Savonlinna

After a night of self destructing and consuming McDonald's for the first time in years and waking up hating myself, it was time to leave Jvyaskala and drive east towards the Russian border to another small Finnish town - Savonlinna.

As Jamie pointed out yesterday, my new Finnish culinary faves - Egg Butter (essentially boiled eggs mashed up and combined in butter) and unlimited breakfast Frozen Yoghurt were consumed amongst a room full of heavily bearded and tattooed Finnish metal fans to power the 207km journey. Luckily, I decided against wearing my Justin Bieber tour shirt this morning and opted for my heavy black eye liner instead. We quickly departed with Teemu before he was converted to listening to Iron Maiden and started wearing Anthrax t-shirts and before we knew it we were zig zagging through countless lakes, pine trees and countless speed cameras, which seem to be located approximately 100m away from one another. Teemu remained quiet in the cheap seats while Jamie and I discussed global news and the quality of Finnish coffee at truckstops. My take was that the coffee out of the thermos was actually quite good, all things considering. Jamie thinks I've just forgotten what good coffee tastes like.

Speaking of truckstops, the lowest octane petrol here is 95 and averages €1.35 (compared to UK prices at £1.10) and the average speed limit on the open road is about 100 km/hr which causes my inner Lewis Hamilton to scream with boredom.

Another interesting Finnish fact is that summer lasts for approximately 2.5 months from Mid June to August, where they appear to charge extortionate fees for everything including parking in central areas. As we are now in the Finnish Winter, all towns seem to close down while the Finnish go hibernate in their naked saunas for the remaining 9.5 months of the year and parking is free or greatly reduced in price. Just as well - we will need to save our hard earned pennies for our extortionate dinner with salad leaves made of gold.

We arrived in Savonlinna at about 1.30pm, which funnily enough is another beautiful little lakeside town. The hotel was completely void of human life and resembled a Stephen King horror setting. We quickly dumped our bags and walked the lakeside waterfront to check out "Olavinlinna Castle" where they offer English tours on the hour. Building of this castle started in 1475 when most of the modern day Finland belonged to the Kingdom of Sweden. Like most castles in Europe, it was used for defensive purposes against the Russians and the Swedish but like any good castle it also served as a prison for those Scandinavian Baddies.

The afternoon was spent relaxing in the hotel drinking cider and beer named Karhu until dinner which consisted of the cheapest salad and pizza we could find and it still nearly cost us €50 for dinner with a wine each. I am really starting to think that my McNuggets are nutrient dense and should be consumed as an everyday food instead of rarely. I might get fat but at least i'll be fat and richer.

No day in a new country can be complete without learning new words. Kiitos is Finnish for Thank You while Moi Moi is Bye bye. I think that is the cutest way of saying Bye Bye I have ever heard. Also, "Teemu" is a top Finnish Boy's name.

Mojito Update: Still no Mojitos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ankle Update: Swelling pretty much gone, still bad bruising, walking down hills/stairs is hard
Phone Update: Still in Poland apparently...

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