I wish I would have paid more Attention in my Russian class at School!

One day I realized that Finland actually borders Russia and that St.Petersburg is only about 500 km away from where I'm living at the moment. So I thought it would be great opportunity to make a short trip to Russia. I found a travel companion in my Finnish friend Päivi and we started to plan. We found out that we needed a visa for going to Russia, even just for a short sightseeing trip. After many calls to the embassy and various travel agencies, we found a travel agency that could get us the visa without a personal invitation from a Russian citizen or expensive hotel. After paying 50€, we had a nice sticker in our passports and ready to get into the plane. Everybody was surprised that we did not take the train because that seems to be the traditional way of travelling to Russia. But flying was cheaper, but not much faster (if you count the time of waiting in line at the check-in counters). But the flight only took 40 minutes and was fairly smooth although it was very windy and thunderstorm clouds were all around us. (I would like to say thanks to Finnair for taking away at least some of my fear of flying!) The weather forecast had promised us a very rainy three days and we weren't so happy about that. After they had checked our passports and Russian visas in Helsinki already, the Russians made us fill out another slip of paper about our arrival and departure dates and the loaction where we would be staying and thoroughly checked the visas again. In front of the airport we were aked by five taxi driver's if we want to take a taxi to the city and a bus driver tried to convince us that we should take his mini-bus to the city because it's so cheap. But we had looked it up earlier and knew that the cheapest way to get in to the city was the trolley bus number 13 and that was also the one all the Russians took (Sometimes it's safer to look what the natives are doing to not to step into the tourist traps.). When it came aound we jumped on it and the driver made us sit down instead of paying. The bus ride was shaky, windy and the bus most have been made and already driven during communist times. When we arrived at the Moskovskaja Metro Station, the driver made us pay and we went deep down into the underground station (the deepest underground I have ever been in). The underground station also hadn't seen any renovation since communism and it was sticky, crowded and fairly dirty. So far, St. Petersburg had not made a good impression and I wasn't really surprised because I had expected that.

Our hostel was in the middle of the city and and the booking confirmation gave us a quick description of the loaction and it sounded very simple. However, St. Petersburg lacks street signs and numbers in most streets and therefore it was rather hard to find out in which direction one has to walk. After walking into the wrong direction for 5 minutes, we returned and we finally were on the right street. We also found the entrance to the building, but the door didn't have any sign of the Hostel Fireplace on it and the entry code that was given to us was also not working. While walking back and forth to try to find another door, some Russians confirmed that this was the entrance to the hostel. But the entry code would still not work. Finally, somebody came out of the building and we slipped in. We walked up all 5 storeys of the damp, old and funny-smelling hallway, but again could not find any sign of a hostel. So, we called the hostel and found out that the receptionist does not speak English. But after a few minutes on the phone trying to explain that we can't find the hostel, the receptionist finally stuttered "Please wait!". So, we waited in the hallway, but nothing happened. We decided to go back to the entrance in case we had been in the wrong building. And after 5 minutes a woman our age in shorts came along and made a sign to follow her. We indeed had been in the right building and the hostel door did not have any sign on it. But somehow the receptionist seemed to be surprised about my booking confirmation that said that we would stay three nights in an ensuite double room. She made a fairly long call in Russian and then showed us to our room that did not have a bathroom. Through an online translator she explained that all the ensuite rooms are occupied and that the room without a bathroom would be cheaper. Since it would have been senseless to look for another hostel, we agreed to take the room. The hostel was actually just a big flat in a blocks of flats and the same receptionist remained there for the next 2 nights and days. However, the room was cosy and big with a very Russian wallpaper and the shared bathroom looked clean. But we had forgotten to book a sea-view as you can see on the picture below! :-P


On the first day we just took a walk along Nevsky Prospect (the main street of St. Petersburg) to get to know the area. And it suddenly didn't look so communistic anymore. Most stores were western stores, the streets were very clean and all the buildings on this street were in a very good condition. Of course, you could also find MakДoнaлдc there where you could buy a Хeппи Mил! :-P By the way, I can still read and write the Russian letters, but I have to say that nearly none of my Russian vocab is left after having had Russian at school for 4 years (but it already is nearly 8 years ago). Very soon we found out that not only our receptionist couldn't or wouldn't speak English (People my age must have had English at school, so I guess it's more a refusal of speaking and understanding it.), but that nearly nobody in St. Petersburg could. Only the waiters in Subway and a fancy Italian place did. And lots of restaurants also didn't have the menu in English. However, all of that does make sense because, although St. Petersburg is packed with tourists, only very few are foreigners (probably because of the extra work of acquiring the visa). But during our walk through the centre of rainy St. Petersburg we already realized that it actually is a very pretty city, so we were looking forward to the next day where we would do a good deal of sightseeing.


