March 13 - Helsinki, Finland

Finland, the home of Santa Claus, 187 888 lakes, and the city of Helsinki, was now stretched out in front of me. So the first things to check out were the churches, starting with the largest orthodox church in Western Europe - the Uspenski Cathedral.


This however doesn't recieve quite as many awe-inspiring looks as the Lutheran cathedral,which was built as a tribute to the Grand Duke, Nicholas I, the Tsar of Russia and is to Helsinki what tartan is to Scotland.


But whilst like every other church in Europe, the battle for majestic sky-piercing splendor continues, there's the wickedly original Temppeliaukio (rock) Church which although from the outside looks like quite literally nothing, is a church built in a hole with rock. The roof is made up of 22km of copper wire and the rest of the structure I figure is failry self explanitory.


The afternoon was spent exploring one of Finland's 179,584 islands - one that had been completely converted into a zoo. Of course the irony is that in winter with the sea water frozen the term island is hardly applicable, so we'll just refer to it as a bubble on the landscape. It was almost a surreal experience seeing African camels grazing in the snow, and stepping past ice sculptures and into the doors of a massive tropical plant/animal atrium with the snowdrifts mounding up on the other side of the glass. However, there was something in particular that enticed my attention more than everything else - including the bit where the tiger knocked the camera out of my hand whilst taking this shot..


..and that was the snow leopards. So it was another childhood dream ticked off as I stood in awe watching this guy destroy a leg of meat. I was like a kid at legoland, or coming to think of it, I was like what I would be at legoland.


So after more exploration of quirky phone booths and gargoyle-adorned buildings, we headed back to our ship stopping off of course, at the pizza buffet resaurant and testing the carrying capacity of each of my trouser pockets (which for future reference is 3 slices). And watching the islands float past in a sea of ice as the ship steered towards Stockholm kept one's eyes eagerly satisfied while the rest of the body is screaming "get inside mate it's bloody cold out here".



I've always said that when you're traveling, the places you see, the people you meet, and the weird-branded toothpastes you taste all help to nurture an amazing experience, but the essence lies simply in the definition of the word travel itself: to go from one place to another. So standing on the 'sundeck' I watch the Baltic sea rolling away into the abyss created when the darkness of the infinite sky and the oceans perpetual shadow collide, and the freedom (apart from the fact you're confined to a boat and can't technically go anywhere), is unparalleled. And it at times like these, where I'm not anywhere or witnessing anything in particular except the definition of travel in action, that I feel most content.

And the fact you're totally alone with the openness (Because you're the only one mad enough to brave the wind-chill; they use 'Baltic' as an adjective for a reason), its like having your mind forced open, whether you like it or not.


Most of the photos in this album are geo-tagged so you'll be able to see the exact location of where they were taken on a map on the right hand side.

Helsinki, Finland

March 12 - A City On The Sea

One step on the SS Serenade - the ship that would take me 16 hours across the Baltic sea to Helsinki - and you can soon see why people take this cruise and never get off the boat, opting instead to use the day in the dock to recover from the onslaught of entertainment the night before. The ship literally is it's own city, in every way except for the paradoxical fact that a city requires a country in which it exists, whilst the Serenade spends its life perpetually drifting between a few different ones. And during that first step on board, you are greeted by an amazing string quartet jamming to ABBA, which would be followed by the rest of the evenings entertainment - a Hungarian acrobat on a giant mouse wheel in the ships central atrium, a Finnish rope acrobat performing stunts 50ft up in the air, and a Swedish pianist. Much more romantic than the last ship I was on to Estonia - the SS Romantika. Go figure.

It's 13 floors comes complete with shops, cafes, several resturaunts, an irish pub, a nightclub, spa and sauna nestled under palm fronds and a glass roof under the stars, a playstation lounge kitted out with 50 inch plasma tvs ps3's and psp's, and a theatre with an automatic-raising floor. And who can forget the karaoke bar where I had a song dedicated to me - and nothing more apt than the song from titanic (there is a story behind this by the way, so its not just the fact that Im a lifelong Celeine Dion fan). Then there's the 'sundeck' covered in, well, not sun.

