Finland Days 5 & 6
Monday, 12 August 2024
Our last day of competition was the long distance final – I knew
the distance was going to be too long for me to be very competitive, plus I
made lots of mistakes so I finished well back in the field – but it was still
heaps of fun.
On our way home we did one last stop at a lake for a swim - there's no shortage of lakes in this country. Back at home we washed our orienteering shoes and gave them a quick sauna before we packed them (all apartments and houses we've seen in Finland have a sauna).
On our last day in Finland and the very last day of our holiday we went for a quick run on one of
the islands as I was keen just to run and enjoy the forest (without thinking about
navigation). Then we returned home to face the final pack of our bags - Jon has swapped bags with Zali and also been given lots of Zali and Jett's stuff to take home so there was some serious squishing to be done.. One we were done we picked up Andrea and Sue who were getting a lift and made our way to the airport. Unfortunately
I was feeling pretty unwell by the afternoon with almost exactly the same
symptoms as I’d had in Edinburgh. Hopefully some good rest at home will help me get rid of whatever this is for once and for all, as I haven't been 100% for weeks now.
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Finland Day 4
Monday, 12 August 2024
I’d
been looking forward to the rest day almost as much as the beautiful Finland
forests, and we had a great day hanging out with our friends – firstly heading out to heading out to the
archipelago where Andy and his family were staying for some disc golf around
their amazing summer house/cabin (complete with a spa,jetty and sauna) and then some paddle boarding from their jetty,
then we drove further into the islands via bridges and car ferries to go for a
short walk to an observation tower with views out to sea – then we played some more
disc golf on a little course nearby which was super fun.
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Finland Days 1 - 3
Monday, 12 August 2024
By virtue of flying west to east and losing 3 hours to the
time zone change, our first day in Finland was pretty short – we arrived at 4pm
local time, picked up the car, drove 2 hours to Turku then had dinner with some
Australians before finding our apartment in the Port Arthur suburb of central
Turku. Turku seemed pretty nice – it was
the original capital of Finland and is a port town with a big archipelago nearby. Our apartment was in the older part of town of converted workers cottages:
The World Champs had been going for a few days already with the
sprint qualification and sprint final having been run and won – because we
wanted to fit in Iceland and the Faroes we had chosen to just come for the
forest events – a qualification then a middle distance final followed by a rest
day, and then the long distance final on the last day.
The first day of orienteering for us was the forest
qualification race – To make the A Final I had to finish in about the top 40 of
my heat (of 2 heats), while Jon who had
to be in the top 30 in his heat as there were more competitors and 3 heats.
I had a steady run with some moments of good fortune when I
stumbled over controls on my way to relocating so I finished 26th in
my heat but a long way back timewise. The terrain was really lovely – really detailed
with lots of open moss-covered bits of bare rock – definitely more challenging
than O-ringen had been as there were way less tracks and hardly any easy
legs. Jon only just missed out on making
it to the A final – despite being a lot closer to the winner in time than I was.
The next day was the middle distance final – It was really
tricky but I had a good run and finished 30th which I’m really happy
with - especially as there’s also the threat of relegation – if you finish in
the bottom 10 of the A final, you get relegated down to the B final for the
long distance race (while the top 10 in B move up) – so with 80 competitors I
was well clear. Jon wasn’t far off being
promoted but ultimately stayed in B for the long final.
