turku

i made my way to the hitching point to turku, newly attired in a second-hand combo rain/fleece jacket i had bought the day before. shame i had misplaced my gloves, cos in the hour and a half i was waiting there, my hitching hand froze in the humid cold weather. a couple of immigrant iraqi kurds saved me from becoming a permanent frozen fixture at the start of the motorway there, and drove me to salo. there i waited 5 minutes and a couple of afghani students took me the rest of the way to turku, dropping me off at the port like i asked. great guys. friday night... and the vikingline crossing to stockholm would be 3 times the normal price. no way! i walked into town and found a cosy corner at the cosmic comic cafe to stay out of the rain. couchsurfing and hc had for once come out with nothing when i left hki, so i phoned aleksi and got iivi's number. and after i called her and got a text back, i got to stay at the place which she was sub-letting to a belgian couple, lotte and nick.

who turned out to be really great. as it turned out, lotte was doing a evs stint on the estelle, a ship promoting the fairtrade ethos (and on which aleksi had also worked). and after we did some dumpster-diving and got a whole lot of bread and other stuff back to the flat, we cooked the pork chops and ate it with the organic rice i had got from alex. and then we got an invitation to take a sauna on the estelle.... a fitting way to leave finland! in the morning, i walked the short distance to the terminal and boarded the ship to stockholm. goodbye finland. until the next time.