Turku

The ferry to Turku took the whole day and it was a great opportunity for me to catch up - with sleep (hobo style, boom like that!), some reading, blog and emails, although the last two were quite a pain with the free ferry wifi, which was about the speed of late 90s dial up. But I had the whooole day.

It got sunnier later and I went up on the deck to see the parking manoeuvre at an island halfway to Turku. With the sky clear, it was actually warm and I considered Števo's advice, to try playing on the boat. Soon, however, the clouds came back, wind took up as we got back on the way and so I just strummed a bit on the guitar. There was not a good spot anyway.

Moving towards Turku, I got a message from Johanna, that I won't be the only couchsurfer staying with her, and if I mind to share a bed with a guy from New Zealand. No problem :P George was actually on the same boat and we spent the last hour of the sail together. He was also travelling for long time, several months already, and thus we had quite a few stories to exchange.

We met Johanna in the centre of Turku and went to drop our bags at her place, before shopping and cooking a delicious rizotto. Johanna also plays piano and sings, and George does some sort of free dancing. With me on a guitar, it was an interesting evening sharing our hobbies and passion. Plus Johanna has two cats and those took care of us not feeling bored (by doing impossible high jumps or chasing each other around), lonely (by always making themselves comfortable in our laps), or they simply looked cute. I think I start to like cats.

The next morning, it took us some time to wake up, but eventually we set off to the town and Johanna showed me a spot by the river where musicians often play. And what a good spot it was! Shame I only got to play for an hour or so, as we (Johanna joined me) planned to hitchhike that day to Helsinki. We said see you to George and walked to the hitchhiking spot that Johanna knew about, altough it was the first time to hitchhike for her. We waited about 15 minutes, which was quite a lot considering the amount of cars that passed by. But finally one stopped, and it couldn't be a better advertisement for hitchhiking :) A smiley half French, half Finnish guy named Timo took us straight to Helsinki. 

Do things hobo style? I'm not sure it should be called that way - there's simply many people who like to meet strangers and don't mind sharing apartment or a car. And why should they, really? It doesn't get better then meeting new people, making friends, getting new ideas and having fun. I'm sorry for all those cars who passed by, single driver behind the steering wheel, the rest of the car empty... As George put it - world is not such a scary place. There's scary things happening, but people, in essence, are good.