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Iceland Day 5
Monday, 5 August 2024
Our last day in Iceland was relatively cruisy - we woke up at 7am to go for a run but it was so windy and wet it was hard to even get the front door open, so we went back to bed until 8 when we had another look - same - so we went back to bed again and got up for real at 9.30 and packed our running gear away (at least it was still dry!). After some leisurely packing we left Vik headed for Reykjavik in the still pouring rain. Vik seems to be in some weird constant rain shadow area as it always has the worst of the weather - after about 20 minutes it cleared up a lot. We didn't have any stops to do along the way so we arrived around 1pm and did a bit of a walking tour before going to our apartment. The city centre and old town are quite pretty and very busy with tourists. There were heaps of souvenir shops in the town - my favourite by far was the one with the cat (with a sign next for it saying 'not for sale) It was nice to see a few other neighbourhood cats around too: We stayed in a small ramshackle apartment very close to the centre - I chose it because I figured we'd need a washer and dryer at this stage (I was correct) but unfortunately it only had a washer as the dryer was in the 'other apartment' that's available. After much messaging with the owner we managed to get half our stuff into the basement dryer of the completely different house next door, but then of course the guy that enabled this went out - leaving us unable to get our gear from the locked place just as we were planning to head to our evening booking at the Blue Lagoon - so it was a bit of a hassle for a while - it's not the first time the washer or dryer hasn't really existed despite being on the ad. Anyway it all turned out ok - someone else turned up and let us get to it. After dinner we drove the 45 minutes out to the Blue Lagoon. We weren't sure we wanted to do this activity as it was pretty expensive but I'm really glad we did - it was really fun and we drifted about in the delightfully hot waste from the geothermal plant next door for a few hours - enjoying our free drink and facial scrub. We took the time to debrief a bit from the last four weeks and decided the following: Best countries we've experienced in order: - Sweden (mostly because O-ringen was so much fun but the weather was good, the forests and lakes were beautiful)
- Faroe Islands
- Scotland (WOC was great and I loved the Isle of Skye)
- Ireland/Iceland
- Northern Ireland
We're ranking the full experience we had - which puts Sweden above Faroe Islands but from a pure tourist perspective the Faroe Islands was the winner. Despite the amazing scenery Iceland ranks lower than we had expected because of the weather, the fact that things are actually a long way apart, and the expense. It was nice but it felt like we were on a tourist train from one site to the next - I think it would have been better to be here either just 3 nights (on the tourist train) or two weeks so there's time to do some long hikes and get into the mountains a bit more (but then of course the bad weather makes that less fun). Also Zali noted that our Faroe Islands photos don't do it justice, whereas the Iceland photos actually make it look better than it is. There's not a second spent on the Faroes where the views aren't breathtaking. Best city Worst city - a drawer between Dublin and Belfast - both really dirty and Belfast had a weird vibe.
And now it's on to Finland for 5 nights for the World Masters Orienteering Championships. It actually started a few days ago with the sprint races but we're just going for the forest ones as we wanted to fit in Faroes/Iceland. We'll arrive in Turku late this afternoon after losing 3 hours mid-flight due to the west-to-east time zone change. We had to get up at 4am this morning so hopefully the flight is restful!
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Iceland Day 4
Sunday, 4 August 2024
Today was always going to be big - we had 5 hours of driving interspersed with numerous stops and hikes. Luckily we are match fit after almost 4 weeks of touring so we were well prepared. Leaving Vik in the pouring rain and gale force winds, our first stop was in clearing weather 50 minutes down the road at the Lava Fields - actually there are lava fields absolutely everywhere but these just happened to have a convenient viewing spot - the moss grows in layers on the older lava fields like thick snow: Then it was onto a deep canyon called Fjaðrárgljúfur where we could walk along the top for a few kilometres: Then we made it to the glacial highlight Jökulsárlón, which is a lake at the bottom of one of the glacier tongues, so ice chunks break off and float around the lake: The more exciting part of this was the next stage, where the icebergs float out to sea, then get smashed up in the waves (which were wild today), and land back on the beach in pieces, looking like diamonds in some cases - hence the name.. Diamond Beach. . The best fun part was sitting in the car in the carpark having lunch, watching people get unexpectedly swamped by the waves as they took selfies or stood on the larger icebergs. The rate at which the ice melted in the sea was astounding - a car sized chunk was swiss ball sized by the time we drove away. The beach also had cool rocks which contrasted with the black sand. Then we turned around and headed back towards Vik as we had 2 nights booked. We stopped at a national park to walk to Svartifoss - a waterfall with the basalt hexagonal shapes we've been noticing since the Giants Staircase in Ireland. Then it was back in the car for the final leg home past mountain and glacier views, multiple waterfalls that had water falling up into the sky from the strong winds, and cliffs with cute houses and horses below. These photos were taken out of the car window. We left home at 9ish and arrived back at 7.30, in time to have dinner, watch some Olympic highlights and reorganise ourselves for the trip to Reykavik and our final night in Iceland tomorrow - the highlight of which might be having access to a washing machine and dryer, as we haven't had one since Copenhagen.
