, but happy, we returned the bikes to our rental shop in 4^th street, only 20 minutes to spear before closing. Despite of the rain, I recommend this to everyone. Biking is a great way to see any city, to get to places where most tourists won’t go, get some new angles for the pictures. Besides, they say it never rains in San Francisco. I am sure you have better luck than us.

Just in one day, I can say that San Francisco is one of my favorite cities in the world – it’s so gay that the rainbow IS the color of it (plus you can see actual rainbows along with the rainbow flags). The culture seems rich, the way the hills crumble seems unique to me and the people are very, very multieveything. Not only multisexual, but multicultural, multinational, happy to help. This is as well, a city I would happily live in.

14^th of October.

Woke up in 16 Murray Drive, Melbourne. We said our teary goodbyes to the Tomlin family who had looked after us for ten days like their own family. Australia is FAR away… But so is Finland if you look at it from here. Then we were picked up by older Tomlins who kindly gave us a ride to the airport. As it was once again pouring down rain, it was most appreciated. It’s somehow miraculous that someone on the other side of the world would do such a great favor to us, but sometimes the world amazes – there has clearly been that up in the air in the last two weeks.

I then decided to try and figure out how long our day was going to be, and more importantly, how long was our *flight* to Honolulu. After careful calculations, I came to the conclusion that the time difference is 21 hours, (or three, depends how you want to look at it) so our day was to last 45 hours. I doubt the day will ever be longer than this. We started from the future and went back to the past. You might think that no one noticed… What does it matter which day it is? But there you would be wrong. In the evening we realized that my husband’s credit card had been canceled, because he had made the suspicious purchase of buying supermarket dinner for us in Honolulu *before* he bought a jacket in Sydney… This is what happens when you do the day twice. Better to use cash, I am telling you.

After the long airport complications and flights from Melbourne to Sydney and Sydney to Honolulu, we arrived in the past at 9:30am, on the same day as we had left. This was my first entry to America, so I was expecting a whole good two hours of customs at least. Instead, we were through in ten minutes after the plane landed – which was amazing considering that we also had bought Kangaroo and Alligator Jerkey, which qualified as a meat product and needed to be declared. They laughed and thanked us for showing the items and we were through. Seriously the quickest immigration so far…

Our hotel is the Aqua Aloha Surf and Spa near Waikiki Beach, which I chose because it had complimentary internet in the room. We were blessed to get a room at 10:30am, after which we showered and head for lunch. It’s a good feeling to be back in the warm again, even if this is our last time on the trip… We managed to burn our noses through the sun cream, thanks to the ravaging sun that points almost directly at you.

We had Japanese for lunch and headed to see Waikiki Beach, after which we decided to walk to see the ‘Iolani Palace. This was the residence of Hawaii’s king and queen in the 19^th century and the only royal (monarch) residence in American soil apparently. Two monarchs governed from ‘Iolani Palace: King David Kalākaua and Queen Lili’uokalani. We took the self-audio tour around and it turned out to be really good and informative.

The King Kalākaua was a modern man and had travelled around the world (first monarch to do so) and collected modern items such as a flushing toilet and the telephone. There was even the electrical light installed into the Palace much before European equivalents. He ruled with his queen Kapiolani, but they had no children, so when the king fell ill and couldn’t get the remedy even from San Francisco, he died and left his sister, Princess Lili’uokalani in charge. The events on her time of power were quite contradictive, because a small group of influential men in court took her out of power and enprisoned her in one of the rooms of the Palace for eight months. This was done against the current President of United States as well, but unfortunately monarchy was never re-established in Hawaii. President Clinton did a public pardon for these events of the power taken from Queen Lili’uokalani without any legal right. This was a second museum that had a very guilt-driven story to tell. Perhaps the like that around the Pasific Ocean.