The easiest way (but most of the time not the cheapest) to see the most important sights of a city is through a hop on and hop off tour in a bus. (In case, you haven't heard of those: There are about 5-6 buses circling the city all day on the same route along the sights and you can take any bus as often as you want and just hop off at a sight and half an hour later hop on to another bus and go to the next sight.) However, in St. Petersburg that tour was reasonably priced and we drove around in buses all day and could listen to an English tape telling us about the city. We saw the Kazan Cathedral, the Church of Our Saviour on Spilled Blood (the prettiest building I've seen in my life!), the Russian Battleship Aurora, weapons from the World War II in front of the War Museum (most of them pointing at their own fortress :-P), the Peter and Paul Fortress, Russian toilets in a bus, the Stock Exchange with its Lighthouses, St. Isaac's Cathedral, the Bronze Horseman, the Admirality, and many more sights. Most of the day, the sun was shining so bright that I got sunburned. After being around all day, we ended our day with two Russian beers, self-cooked pasta (we decided to not order something we couldn't translate in restaurants), and reading about St. Petersburg.


The next day we went into the Hermitage which is a museum in part of the Winter Palace. Fortunately, my friend had already booked her ticket over the internet and that's why we did not have to wait in line for 3 hours. I didn't need a ticket because it's free for students and I'm still registered as one! :-) (At this point I want to thank all the nice student prices in St. Petersburg!) The Hermitage is nearly as big as the Louvre in Paris and seeing all of the exhibitions in one day is impossible. But we did make it through most of the paintings and I especially liked the Picassos. Slowly walking through the Hermitage seemed to be more painless in your legs than running 5 km and when we finally were outside I needed a long break.

So it was a good thing that the only other plan for that day was taking a boat cruise on the channels and river of St. Petersburg. (There is a reason why this city is called "Venice of the East".) We even managed to find an English-guided tour. (99% of the boat tours are only in Russian.) We saw most of the sights we have seen before, but from a different and sometimes prettier angle. Some of the bridges the boat went under were so low that you could nearly touch them.

On the third morning we were already sick from the typical Russian hostel breakfast before we had it. It was simply horrible: the porridge was burned, the bread kinda hard, the sausage fatty and had hard pieces in it, the cheese tasted like nothing, and the pancakes were like rubber and tasted awful!!! How can you ruin pancakes? They only have three ingredients (flour, eggs, and milk and some people add sugar). However, after breakfast we did some shopping: cheap vodka for my host parents, cheap cigarettes for my mom, and Russian candy for "my boys" and me. Then we decided to be brave and go into a Russian fast food restaurant which advertised it's English menu and try some more Russian food (apart from the breakfast). I had Borsch (a very typical Russian soup) and a pancake with berries and cream and surprisingly that was very delicious! Back in the airplane we agreed that it was a very nice trip, but that the tiny very simple sandwich (with two slices of cheese, butter, and a slice of tomato) that Finnair gave us was way better than our Russian breakfast.

By the way, to leave Russia you have to get your visa registered with the hostel or hotel which costs you another 13€. I think the only reason why you need a visa to enter Russia is because the government wants to make money!

Hold on for your Life!

