Sunday April 20 2008

We awoke bright and early around midday, finally relieving the kitchen table of its delicious but three-hours-old edible payload. Today we would venture out into the wilds of the town, so we needed to stock up on calories.

First stop was a massive tower up a big hill. It probably has a name, but it doesn’t matter. It’s just a massive tower, built for people to climb up and gaze out across Kuopio. We peered down from the sky. And what a strange place it was.

With just over 5 million Finns inhabiting a country substantially bigger than Britain, there’s so much space lying around that town planning appears no more complex than spinning around with your eyes closed and pointing to an empty spot. Industrial, residential and commercial zones all neatly plonked in their own area, divided by yet more land and a billion trees, or rather by one tree cloned a billion times. More than anything, it reminded me of Sim City. It goes without saying that it was beautiful.

Once we’d had our fill, we retreated inside and pondered the tower’s restaurant menu. I can’t remember the standout dish - griddled moose or sun-dried otter, something exotic like that - but as it cost about £20, we decided to raid Iscaria’s kitchen instead.

After lunch came bowling, which was exactly the same as bowling in England, only with no chavs. Then we headed into the town centre proper.

This was the life. Strolling around a foreign land with our international chum, chatting about nonsense, inexplicably speaking in Russian accents and looking for swear words to photograph. We saw the town hall, the docks, shops, churches and park-style areas, marvelling all the way at how the internet was really a lot like real life back home, except with a bit more dust.

Unsurprisingly, dinner had been ready for hours by the time we got back. It was like our trademark.

In the evening, we decided it would be a good idea to start planning our trip. This led to some interesting surprises. We discovered that our next destination, Kalmar, lay to the south of Sweden, not the north as we had believed. We worked out which countries we’d pass through on our journey from Lund in Sweden, our third stop, to Belgrade in Serbia. We found out, in fact, where Serbia actually was.

In summary, we realised we didn’t actually have a clue what we were doing, fumbling across Europe with a handful of tickets, a few mobile phone numbers and World of Warcraft as our best means of communication with our various hosts prior to arrival. The internet: helping idiots travel since 2006.

We ended the day with a second and final sauna - pants on - then slept.