As far as what I think about Hawaii after the first day: It’s clear that Waikiki is a holiday resort for tourists, which we are not accustomed to see, but in anycase welcome the constant 7-11s and cheap food. When ordering food, or paying for services, one must remember around here that 15% is the current tip. It may look like things are cheap, but add tax and tip and they are suddenly expensive. It’s also a country built for private cars. I was actually surprised to find pavements to walk on in the centre of town. We are determined to survive without the hassle of renting a car, paying for the petrol and parking as well. Not to mention the stress of reading a map. So I think we’ll try some of the tours that the hotel offers for at least Pearl Harbor and the Polynesian Cultural Centre.

Day 29/63

It was pissing down from the sky all morning, so we decided to head for the museum of Sydney. History of Sydney is a very interesting, but partly sad story. Highlights include James Cook finding it and claiming it for the British after which they decided to send a bunch of ships to this land, far far away. The museum has a big whole section on mutiny on the Bounty, which is a story that I suppose everyone knows. Captain William Blight was in charge of the Bounty, not letting the convicts even speak to each others and treating them like factory workers. He was left in an open ship, sail away on the sea, which he somehow managed to navigate and was later on pardoned in Brittain on the loose of his ship the Bounty. He later became the governor of New South Wales, but he was not popular even then…

We listened on the stories from around that time in the shore, one of which stuck to my mind. It was a local, aboriginal woman’s story of nails. The men of these ships hadn’t seen women in months, so the locals traded two nails to some services in the bedroom. With the nail they could open a coconut, build a house or kill a man. All very useful functionalities. Better the nail, better the service, apparently.

After Sydney was established as a port, they soon started to build the bridge over the harbour and of course send goods to China, India and Europe. There is a whole section on the trams of Sydney. They used to have a big network of trams built after the war, but unfortunately as the cars started to become more popular, the network was dissolved and the trams were burned. Funnily enough, because of the global warming and more environmentally safe options of travelling being in fashion right now – they are planning to get a new tram network.

There is currently only a monorail, which is more like one circle line of a metro, going around in the air. It seems to be focusing on tourists, but markets itself as a fast and clean way to get to lunch as well… We took a ride around the harbor and centre, just to shield ourselves from the rain, really.

It was Saturday night, so we had tickets to the ‘Mikado’, which is a operette, a humoristic musical about the Japanese society, written in 1885 by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. As far as musicals go, it was alright, nothing really fancy, but of course part of the experience was that we got to see it in the Sydney Opera House. Lovely experience and you can really feel the Scandinavian influence in the Danish architecture. It’s very much like Opera/Theatre halls in Finland (from the inside)… But of course it’s one of a kind miracle from the outside.

I enjoyed Mikado, however, I think it’s a bit cruel towards the Japanese… I mean, whose name is “Yam-Yam”? And did they really come up with stupid rules like “if the man is executed, then the wife must be buried alive?” Perhaps. Musically, I didn’t think much of it, but visually it was good. Specially the entrance of Mikado and Katisha is a very massive and interesting. I would say: If in Sydney, one should really do the Opera. But see what is on – perhaps it’s something more exciting than this one.

Day 28/63

It was the day I bought socks. For the first time since leaving Finland about a month ago, I really felt like needing socks. The wonderfully sunny and warm Sydney turned into a cold and rainy place over night. Our mission was to see some of the downtown and head for the Chinatown. Our doodle took us first to the post office where we sea mailed 5 packages to Finland. Three months it takes apparently. I shall have many birthday presents in January then.

Sydney is built like London, the streets are similarly named, St.Mary’s cathedral looks like a copy of Westminister Abbey and the park along is called the Hyde park. There is a large fountain in the middle of it, a gift from the French for all the aid in WWII. So, like Hyde park, but green and fountainy. We walked past the park to the museum of Sydney.

The bottom layer of the museum is focusing on the aboriginals and the way the imperialists tortured them over the years. It’s a very guilt driven show with stories of the Dreaming and how they were forced into saying that it means the same as the Christian religion. The aboriginal children were also taken from their families to stop them from knowing anything about their religion and origins. The white people just assumed there was nothing spiritual going on *just because they couldn’t see any althars*… There is a mother with his son in the museum, trying to explain to him why the black men are in chains around their necks in the picture… He says to her: “Because they were bad!”, and she says: “No, no. They hadn’t done anything. We did that to them without a reason”. She me very proud to be white in the white world at that moment.

