Scandinavia

After a night with only a few hours of sleep, because of the early sunrise (around 3 o'clock the sun is already shining, it hardly sets here in July) and the noisy guests we got up at around 9:30. Also the horrible, convertible bed on which we slept was also not very comfortable. With every move you made it creaked everywhere and also the mattress was too thin. Probably the designer, manufacturer and salesman of those beds have never slept on their product or else they would have taken it out of the market. You don't want to torture your customers do you? What a horrible bed. For the coming night we will use our own inflatable bed. We hadn't bought anything for breakfast and we only had a banana and some cake. We will buy something on the way today.
In the tourist brochure of Tampere we had read that there should be a summer market in the town of Lempäälä. When we arrived in Lempäälä we went towards the center as we thought that such a market would be held there. Only we were not able to find it. From the highway we followed the signs towards the center, but after that there were no signs anymore. So driving back and forth and into some side-streets we concluded that the place we were first had to be the center of town, but no market. We asked someone about it and he had not heard of it, but when we asked again with the proper name of it (Kuokkalankoski market) he knew what we meant and directed us to a place about 2 km out of town. And indeed, there we found the market. We walked around a bit and watched the 'rapids-shooting', this is probably some local sport for which you have to stand on a trunk and float across a number of rapids in a stream. The first man we saw it doing did well, but the second one fell into the water in which the gathered crowd took a great pleasure. After another walk across the market we drove back to town to do some shopping in the local supermarket. From Lempäälä we went to a quiet lake to take a rest and to enjoy the peacefulness. We went to lake Sääksjärvi somewhere between Lempäälä and Tampere and we had something to eat and drink there and Ciska went for a swim in the lake in her underwear (we didn't brought her bathing suit). After about one and a half hour we left and went to Tampere. When we drove into the city we saw a large Toyota garage. Our car radio didn't work anymore since we entered Sweden and now finally we found a garage that could have a look at it and hopefully fix it. But today (Saturday) they probably won't be in, but Monday, when we'll visit Tampere again we will go there. In Tampere we went to the Näkötorni tower (observation tower) in the Pyynikki park to have something drink and eat one of their famous donuts. When we finished the delicious donut we climbed the tower and from the top you have a nice view over the city and its surroundings. From the tower we went back to the camping. At the supermarket near the camping we did some more shopping (the more perishable stuff) and then we went to our cabin. When we arrived there, Arjan and Ciska walked around the campground while Hilleke was preparing dinner. After dinner, Arjan and Ciska did the dish-washing and when that was done we took Ciska to bed on a more descent hour (9 pm!). Luckily the noise on the camping was much less than yesterday, hopefully most of the festival visitors already went home. Only the gypsies are again constantly shouting and screaming at each other.