The best part of all though, is waking up in Finland and stepping off the ship in search of gargoyle adorned buildings, a new culture, and the infamous rax pizza buffet..

March 10 - Playing in The Snow

It was a crisp Sunday afternoon following a week of fresh snow,when I got a message on my phone that simply said "meet you at the castle in 30 minutes" and so that's exactly what I did..



And we weren't the only ones filming us, a local TV crew who were across the street turned their cameras onto us, probably after hearing all the screaming, so keep an eye out for us if you happen to be watching Swedish TV anytime soon..

March 7 - A Basin for My Birthday

What was one of the best birthdays I've ever experienced started on friday when I came home to find the housing office had broken in to my room, installed a brand new basin in my room, and vanished (after waking my corridor mates with assorted banging sounds). How they are suppose to encourage student hygiene with behavior like that I don't know - why clean when you just get a new one? But that was only the beginning. And I know what you're thinking, "But gareth how could it possibly get better than a basin?" Well on friday night I headed to one of the student nations for a drink and was having a sweet low key evening when it turned midnight and the whole place seemed to turn to me - a monstrous plate of nachos appeared from the kitchen, and the singing began. So by the way nachos is the new cake, just so you know. But that was still only the begining..

For starters there was the amazing gifts from New Zealand, thank you guys- you know who you are. and you know how wicked it was for me to receive everything (the video especially). So my day continued with cleaning my corridor, recycling, and all your other standard super-fun birthday activities waiting for dinner at a pals place that night. Or so I though, but instead my fellow students threw me a surprise party, and days later the surprise is still resonating. Perfectly planned down to the fake invites, it was amazing to see how well people have come to know me in only two short months: a kiwi made of marzipan, an ample supply of fair trade coffee, a flag signed by everyone, and a mechanical wind-up hopping rooster, just to name a few. And then there was the 4 cakes and the french crepes which had taken one poor fry pan all day to make..



Just when I begin to understand people, their generosity seems to break my beliefs open like a cheap happy-meal toy and surpass everything I thought I once knew. Cake 1: Complete with a bee from a fellow beekeeper. Cake 2: the moose represents Sweden and the kiwi is of course new zealand, however the Austrians couldn't think of a suitable symbol for themselves so given that they're called aussies as well they just turned it Australian (the kangaroo), and fashioned it all out of marzipan. Cake 3: its easier to write '23 years old' in french when there's only 3 letters, fair enough I think. Cake 4: well this one never made it out of the Russians oven in time and got a tad burnt.. but I ate it in spirit.


So a wicked night was had by all, and with cuisine from all over the world and some wicked friends for company there was no excuse. And when the night came to a close, march 8th ticked over and I no longer had a reason to celebrate, I headed back to my room only to find out they had taken my keys from my jacket, broken into my room (seems to be the thing to do) and left my bed covered in presents. I mean c'mon will the carnage never end??















Only 364 Days to go..

Spring Is Coming To Sweden..

Thus far I have been blessed with one of the coldest winters Uppsala has seen in years, with a peak of -15 Degrees. I know I mean c'mon is that all you got? At times it's so cold your face simply stops working, and then you have to deal with black ice that's thicker than the hair on Carl Hayman and Sebastien Chabal combined.

But Dylan was right, for the times they are a changin. Ok terrible analogy but in the last week we have seen flashes of green grass appearing all over the landscape - striving desperately for attention amidst the seas of white. It doesn't last long of course - because with the warmer weather comes the snow and with fresh snow falling everyday any evidence of spring is quickly hushed by the blanket of winter. But it doesn't deter those little blades of grass from trying, and for them knowing that in a few weeks they will emerge victorious fuels their motivation more and more as the days tick by.