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Iceland Day 3
Saturday, 3 August 2024
Once again our day started with rain but by the time we got to our first stop at a geyser park it had pretty much stopped We are now south and east of Reykavik and today we hit many of the more famous tourist sites - they didn't disappoint. The drives between each of them were really nice too - again lots and lots of horses, green fields and looming crazy shaped cliffs formed by lava. We also got glimpses of a big glacier in the distance. Shortly after visiting the waterfall above the weather changed again and it started bucketing down and the wind picked up. Handily we were almost at our accommodation so we abandoned further plans and went straight there to shelter for a few hours. After dinner the weather cleared so we went out to visit the black beach and get a good view of Vik, the town we are staying nearby.
Iceland is very busy with tourists just like us - there are lots more people around than are appearing in my photos I'm just using careful framing! It's not quite as busy as I expected though, there are always spaces in the car parks and it's pretty relaxed.
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Iceland Day 2
Friday, 2 August 2024
Day 2 of Iceland was great although the weather certainly started where it left off the day before: While the rain was good for the volume of waterfalls, it wasn't good for the water quality - the waterfall below is supposed to have clear blue water..it was still interesting that the water didn't come from the top of the lava cliffs, but it wasn't quite the same as the photos we've seen where it's beautiful and blue! Due to the prices (and our general preference not to spend more than necessary on food), we don't get to stop at the places that say 'all day lunch buffet' - we get to stop during a break in the rain at a soggy picnic table by the side of the road for cheese sandwiches. After lunch the weather improved a lot and we started to see some great views around us. We drove over the mountains to the famous Thingvellir National Park which is where two tectonic plates join and also the site of the birth of Iceland as an independent country in 1944. After strolling around for an hour or so we continued on to our accommodation, which I'd had to book hastily the night before when Zali realised we had a gap in our bookings. It's turned out to be our favourite place we've stayed in so far - so all's well that ends well! It's a beautiful hand crafted cabin that smells of some sort of pine and even has it's own stream out the back. We even had time for a short run near the local lake (with geothermal pools) before dinner. Then we had hot chocolates and admired our icelandic socks we bought at a tourist shop hours earlier.. I haven't got a good photo of them yet, but there are icelandic horses everywhere. We seem to frequently drive past paddocks full of 30 or more of them. While we drove through the mountains we got a good view of a group of them being run along beside the creek - it looked incredible - there were 8 with riders and 30 running along in between. I'm not sure why anyone needs as many horses as they seem to keep around but they do look very striking. I'll get a better photo somewhere before we go.
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Iceland Day 1
Friday, 2 August 2024
The first day in each new country always feels very long and this was no exception. Our first stop was the rental car company which was a bit tedious as we had to wait 45 minutes at the airport for the shuttle. Once we got the car we were told to watch out for the wind as an 'orange' warning had been issued - but that we should be ok as long as we aren't travelling west. Of course we were travelling west! Our second stop was to a supermarket to decipher all the food items and stock up as much as we could for the next 3 days at least. Then we did a million other stops on our way west to the western peninsular of Snaefellsjokull which had high mountains and a big national park. The weather steadily got worse and by our second last stop of the day we were all absolutely drenched. By the last stop I'd had enough and refused to get out of the car to look at another stupid light house and suffer another drenching. I'm sure the 5am start didn't help my mood. Luckily by this point we were close to our firsts night accommodation at an old bookstore, so by the time we'd had dinner and hot showers I was feeling a bit better. There are too many places to list them all - here are some of my better photos in chronological order: (Zali hitting her limit - 3 stops from the end) (this stop was my breaking point - note how wet Jon is in this) Jon probably has a good photo of our final stop before our accommodation as only he and Jett braved the elements. I won't post it out of respect for their acheivements :) We finally made it by around 7pm - on schedule by our usual standards except we got up at 5am Faroe time. The place we stayed at felt like a Hydro town - grid streets and fairly soul-less. It turns out it was where the fishing workers lived so it makes sense. It did have some nice Murals but nothing that would challenge Sheffield. I have to admit that after the Faroes our first impressions (well mine anyway) of Iceland were a bit humdrum. The normal-ness of the cities and long bland sections of driving (and our fatigue) probably contributed to this. Also the deteriorating weather didn't help. The prices are even more expensive than anywhere we've been so far-- one night in our tiny slightly run-down place in a nothing town cost more than our 3 nights in the cabin on the Faroes.
