today we had to get up early again. it was 05:30 o'clock when we got up, had a quick breakfast at the hotel, checked out, took our shuttle bus to helsinki airport[001] to get our flight to ivalo[002], and then head on to norway. ivalo is the northernmost airport in finland; we chose this one to get our rental car here, and return it in helsinki at the end of the journey - makes it easier and cheaper if you return it in the same country. so at the airport we queued for our car at the counter, when we ran into our first problem; we were told that they have to charge us for the additional driver, which we actually already had paid upon booking online. arguing did not help and we needed the car, so for now we grumpily had to accept, and were told that we should file a written complaint to the company once we are done with our journey - note taken. i was chosen as the driver to the north cape commune (nina did not want to drive yet), thus only a few pictures from a few short stops, like when reindeer[003-005] were blocking the street, or like the short stop[005-015] where we were looking for a cafe and washrooms, but found a little lake instead. or our first stop[016-020] in norway, where we were looking for a toilet again, but found a wonderful mountain face. yippieh, we made it to norway - i was so happy. another stop[021-026] was just along the road, with a beautiful little bay (i was pretty sure i have already been here on my first scandinavia trip, and here is the proof). or the stop[027-031], where robert and i examined the layers of rocks in detail. and our last stop[032-036], just close to our destination, where we were so impressed by the beautiful landscape. late, and finally, we arrived at the scandic nordkapp hotel. we wanted to check in at the reception, but there was our second problem: we were "upgraded" - aha? - to a room in scandic bryggen in honningsvåg, because scandic nordkapp was fully booked. this meant a ten kilometre detour for us. so we drove back to bryggen. well, well... the guy at the other reception there - who looked very much like hugh grant - confessed he was totally new to this job, and it seemed we gave him more than he could handle - poor him. he offered to check with his boss, and get instructions how to handle this situation. enough with the problems; we were hungry, so we went through honningsvåg[037-054] and down to the harbour to have some king crabs[047-049] for dinner. most of us never had king crabs before - or at least not in this ... raw form - so it took us a while to get the hang of how to get the meat out of the crustacean shells. but soon we managed quite well, although the plates all looked like a battle ground. looking at other guests' tables, this was not the way to eat them properly. but it was very delicious and filling. on our way back to the hotel we even spotted a norwegian forest cat; how cute. thanks to the midnight sun we could still go up to the north cape and enjoy a beautiful view over the sea. so at 22:00 o'clock we jumped into our car, and headed towards the north cape[055-071]. at the north cape [072-108] we spotted lots of austrians[059,100], and most of them upper-austrians, according to their dialect. in general, there were lots of people [085]; the last time i was here i was more lucky, because i arrived at the parking lot when it was foggy, but soon the fog was gone, and it was nice sunshine all over this place, with almost no people at all. nevertheless it was an impressive and an awe-inspiring sight, and i enjoyed every minute on the northernmost point (where a road can take you on the european mainland). a cyclist asked me to take a picture of him. i did, and we talked a little about his bike. turns out he rode his bicycle over 3000 kilometres, from south to north norway in only a month. amazing performance, i was really impressed. then we went over to the "children of the world" monument[092,095,098,099], and the "the mother and child" sculpture[093,094,096-099] right next to it, that also looked wonderful with the sun and the sea in background. the ticket for the parking lot at the north cape is valid for 48 hours, so we will come back here tomorrow again, but for sure we will not have such an amazing sunset, as the sun will be in the back then. on our way back we spotted another herd of reindeer[109-113]. by now we have been up for almost 19 hours. scandic bryggen in honningsvåg seems pretty okay actually, it is just that we always have to drive ten kilometres more when going to, and coming from the north cape. if tomorrow we go there again, that will be already 40 kilometres, plus the first time when they sent us back, so another 20 kilometres. yay, sums up to 60 kilometres. oh well, the landscape is worth all the driving, so i am fine with that. and the overbooked scandic hotel did not really look that cosy as our little one in bryggen. so we told hugh grant that everything was fine; he was happy, and so were we. today the weather was sunny with a few clouds, and around cosy 18° celsius, though it was very windy on the north cape. i am so looking forward to get back there tomorrow again. but for now it is time to rest. track for day 04.