Helsinki-Churriana

My mom and dad are both now retired and it's been their dream for a while to pack up and move to Spain to get away from the cold winters we have in Finland. They finally decided to do it in mid January and I was helping them move. They decided to drive to Spain, because of our cat, "Julle" who's 16 years old now.  The flight from Helsinki to Malaga would have been too much for his old heart, so the only option was to drive to Spain.

We left from Helsinki on a Finnlines boat that is mainly used by lorry drives that are going to Europe from Finland. The boat took almost two days from Helsinki, Finland to Rostock, Germany via Gdynia, Poland. From Rostock it was about 2900 km drive to Malaga, Spain through France and Belgium and I drove about 2000 km of it.

My dad and I had to take all the studs off from the winter tires before we left Helsinki, because it's illegal to have studs on your wheels in Germany in winter. Since I didn't know how to do it properly according to my dad, he decided to do most of the work himself.

The Finnlines boat that we were on only had a total of 20 passengers onboard. One of the members of the crew said that the route isn't very popular with other than lorry drivers during winter.

Vuosaari harbour in Helsinki.

Getting ready to have dinner.

Gdynia, Poland.

Somewhere...

We had to stop few times on the way, so my mom could feed Julle. This had to be done inside the car, because Julle is an indoor cat and my mom was worried that he might run away in the middle of nowhere.

Another stop in Spain with Julle.

My mom sunbathing outside their new home in Residencia Mayor. Almost every day around noon, one of the residents, an older man called Esa, played his saxophone on his balcony and had a glass of wine.

A wooden sauna and an empty swimming pool behind Residencia Mayor.

Geisha Imperial brothel, close to Residencia Mayor.