After the aboriginal Dreaming, we go back in time to the attic, where they have not only constructed massive skeletons of Dinosaurs, but also some fluffy predators of the Megafauna, great big extinct animals of Australia. The megafauna were the biggest and slowest animals in the environment. These kinds of animals were very vulnerable to hunting, but not to climate change… However, the extinction of megafauna was most extreme in places where humans arrived as already skilled hunters. Breathtaking monsters really… I am much more impressed with them than the dinosaurs. The latter ones you always wonder – did they actually make that skeleton out of the found bones or did they just put together some pieces of plastic.

We head for lunch in China town, or what we thought was the Chinatown. This is one of the best 20dollar lunches we’ve had. Later on we find the gates to the real Chinatown and stumble onto Paddy’s market, just down the Chinatown street. This market is pretty much like the tat shows in China, but without the constant hassle of ‘Looky-look’ and such yelling at us. This is why we are happy to spend perhaps two hours browsing the market. I bought myself some work clothes, an aboriginal top and painting, road signs as well as a dress to the opera. My husband bought four shirts. I call this good days work of shopping.

We popped into Kinokuniya, the big bookshop, only to discover that our friend who we were meeting for dinner, was there. It’s a small world even on the other side of the planet.

Day 22/63

Third day in Shanghai.

We decided to take it easy today, which for our standards means that we do more like a 7hour day than 10 hour day out of the hotel room comforts. This decision was based upon the fact that I seem to have made some of my muscles on the chest ache when I walk – I imagine this was due to at least five hour walks that we’ve now done for four weeks and possibly the 7-10kg of camera gear that I carry on my right shoulder. This is only a right side issue, so I can see a connection there. However, I really don’t want to be one of those broken tourists that can’t walk anywhere, so I am trying to have less walking and more doodling in museums and so on.

So our plan was to head underneath the construction site of Death, which is the Pund at the moment. There is a whole space-like tunnel that goes underneath the river Pu and takes you to the tourist attractions on the other side. Better yet, it’s about five minutes walk from our hotel. This is of course if you can get past the traffic of Death, which goes on the side of the construction site.

We first got to our bridge of choice only to find not one, but THREE wedding couples getting their pictures taken on the bridge with Shanghai behind them. It’s Saturday in China… Everyone wants to get married in hotels here, so this is why also there was a wedding going on in the breakfast room of our hotel when we came back in the evening.

After skipping our near deaths by following what we call ‘Mr. Carrier Bag’ (any local person who is crossing the road, probably knows what they are doing. If they are carrying a carrier bag, then they are probably locals as well, hence the name) over the Zebra crossings of Death, we got into the sightseeing tunnel. It’s quite a Science Fiction ride with flashy lights going around – my camera really loved that tunnel as you can see.

On the other side you find all kinds of attractions like the aquarium and the TV tower. We were not interested in any of those, but the museum which was at the bottom of the weird looking tower. This was the museum for the history of Shanghai. It was done in a form of miniatures and puppets, but like everything that the Chinese do – they had put some serious man power into it. Perhaps the best miniature/puppet museum that I’ve ever been to…Beatles museum had nothing going on in comparison to this one, sorry Liverpool! This certainly told the story of the city very well, made it even look much more interesting than it actually is.

I suppose the most significant turn in the history of Shanghai are the Opium wars in1839-1842 and 1856-1860. See, Her Majesty the Queen Victoria of Great Britain ruled the world back then and Britain had a problem. The British wanted Tea, which the Chinese had. British were exporting tat to India back then from Britain, and there was a flaw in their chain of exports – China didn’t want anything that the Indians would have had. However, Indians were producing a lot of Opium, which in the minds of a super power looked like: Let’s make the Chinese drug addicts, so that we can get our Tea… Sad but true.