I've already told you about the 4th car of my host parents: the Triumph (a British Oldtimer from 1973, I think). Tommi had offered to me to drive it and the first time he offered it I was very sceptical. But since I'll be working in New Zealand for a year in 2010 I though that I should at least try to drive a car which has the steering wheel on the right side. So, when he offered me to drive it for the third time, I was finally brave and sober enough to do it. (The second time he had asked I had just had a big glass of wine and didn't want to risk anything.)
So, after finding out that the order of the clutch, break and gas pedal was the same, but the turn signal was on the other side, I tried to leave the drive way. I killed the engine twice because I forgot that it was a sports car and that you actually have to use the gas pedal quite a lot. Changing gears with my left hand would not have been so bad if the gears would have been easy to change like in a new car, but they were kind of stiff and hard to find. Finally on the road, Tommi asked me if I wanted to go to Nummela which is 15 km away. However, I suggested that we'd just turn around in Ojakkala which is only 6 km away. Tommi didn't like this idea and made me turn onto a bigger street where I could drive a bit faster. It was quite a good feeling driving a convertible, but driving it cost me more concentration than I needed in my final oral English exam for my Master's degree. (And no, this 60-minute oral exam was not easy at all!!!) And I held on to the steering wheel so tightly that my index finger hurt for the next two days. When we were back at the house and I out of the car, I had continued to shake for another half an hour. I just hope that the car I will get to drive in New Zealand will be a modern one!!!

Being picky makes my Life hard!

All of my friends know that I'm a very picky eater. The list of things I don't like or eat of certain reasons is long. For example, I do not like red sauces, especially the ones made from ketchup or tomatoe puree. I don't eat potatoes (I think they taste like earth.) and after returning from Ireland, I have also given up french fries. After travelling a lot and mostly eating fast food, I refuse to eat hamburgers. Furthermore, I do not like white bread. I don't eat butter, margarine, honey, marmelade or jam. And I'm intolerant to lactose, so that rules out nearly all milk products (unless I buy the very expensive lactose-free products). But I also won't drink the lactose-free milk because the taste of milk reminds me of cows and I'm scared of them. Furthermore, I only eat animals that I deem ugly, i.e. pork fish, poultry, and beef. I apologize to all the pigs, fishes, birds, and cows here. But then for some reason I don't really like the taste of beef or turkey and I only like chicken when it still has the skin and was grilled on a bbq. I also don't like any kinds of salats and I'm not a big fan of white bread. Bananas are something else I detest. But that even has a reason: As a child I would only eat bananas and a certain kind of sausages for about 2 years. I guess, I simply over-ate on bananas and now I can't stand them anymore. As for sweets, I'm not quite as picky, but I want to mention that I don't like gummy bears and hate licorice. As a conclusion one could say that it's nearly impossible to cook for me and it's not a surprise that I'm so skinny! :-P But my host mom still tries. However, since I'm so super picky I told her that she does not have to be concerned about my eating habits because that would just be too difficult. I can usually always find something to eat. But now it looks like that I'm being treating like one of the boys. They are also quite picky and Sari always makes them eat their food, even if they don't like it. And now I'm also forced to eat at least one potatoe and have a certain amount of salat (which unfortunately, we have every day). Furthermore, Sari hates pork and therefore always uses minced beef instead of minced pork and that I also have to eat. All of that actually reminds me of home where I'm a still forced to eat my potatoes although I'm already 23 (turning 24 soon). And for the last 10 years they blackmailed me with the words: "If you don't eat your potatoes, we'll turn off the internet." and it, unfortunately, still works. I'm sure that my Finnish host parents will soon say that as well and my mom would be so proud of them!
But since we are talking about food I want to mention that I love backing! And so far I have made a German cake called Schneewitchenkuchen (it has a vanilla and chocolate dough base filled with cherries and a vanilla-cream toping), an apple pie (which I didn't eat myself since I don't like apple pie; but the boys loved it), and tirasmisu. The tiramisu was absolutely amazing and so much better than the stuff you can buy! And my next project is the bake some sweet rolls filled with vanilla custard which supposedly are typical Finnish. Let's see how those will turn out!

An Expensive Place

Last weekend I visited Helsinki, small for a capital (only half a million inhabitants), but a decent size for a city. And with its location by the sea, its many island, and its cleanliness, it is fairly pretty! However, it is also very expensive: entrance fees for museums, boat cruises or just getting some food or a beer will reduce your funds quickly.
Unfortunately, it rained on and off last Sunday, so we couldn't just sit in a park or go to the jazz festival. However, my friend Päivi (who lives in Helsinki and showed me around) and I spend the day in the National Museum, going on a boat cruise around the islands and doing some shopping (Nearly all the stores had some kind of sale going on! :-)). I think I won't say anymore and will let the pictures speak for themselves.