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Faroe Islands Day 3
Thursday, 1 August 2024
Jon and Jett
went out for a rainy run in the morning.. then we finally got to walk through
the doors of the local supermarket to get some non-service station food for the
day’s supplies.
After that
we did a driving tour of many of local towns and islands via many tunnels and many bridges. We
stopped for photos and even got some wifi when we went to an open information
centre to check in for our flight the next day. We also discovered that one of
the local teams Klaksvik was playing Malmo in the UEFA champions league round
that night – so there was much excitement in that town (Update - they won 2-1!). We’ve noticed that almost every town in the
Faroe Islands has better football facilities than Hobart – generally beautiful
artificial turf grounds and fancy clubhouses – so soccer is definitely a
national pursuit. The other is racing their Faroe style dinghies but we didn’t
get to witness any of that although the boats are all over the place.
After
having a mostly cruisy driving day we had one final tourist challenge – we had
to catch a car ferry to another island, drive to the far end of it (via 4 tiny
one-lane tunnels), hike out to Kunoy lighthouse and back, then return to the
ferry before it left, thus not leaving us stranded on the island overnight. This meant we had to walk and jog at a decent
pace to get back to the car in time. This was one of
the pay-hikes which unfortunately don’t mean they are in good condition as we
were slipping and sliding through the mud on the exceptionally steep slopes. We made it with about 15 minutes to spare and
the views were well worth the sweat and slides.
By the time
we were home for our last night we just had time to pack and be ready for a 5
am departure for Iceland. Overall the Faroes were amazingly spectacular. It was hard not to be somewhere with an incredible view. The weather was pretty similar to a Hobart winter - we noticed we were getting very similar temperatures each day! The roads are pretty good in most places, there's ample parking and toilets for tourists and good information boards everywhere (very helpful for those without internet). I'd highly recommend visiting to anyone but be prepared to hike a little, and go quickly, it's not going to stay quiet for long.
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Faroe Islands Day 2
Thursday, 1 August 2024
We allowed
ourselves a bit of a sleep in before we headed out to another amazing looking
town called Gjogv positioned (like all the others) seemingly on the edge of the earth. We
were able to do a short stroll to see some puffins up close which was fun.
After that
we drove to the capital – Torshavn, which was in the midst of the national day
celebrations and the townsfolk (and probably those from other islands) were all
dressed in their national costumes and strolling up and down the streets which
had been closed off to cars for the day.
It was a nice vibe and we managed to find an open café to get expensive
hot chocolates and enjoy the wifi. Interestingly the day marks the death date of St Olav, a Norwegian king who was canonized after his death in 1030. Jon had a brief chat with a Faroe fisherman who acknowledged the strangeness of that particular date being selected.
After a
stroll around the old town and some lunch by the old Faroe Island style dinghies
we drove on to Saksun to do an amazing hike by a river which spilled into the sea. We got there
as the tide was going out but still had to rely on Zali piggy backing us a
short distance to keep our shoes dry.
Our last
stop for the day was our local service station for dinner ingredients – as it
was still the holiday Monday.
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Faroe Islands Day 1
Thursday, 1 August 2024
It seems
that every time we catch a plane we have to get up at 5am. The upside is that it had us landing in the
Faroe Islands just after 9am in the drizzling rain. We had no rental car
hassles (our 4th rental car of this trip) as the company just left
it for us in the car park with the keys in the ignition.
Our first
stop was 10 minutes from the airport to see a big waterfall cascade into the sea.. then we had a 1 hour boat trip to take in some cool rock formations, the same
waterfall from the bottom, and lots of cute puffins nesting on the steep grassy
slopes.
After this
we headed to do a 6k hike to some very high sea cliffs and also a lake that
empties straight into the sea. In the
Faroes a lot of the hikes are on private land so you have to pay to do them –
sometimes quite a lot. Unfortunately for
us the cloud was pretty low for a lot of this so we didn’t get the full views
but it was still pretty spectacular anyway.
From here
we had a short drive to another hike – a free one this time which is a good
thing as we saw next to nothing at the ‘Witches Finger’ due to the low cloud.