After the Opium wars however, Shanghai opened up to the foreign influence and all of the powers back then got their own little shares of the city to live on. This is why this city is so much more foreign like built, specially the Pund area. Sadly I have to say, that I prefer areas of China and Japan, with lesser influence from the foreigners and more from the locals. I can get someone speaking English to me back home…

After the museum, we wondered around in a shopping mall filled with stores that you’d get back home in Europe. We had lunch with a view over the river and the Pund on the sixth floor and then listened to a rock band, which had not really gotten their sound-checks right before starting to play because their back-up went in the middle of a song, several times. The ground floor also had some men dressed as big pieces of President cheese, which was excitement to me, even though they seemed to just scare the children.

Back through the shuttle of lights lead us to the Nanjing road of tat once again and we were lured into one of the underground shopping stall-installments. Any label product of sun glasses, jeans, watches, bags and belts – you name it. And they’ll sell it to you really cheap. Are these fakes or are we just paying stupid prices in Europe – I have no idea. But I also have no problem of my husband paying a third of what a pair of Hugo Boss jeans cost in Europe, when they look exactly the same. I broke my 10euro sun glasses that I bought from Japan, so I bought a pair of 2euro Calvin Kleins… They perform the same function after all.

After some work back in the hotel room, we gathered ourselves and wandered on the North side of the hotel… The Chinese close their shops and restaurants by eight a clock, so if you want to eat out, you better be quick. We did surprise a local food establishment by turning up at 7:45pm, but they did give us enough food for four people for just 2,8euros (including 0,75litres of beer for each of us)… It was a purely functional and useful day in Shanghai. All we could ask for and more.

16th of September

Day 13/63

Today started well, my husband dragged me out of bed and we were on our way to Ishinomaki by nine. We stopped by at the station to pick up reserved seats for some of the shinkansens that we’ll be travelling on in the days to come. We’ve got two weeks of Japan rail passes, which cost us around 350 of euros/pounds each, but it means that we can travel on JR lines as much as we want, including the Shinkansen.

It’s about an hour to Ishinomaki. While on the train, we got to see the Matsushima airbase, where some pilots were practising their flight movements – beautiful.Then 20minute taxi to see the San Juan Babtista, which was our main target of the day. My husband is thinking of writing a book about this guy who was basically send against his will in the 17th centrury to built the 500 ton Galleon and sail it to Europe to see the pope. This man was called Hasekura Rokuemon Tsunenaga. He was sent to Europe by Lord Masamune of Sendai who had an evil plan to try and persuade the Spannish (Hispania as it was then called) empire to trade with him and in return, he’d let the people of Sendai to be turned into Christians.

I visited the ship, San Juan Babtista, or actually the well made replica of this gorgeous piece that now served as a tourist and school children attraction. It’s a tall ship that you don’t really see in the Tall ships race back home in Turku every year, gorgeous and huge. The fact that it actually took 180 people to Mexico and Philippines was really astonishing to me. It had three levels of living/goods sections and at the back, I think around four.

This guy Tsunenaga must have had a lovely seven years on sea trying to complete a mission that was doomed to fail when he left in 1613. Japan on those times had convinced that Christianity was destroying their own culture, which is why they slaughtered everyone who wouldn’t deny the fact that the Christian god exists by swearing on a plate. My husband wrote a book about Shiro Amakusa, who was a young, Christian boy leader samurai, who fought to the bitter end back in 17th century for the Christianity. We investigated him on our previous visit in Japan and went through Kyushu for that.

Japanese are a cruel kind when it comes to torture and death, which you probably know… However, boiling people alive in hot springs, crusifying them and letting the tide then drown them, burning people alive in their straw rain coats and buring them up to their necks alive and then stomping on their heads with a horse while their wives were watching – were just a couple of the charming examples on what would happen to you if you had *anything* to do with Christianity in Japan, in the 17th century.

