Croatia!

we are in croatia, is our blog working?

Lithuania to Poland today.... Possibly as far as Romania...

Late start today....

Totally confused by the currency, Litas... I keep thinking people are talking about liquid :(

Here's a photo of us in Latvia before we went to the beach :D

Estonia!!

We have made it to Estonia! Not without incident though, of course..... When we tried to leave the Finnish gallery Boris' clutch did not work, he had totally run out of clutch fluid. Thank you Boris for getting us safely to the gallery before the clutch died. Also thanks to the Finnish people who helped us out and gave us clutch fluid :) When we were back on the road we were off to Helsinki with the resident artist from Saksala, Pedro, hitching a lift. Netley and I had a nice relaxing day shopping while we waited for the ferry, they have a whole shop dedicated to Moomins!!

When we finally got onto the ferry it was highly amusing as it seemed to be totally full of drunks, one guy was so drunk he couldn't put his pin number in to buy the booze they were still selling him at the bar, he managed eventually on the 8th attempt, with the pin pad held about 2cm away from his face! He was later to be found sleeping while his friend was seemingly holding down an interesting two way conversation with him!

Fun, fun, fun in Finland! :)

Today we flew kites and rode bicycles in Finland... There was suprisingly little wind for the kites but we got them going a couple of times.

We went to the shop and made a fail :( Sawdust menthol and solid old sweets :(

Then we went for a longer ride on the bicyles and stopped after getting stuck in the snow for a rest. It was all lovely until after about 7 minutes the hounds were released from the farm we were apparently on... I plopped a bit! We saw and heard them coming and sped off, I didn't think it was possible to break the sound barrier on a bike!

All is good and we have internet for a while to work on important dissertation stuff.

Thanks to Marja for the lovely dinners we have had here at Saksala.

Finland and mist from the melting snow...

Boris had a turn for the worse when we got over the border into Finland...

It wasn't too bad, and we are now at the Finnish gallery, the sky in Finland is beautiful :)

We are in the Arctic Circle.....

Lappland, Abisko! Currently watching the Northern Lights.... Indescribable!!

We drove up and through mountains to get here and it's very cold but so worth it!!

Next stop Finland....

:D

Quick update....

We are half way to Abisko, is white as far as the eye can see.... Here is a photo of the weather about 300 miles before where we are now, the recent pics are still on the camera..

Made us a lush curry for dinner, warmed us up but my nose is still running!

Once again thanks to MISL for funding this project, it is gaining more recognition each step of the way!

Sweden is lush.....

Sweden is exactly how I imagined it, apart from no Moomins came to visit me in the night while it was snowing. We woke up this morning to a blanket of snow.... Netley was very excited, I just said "meh!". Snow is cold.... But Sweden is soooo beautiful and the trees and frozen rivers and lakes make the cold totally worth it. :D

Our first stop off point after Tapper Popermajer gallery was a layby (not the place Netley was most excited about visiting in the whole itinery because we missed the turning!) and as laybys go it was paradise!

Spot the ambulance....!

Then we drove for a few more hours and stopped for the night in a truck stop/garage... again, pretty awesome view wise. We had English pie (quiche - which if I'm right is actually French isn't it?) and then went off to the ambulance for bed. It wasn't anywhere near as cold as we thought it should be and we are hopeful for Abisko where it is probably around -14!

Video footage....

Here is footage of yesterdays day at the Tapper Popermajer Gallery in Teckomatorp, Sweden. Thank you to the gallery and Hans Tapper for your hospitality, sorry for leaving so abruptly..... We thought we had best get going to save time to deal with the next daily disaster when it happens!!
Also, thank you to the person who left the gift tied onto the ambluance door last night, when we can get our rubbish CD player (nice one Argos :@ ) to work we will appreciate the music!
Next stop, layby on the E4... next to a lake... little chill time (if no disaster stresses us out)!

Can't work out how to embed the video, only got a little internet time so please click here!

6 countries in 2 days......

and only 5 disasters!
We missed the ferry because of an accident on the way!
When we got to Amsterdam it was total chaos, I am totally confused as to why anyone likes the place! Stoners!! The road system is madness, I nearly killed a cyclist and then drove down a tram line and got flustered into driving down the left side.... I wanted to cry and am never going back again.
Next we were in Germany and Netley wanted me to pull over at a truck stop, it was very late and we couldn't find a place to park and so I pulled onto the grass.... oops! 3.1tonnes and wet grass don't go together very well..
We tried to ask truckers for help but they did'nt understand us just laughed at us. We had to wait until the morning and we asked some Polish truckers who still didn't understand us but they didn't laugh at us until they saw how badly stuck we were.... It took 10 truckers and an articulated lorry to push/pull us out! Go team Poland!!
Then after driving for about 30 minutes a mental pulled out in front of me doing about 50 and I was doing 70 so I had to swerve to avoid him which made the drivers side wheels leave the road and the ambulance nearly tipped over.. :(
We filled up the tank in Denmark and OMG!!!
We have also both lost our bank cards.
On a lighter note Sweden is awesome, very friendly people, some of which had come miles to see us... People even bought our work. We now have 800 krona for 4 ceramic heads, we have no idea how much that is worth!!

It wasn't an April Fool after all!

I drove 7 1/2 hours straight, we still missed our ferry and had to get the next one 5 hours later, it was ok, I cooked a nice ratatouille and we sorted our things out a bit...
We got on the ferry and had coffee and a cold, cold nap :( At the end of the journey in typical Do My Bidding! style we couldn't find the ambulance! We didn't think about remembering which level or which colour section we were parked on, so many embarrassing minutes later we were off again. Belgium is apparently populated by no one apart from truckers, I have never seen so many trucks in all my life and the roads are shite..
At the moment we are in an internet cafe in Amsterdam, I am highly traumatised by the ridiculous road system. I nearly killed a cyclist, I drove down a tram lane which I then had to reverse back down and 3 point turn out of and after that I drove down the wrong side of the road because I was flustered :( The sat nav told me to go down and it is such chaos here that I assumed it was a road too... :@
I want to cry, we spent at least an hour and a half driving round looking for a parking space only to find it is 5euro an hour to park. A quick poo and coffee and we are leaving!!
Got ourselves some nice cake to calm me down later though..
We are heading off to Teckomatorp next, keep watching the chaos unfold.
P.S To all the people I April fooled;
I am not sorry!!!
:P