Lol thanks for the advice guys, no help at all! Just got back, some observations:
Everyone (expect the old people) in Eastern/Northern Europe speaks English - just go up to them and say "Hello" and you are good to go.
Purchasing power in Poland is INSANE, prices are rock bottom for good quality. Further north into the Baltic States you go the more you pay, Lithuania is still good if you choose well.
Poland+Baltics all have a hardon for Amber, whole streets of Amber Jewelery stores that nobody wears. You'll see more as you go north, getting noticeably insane in Riga and Tallinn to the point that Tallinn isn't a functional city since you can't find a store to buy a drink since it's wall to wall Amber shops - if you're lucky they sell Linen instead.
Eastern Europe isn't a post communist nightmare hellscape, they demolished EVERYTHING. Beautiful clean cities with usually just one ugly soviet building as the "occupation museum" and a giant TV tower from that era. Vilnius in Lithuania was probably the best for me but they all had their own charms, Riga in Lativa is probably the worst. Warsaw rebuilt it's entire "old town" after 1945 because Hitler literally leveled it.
DO NOT GO TO FINLAND. Helsinki is not enjoyable because the prices are fucking insane. I know that the UK has higher prices than the US so you'll probably have a bigger aneurysm than I did. 8 dollars for a beer is a average there, that's at least double UK prices. Meanwhile in Poland a beer was like 1 dollar. Sweden was similar but I only visited a small town near the airport on a long transfer, Sweden has creepy forced multiculturalism though like that Disney ride parody on the Simpsons (It's a small world?).