Despite of the excellent visit to the San Juan Babtista, we’ve had a bit of a low day. This was due to a lost wallet with four credit cards and a huge amount of cash inside. In an occasion like this, it’s very difficult to enjoy the day as it is – I even if had Whale on a stick as my lunch…

We made a visit to the local police station, where we completely fucked up their computer system, as they didn’t really get Gaijin who loose their wallets… Like, ever. That was about half an hour when they took all our details, and another hour on the train back to Sendai. I cancelled my one card in three minutes in the internet. Jay for Finnish banking system. Don’t come and tell me that Sampo is a bad bank… I already ordered a new one as well. It wasn’t quite as simple for my husband’s cards though, due to the difficulties we had for not having a working cell phone at the moment. Who knew, that the number *before* the actual number that you need to dial before you get out of our land line hotel phone to abroad is:  0-001010 and then the actual number… This took about an hour and a half. Finns are efficient, what can I say.

After all this upset and faffling around, we decided to have a 7-11 dinner with some booze at the safety of our hotel room. Sushi, salad and stringy cheese with wine… On a day like this you have to look at the perspective: 1. Neither one of us is dead. 2. We are not ill or injured 3. We still have access to money, 4. We’ve got our passports, our tickets and our railpasses (which btw, saved us a ton of money since we can get as many seating tickets on the Shinkansen as we want) So to be far. It could be worse. And as one of our very best friends told us before we left: “There will be a day when you reach the bottom. For me it was when I woke up on the beach with a crab eating my hand.” So could be worse, there’s no crabs in this hotel room yet:)

“You have now the choise: Either to Eat or to Drink tonight”, says our Greek guide, George.

We are off to Rythemnon old town for the night. Rethymnon is a city that has endured a lot of turmoil in its history. There’s an old town, but the old buildings are mostly destroyed in wars and earthquakes. Its religious background is both Christian and Muslim. There’s even a school from the 17th century which has had both Christian and Muslim girls and boys in it. The old town is like a labyrinth which has been a defence mechanism against many pirates and conquerors who get lost fast in the small alleys. Most buildings have had their own well inside, which made them self-sufficient enough to endure long lasting sieges.

Our tour around the old city includes a trip to a Greek balalaika shop where these instruments are presented to us by a Sylvester Stallone lookalike. Vespas are everywhere. Shops sell herbs, spices, fruit, shoes, jewelry and of course whatever tat the tourists buy. Next we look into some buildings once gorgeous, now mainly covered with graffiti. I keep photographing the higher parts, out of reach of the human messy hands. The night would not be complete unless a bird poos straight onto my camera… If that pigeon had a bird flu of somekind, odds are that yours truly has it now. The guide has reached luckily a small fountain, so I get to wash my hands at that very point. Did I mention that she has purple pangs?

The international crowd of teachers is getting weary of the tour, not because of lack in interest but lack in food. It is ten a clock at night and they’ve had lunch ten hours ago. I predicted the Mediterranean time of dinner so I had some salty crisps before the tour. I’m not at home if Mr. Cock Up asks… When we finally reach a beautiful garden with Lemon trees and lanterns, there’s a piraña attack on the food and raki. I’ve maybe never seen a huge plate of souvlakis disapear quite so fast.

I’ve been hanging out with a German girl and some guys from Liverpool, so when the bus leaves back to the hotel, we stay to enjoy the athmosphere. Rethymnon harbour is covered with tat sellers, the mandatory picture and caricature artists and even a guy who is selling the gayest lightsabers known to man – they are seriously rainbow colored. My friend Daniela doesn’t allow me to get one, even though after four rakis, it seems like a reasonably good idea. The Harbour has those traditional restaurants looking over the sea and we have some long island ice teas listening in on Azerbajzan’s entry of this year’s Eurovision song contenst. At the end we manage to stumble back to the hotel 2amish.This is capturing the real Greek way of living and schedule. Now if I would only manage to take breaks for sleeping in the afternoons– A Finn would say: “Kuolema kuittaa univelat” (Death will settle your sleeping debts)