After that
we had a few stops to admire waterfalls then we drove down windy roads to get to
the cutest little town called Tornuvik. It even had a surf shop and a town dog which
would campaign for anyone to throw it a stick.
After what
felt like a huge day we had one final challenge – to get ourselves and all our
luggage up a 15 minute track to our little cabin. The owner had advised that this was the best
route as the farmers track could be muddy and not great for cars. So we dragged ourselves up the little path
and only caught sight of our little blue cabin at the very end, which was a great relief as
every other hut we’d seen along the way was designed for sheep not humans. The cabin is cute and warm but unfortunately
doesn’t have wifi which we thought would be fine when we booked it, but neither
Jon’s or my sim card works in the Faroe Islands which means if Jon hadn’t had
the foresight to download offline maps from the airport, we’d be in trouble! To
add to the digital isolation, all the shops (including libraries with wifi) are
closed from Sunday to Tuesday for St Olav’s day, the Faroes national day – so after
debating whether we’d need to go back to the airport to buy food we ended up getting
dinner from the service station which thankfully had freshish bread, frozen
pizza and 2 minute noodles!
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Sweden Day 6
Wednesday, 31 July 2024
Our last
day of the competition had the convenience of the arena being just a 20 minute walk
away from our campsite so we were able to do most of our packing in the morning
before the event. Also, because it is
O-Ringen, all the arenas have huge shower areas so you can get clean right
after running which is fantastic. The open air mens’ shower area was positioned right below a café’s outdoor terrace area
which would have made for an interesting cup of coffee for the unsuspecting
tourist.
In
excellent news, we managed to sell our tent for 100 Euros – we bought it for
250 and thought we would have to give it away but after sticking a for sale
sign on it, we had a customer on the morning of the last day which was great –
a win for both parties especially as we also gave away our electric grill and
our air mattresses.
Once we had all run our courses and were finally all packed into the car we said goodbye to our orienteering
friends, made one last stop at the local supermarket for the reasonably priced salad bar which
has kept us happy for the last week.. ..and drove almost 5 hours down to Copenhagen,
checking into our hostel at around 8pm which gave us time for a quick stroll
around the city and to get some dinner from a burger place. Back at the hotel we were able to finish off
our washing so we could at least arrive in the Faroe Islands without half our
gear smelling like a Swedish marsh! Our room was pretty small though, so it was quite an effort packing around each other the next morning.
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Sweden Day 1 - 4
Saturday, 27 July 2024
We're in Sweden for the Swedish 5 Day orienteering event - aka O-Ringen. We last went in 2019 for 3 of the 5 days and stayed in a campervan in the O-Ringen camping city. This time we're having the complete experience by camping and competing for the full week, including doing the indoor orienteering event on the rest day. We've been using our new tent and it's been great - it will be sad to give it away tomorrow as it can't come with us for the remainder of our trip. We also bought an electric grill from the supermarket and have used it every day - the cheese toasties after the events have been a treat: The weather has been a bit mixed - we have had stretches of rain and stretches of sunshine - our tarp (also a supermarket purchase) has been alternately used as a sunshade and rain shelter. We're lucky enough to have a really good tent site up on a small hill within this huge area - the sites on the lower ground have been flooded and the roads were very muddy just a few days ago: As usual the organisational infrastructure is incredible - the amount of work and planning required for the camping alone would be years worth, let alone for 5 days of orienteering for 17000 people in 3 different arenas. Not to mention the mountain bike competition which happens at the same time. There are about 10 'service' points throughout the campsite - each one has about 10 portaloos, rubbish sorting areas, washing up sinks and charging stations. Everything is maintained daily by a huge lot of staff and volunteers. Today we used a washing machine - there's only one bank of them in the entire campsite so timing is the key to not having to wait too long. So far the orienteering has been great fun - the Swedish forests are a delight - particularly after mostly-treeless Ireland and Scotland. The complexity of the orienteering has been so much fun - so despite making plenty of navigational errors it's just a joy to be here. I love it. During our time off we've been swimming in the sea and also in some beautiful lakes nearby - we've got a car as well which makes it easy to get around. Back to the orienteering the indoor event was insane - we entered the 'hard' class - which had a lazy 900 competitors, many taking it very seriously. The winning time was around 27 minutes. Zali took 37 as she has a knack for solving the problems of each leg as there were barriers, one way passages and stairs to nowhere. Jett and his mates took around 39 and Jon took 1hr 13 minutes - I would have taken even longer but I followed Zali from start to finish - panicking every time she dissapeared around a corner. I voluntarily DSQed myself at the end as I had to step over a barrier to keep up with her at one point. Indoor is fun but I definitely prefer the forest! Each event has quite long distances to walk to the start - today I walked 3.2km then completed my 3.4k long course (of course I went longer than that with route choice and circling around being confused!). I'm trying to stay in the top half of the 150 strong field but it's been hard going as I recover from being sick and have made lots of mistakes (not that it matters). I'll be sorry that there's no more Swedish orienteering after tomorrow - I guess we can look forward to coming back next time!
