Russia Trip

The night before we left for Russia, Simon, Paul, Adele and I headed up to Ounasvaara to have a nice campfire, makes s'mores, watch Northern lights, and have a nice outdoorsy time.

Riiight there.

We thought we were in luck because the firepit ignited itself when we poked at it, but it took a bit of fiddling by Simon and moral support by the rest of us to get this beautiful fire going. We toasted marshmallows, but had a bit of difficulty making s'mores because by then the chocolate and biscuits were frozen solid. Still delicious though! A bottle of Bacardi later we stumbled back down the hill, with Simon making us run up and down all the cross country skiing slopes, and also trying to cut down a Christmas tree with his knife.

Toasty.

Although we had been talking about it for a while, it was a bit of a surprise when our trip to St Petersburg actually became really happening! There were a few small hiccups, such as someone accidentally misplacing our ticket for the ferry, but a bit of running around in Helsinki fixed everything.

Airport shenanigans

The overnight ferry from Helsinki was exactly what you would expect: pretty grim in an overly tacky way full of Russian people falling over themselves with drunk. We were lucky enough to be staying in the bowels of the ship (even under the car level!), probably right next to the man shoveling coal into the engine. Our neighbours included a man who flailed around and fell on the floor trying to open his door for a good 20 minutes before some staff came to help him in. It all makes sense when you see the duty free alcohol though, reediculously low prices. Basically cheaper to buy a bottle of vodka in the shop than to buy a single drink at the bar.

Soaking up the shiny tackery.

Cheeep booze!

Going through customs once we arrived in Russia was the scariest thing ever, because we're a group of 8 on a short visa-free visit, and having everyone with a copy of all the right documents, arrival and departure cards, etc. is a bit of a nightmare. As you can imagine the border guards were SUPER FRIENDLY and LOVING LIFE. But they let us all in without any trouble which was wonderful! All our worst case scenario discussions paid off because if you're super paranoid things usually work out alright.

Finding our hostel was a little bit suspenseful; as we were only paying 10 euros a night we were prepared for some dodginess. When Jamie led us and all our luggage up a damp, dark, cruddy and neverending staircase we didn't know what we'd find on the other side of the door, but thankfully the hostel was quite nice, with a spacious room for the 8 of us and beanbags to sweeten the deal.

We saw beautiful and crazy places like the Spilled Blood Cathedral, and the Hermitage Museum where our eyeballs exploded from looking at insanely rich and ornate artworks and general madness of decoration. Does a room really need a gold encrusted ceiling and twenty giant gold and crystal chandeliers and a throne and a jade urn as big as a bathtub? A lot of the time it takes away from the artwork on display because it's too over the top. There were renovations going on somewhere in the building, obviously they had been moving stuff around and one whole section was full of big heavy important looking boxes clearly filled with expensive artefacts, just sitting in the hallway between display cases. Is this the only museum in the world that doesn't have mega storage facilities? It was a little bit strange. All in all a surreal and amazing place to visit!

Inside the Hermitage

Spilled Blood Cathedral. It has a longer fancier name that I can't remember.

The food in St Petersburg was so much better than I could have imagined. I was expecting a pretty basic 'food is for nutrients and energy, not pointless deliciousity' Finnish approach, but was pleasantly surprised on all occasions. We even got to go to nice places and pay barely anything to eat there, everything in the city was gloriously cheap. Of course, we felt obligated to check out the grotty places too. My main problem with cyrillic is that it looks enough like our alphabet that my brain thinks I can understand it when clearly I have no idea. Although I must admit, I do enjoy feeling like I'm living in the Sims.

A rather worthless wad of cash!

Tee

One taxi driver told us that if you want to drive in St Petersburg, you have to be born there. It's absolute madness, on the scale of horrible cinematic car chase sequences with swerving and dodging and brushes with death (passengers and pedestrians). It makes driving on the autobahns in Germany seem like a relaxing Sunday jaunt in the countryside. Did I mention there usually aren't working seatbelts? My strategy was not to look out the window too much and squeeze Simon's hand a lot. After a slightly terrifying taxi ride where our two taxi drivers decided to do some drag racing, it was nice to see some wonderful ballet. Simon was lucky enough to escort myself and four other beauteous ladies to the ballet Giselle at the famous Mariinsky Theatre.Our seats were quite good, but we got opera glasses anyway to feel fancy and sophisticated. The dancers, sets, music, everything was beautiful.

We struggled out of bed the last morning (some more than others) and headed off to Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, and got to see some of a Russian Orthodox church service. There was lots of singing, lots of priests, and lots of decoration. They like it fancy! Next door is the graveyard where Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky and other important Russians are buried. They do a good spooky graveyard, with lots of twisty trees, crows, fogginess and crumbly mossy graves.

This lion was my favourite.

The boat ride back to Helsinki made everyone miserable, partly because of the vomitalicious rocking and partly because we all knew that it was the start of the sad goodbyes. Elena left us at the train station, followed by Jamie, and then I had to put lovely Simon back on the plane, and today Nadine, Floor and I had to leave Adele in Helsinki, where she will shortly be taking off for home!

The snow has finally settled in at Rovaniemi, but everything is feeling a bit dark and miserable in my little empty apartment. The 810 page textbook I have to read in the next week doesn't really help, nor does little things of Simon's lying around! I have two weeks to do my final exam and get my life together before I head for home. Eep!

Taking over the kiddie play area