If you want to see what the weathers like in Sweden though, you don't look outside but inside - at the Swedes themselves. There's no better way to forecast the conditions, for its reflected perfectly in the personality of the locals and I was warned about this before coming but when you have nothing to compare it to its not really clear. Until spring comes. But although the people are getting happier, the ducks are still outta luck..

Gareth: Student. Traveller. Bike Dismantler

As well as becoming an expert in fixing fellow students bikes I am simultaneously becoming an expert as breaking my own. Whilst moving rooms in the weekend, using my pack to cart food and clothes and my trusty steed rex, my bike collapsed into a pile of bike bits beneath me. So I borrowed a friends bike and was back in action, only to have the same thing happen the next morning. mint. So tonight has been spent crouched under an outside light in, conveniently enough, the middle of nowhere - which wouldn't be so difficult except for the fact theres nowhere to put down your tools - which wouldn't be so difficult if your tools didn't freeze to the ground after half a minute of inactivity. You learn pretty fast to work pretty fast. I did eventually succeed however, and with my prize strapped to my bike (2kg of meat I'd rescued from my old fridge before the Russian who now occupies my room discovered it), I rode of into what would be the sunset, if the whole thing hadn't taken me so long. Ah victory is sweet.


Rex after a hard days effort

Feb 24 - Bloc Party Concert, Stockholm

Held at Cirkus - built back in the day to host Europe's traveling circuses. bloc party! enough said.

Feb 20 - Tallinn, Estonia

I awoke to the sound of ice crushing against the hull as our ferry neared the end of it's 15 hour slog across the Baltic, from Stockholm to Tallinn, Estonia.


Now I should start with the most important stuff - Estonians, as I discovered, cannot make a cup of coffee. They do however, seem to have wicked places to go to in order to drink a coffee. So it's kind of a cancel out effect.. This is the cafe in the middle of the old walled Medieval Tallinn, Check it out:















Tallin (which is here by the way)

View Larger Map is like a timeline that has been compressed into a single point that occupies 159 square kilometres. The old medieval city of cobbled streets, guard towers, and shops selling hand-made slippers sits within a nest of modern skyscrapers, shopping centres, and free wi-fi. There really is virtually nothing in between, with the exception of a chinese buffet restaurant that's reminiscent of some 1970's architectural exhibition. Then there's the ancient wooden houses and churches, which in Europe is about as rare as a swede with baggy jeans, looking both totally out of place and totally home at the same time.


One thing I learnt when traveling in Venice, Italy was that the best way to see a place is to get lost in it - in fact if I was ever to write a guidebook I would ask a 4 year old child to draw the map, so you would intentionally lose your way. For when this happens you let a place unravel before you at its own pace - not yours - as the city becomes the guide for itself. Then you stumble upon the dodgy little alleys and bizarre buildings that most people miss completely. But lets not forget how useful a few facts about the place can be..

St Olaf's church was, back in the day, the tallest building in the world at an epic 159 metres. crikey. But after being hit by lightening a total of 8 times and burning the church down not once, not twice, but thrice, they decided its best to make the thing a tad shorter. So the ex-KGB radio tower/surveillance point now stands proudly at 123 metres, but is still one of the sweetest looking buildings in Taillinn.


The Russian Orthodox cathedral that stands majestically at the top of the hill is a reminder to the Estonians of the extent of Russian empire, and subsequently was voted to be demolished in 1924 but it never happened. The church poses a stark contrast to the Estonian vibe the rest of the town radiates, except that is, for the elderly Estonian women lined up outside with their hands out awaiting a bit of change.


And here's the town square, the place where in 1694 a waitress got axed to death after serving up a priest an omelet he didn't like. Fair enough. The building behind has been a pharmacy since 1442, when it used to sell powdered unicorn horn. apparently it's pretty good stuff too.


The walled medieval city is definitely an amazing place that in the last couple of hundred years had changed very little, except now the guard towers surrounding the town stand strong in protecting the inside from the modernisation that is gradually closing in on it..



More Photos:

Tallinn, Estonia