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Ireland Day 5
Saturday, 27 July 2024
It was probably a mistake to visit Belfast then so quickly follow it up with a night in Dublin - two cities in a row when I'm not into cities at the best of times. Nevertheless we started our final day in Ireland with a walking tour around the city centre, interrupted briefly while I managed to fix the previous night's problem of Jon's mismatched passport details. For some reason I thought Dublin would be nice, but on a grey Sunday morning it wasn't - it was pretty average - rubbish everywhere, a bit stinky and just not that great. It was probably a lot better the night before after a few drinks, or maybe on a sunny day. Here are some photos of the nicer bits: After our walking tour we rushed back to our nondescript but typical Dublin semi to pack and check out. Our house was at the end of this street - looking like all the other houses in the street... Then as we still had a couple of hours before needing to get to the airport we took a driving and walking tour out to Howth - a bit of land sticking out near Dublin. Howth had some nice walking trails with views of the sea Then it was on to the airport to drop off our car and get us all checked into our last Ryan Air flight of this trip - they've actually been pretty good and delightfully cheap so I'm not complaining except for the need to get there 2 hours before and navigate their complex drop-off processes. Arriving in Copenhagen it was straight to the car rental place and ten minutes later we were on the bridge to Sweden. We had 3 hours to drive to our hotel in Vaxsjo which was halfway to our final destination.
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Ireland Day 4
Sunday, 21 July 2024
Northern Ireland has been strange. There’s no
acknowledgement as you cross the border from Ireland but the road signs change
to miles, currency is in pounds and there are English flags and Northern Ireland Ulster banners absolutely everywhere – some houses have 2 or 3 plus strands of red white and blue
pennants. There are also heaps of banners and murals and town arches
commemorating some English victory or bravery in the past. Memories are still really fresh I guess.
Today we went to the Belfast markets which were ok, then on to check
out Jon’s mum’s university and her childhood homes. During the walks and drives around we got a good sense
of the city and aside from a few areas in my view it’s mostly pretty bleak. It probably
didn’t help that it rained most of the day but it definitely didn’t help that there
was a lot of rubbish, abandoned buildings and graffiti. People in the UK also haven't learnt how to clean up after their dogs yet, which is gross. The botanical gardens were quite nice. Getting out of the city and up into the hills
between Belfast and Dublin was much nicer and we found another little woods to
stroll around along the way.
Crossing back into Ireland again went without fanfare but
did see the end of the overt English nationalism and the return of much more flag based support for county sports teams contesting finals in the upcoming weeks. We stopped in at Decathlon to buy a cheapo
tent for our next week of camping in Sweden (paying the extra $ for a bag on the plane was
going to be a lot cheaper and easier than trying to get one in Denmark or
Sweden on the way), then once we made it to our little house (which backs onto a gaol) I just had to check us in for our Ryan Air flight
tomorrow – which is where the day has gone downhill. While filling in the passport details I
accidentally got the month of Jon’s expiry date wrong which is not only unfixable,
but also un-ignorable as part of the check in process is scanning the chip in
the back of the passport which is rightly saying that the details I entered and
the passport details don’t match. I
immediately joined the help queue (in spot 331) and was down to spot 78 when the
office closed. Fingers crossed we can sort this out tomorrow or only 3 of us
will make it to Copenhagen tomorrow night.
We are just back from a pizza place nearby which was nice
and not too expensive (Ireland has been the cheapest for food and meals of
anywhere so far).
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