And I'm out.

I'm on the train to Helsinki, perhaps two hours away from my final destination and my demeanor is much improved.

My cabin was with a nice married couple who practiced their English with me, and graciously allowed me to practice my decrepit Russian with them. Upon finding out I went all the way to Russia, but hadn't drunk any vodka, they promptly produced a bottle (like magic!) and started pouring shots. They also shared their bread, meat, cheese, fruit, chocolate, and tomato juice with me.

I think they sensed I was a drinking lightweight as they insisted I have a sandwich and a glass of tomato juice after every shot. They would say in thickly accented English, "Eat, Cora, eat," but once I had finished my sandwich and juice, they would immediately pour another shot. I had four shots total.

In retrospect, I wonder if I was being very stupid by accepting food and drink from strangers, but I had a good feeling from them, especially the woman and they helped the 13 hour train ride pass a bit faster. All the same, I slept with my purse under my pillow and my backpack latched to the railing.

In the morning, the train attendant knocked on all the cabins and told us to get ready for customs. All bathrooms were locked as were all the doors between train compartments. An announcement was made that the train was under customs control and we were to sit in our assigned cabins until customs was over.

The process was much less painless than I expected. I told the customs agent that I did not speak Russia (this is, quite possibly, my best phrase in Russian) and responded to all his questions with "I don't understand" (also said in Russian). Satisfied that I was a dumbass who couldn't possibly have the sense to smuggle anything out of anywhere, they quickly left me alone.

My travel companions were less fortunate. The customs agents gave them much grief over the bottle of vodka, and made them fill out several forms but were still unsatisfied. Only when my companions gave them money did they leave our cabin.

About an hour that, we reached the Finland border and Finnish customs. The officials seemed genuinely surprised to see an American passport, and asked several useless questions ("Where are you from?" "America.") before returning it. About a half hour later, they came back and asked to see it again, bringing "an expert in American passports" with them. The "expert" studied the passport very intensely, asking me to take off my glasses and headscarf (I woke up with a serious case of nappy head and so had tied my shawl over my hair). They consulted with each other in Finnish, flipped through my passport several times in each direction, stared at me, and then, finally satisfied, handed my passport back.

I exchanged e-mail addresses with the female half of the couple and then my trip was over.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the hotel bellhop (in his street clothes) escorted me to the train station last night as my train did not depart until 11 p.m. I noticed that no one, no one at all, bothered me during the walk. Not a glance, not a stare, not a request (or mobbing) for pictures, not a shove. Nothing. It was a relief and only reaffirmed that I was right in my decision to leave.

Sugarfat.

Mmmm...I just had some incredibly good sugarfat.

I'm sitting in the lobby of the hotel (where I will remain until my train leaves tonight) catching up on some Lovecraft, eating decadently, and staying warm. That last bit is especially important.

Mostly though, I'm planning my itinerary for these next two, suddenly free, weeks. I'm thinking of going through Helsinki then on to Stockholm down to Copenhagen and finally to Germany, either Hamburg or Berlin. The first thing I must do, however, is get on that train.

Anyway, back to the sugarfat. On the menu, it's called the chocolate and cherry cake but really it's just a brick of chocolate mousse (brick referring to the shape not the weight of the fluffy confection) on top of dense, nutty chocolate cake covered in chocolate with chocolate cutouts pasted to the sides and served with strawberries and whipped cream. I asked for a glass of milk to go with the cake (must be proactive about my bone density after all) and they brought me a huge mug full of warm cream. Cream. I swoon.

This morning, I had an unpleasant e-mail waiting in my inbox from my Russian associate calling me, among other things, selfish and I suppose I am. I was unhappy. I was tired of being unhappy. And so I took drastic steps to increase my happiness. As my friend K. says, "You are responsible for your own happiness" and if that's not true while I'm on my own half a world away, I'm not sure when (or where) it is. I also suppose that stance can make a little unpleasant at times, but I don't think I can avoid that.

In the heat of panic last night, I called my parents to inform them of the whole gory situation and now that everything is calm, I almost, almost wish I hadn't. Here's why I'm still glad I did, 1) they needed to know my approximate whereabouts in case something did happen to me and 2) they have access to resources I don't. A bit of hyperactive worrying (which I hope will pass once I'm back in more westerly Europe) is a small price to pay for extending a safety net I desperately needed a few hours ago.

The point is, things are looking up. My father suggested, in his blunt way, that I need emergency funds, and, after getting over my hurt feelings, I agreed with him. After two mishaps, I'm much better prepared psychologically to deal with failed plans, but it wouldn't hurt to have more tangible resources.

And with that, I'm off to bask in the wondrous glory of my sugarfat induced haze.

Fin.

I'm done.


After being left outside in the cold for three hours, it started to rain. Immediately afterwards, I began to think I'd have been better off planning this portion of my trip on my own and by "better off" I mean warm, dry, full, and with a room of my own.


Once I began to think that, I had the necessary resolve to navigate my way back to the train station and begin the horrifyingly daunting task of finding the rail station I needed to get out of the country. Grateful that my sense of direction has no language barriers, I found my way back to the metro with relative ease, but that still didn't solve my problem of actually getting on the metro.


I had just enough rubles to buy a single rail pass so I knew I needed to make this trip count. Standing in front of the metro map, I tried to match the Anglicized names in my guidebook with the Cyrillic names on the station map. Once I unlocked one name, it became easier to find a few others. A teenage boy who knew some English was invaluable in helping me the rest of the way.


Going through the gates and passing yet another gaggle of police, I boarded the train and promptly missed my stop. I was able to get on a train going the opposite direction, and got it right the second time but there was still the matter of how exactly to get out of the country. I had no contacts. No Russian language skills. And no rubles.


I wandered towards the first thing that looked like a ticket station, asking in feeble Russian, "Please, a ticket to St. Petersburg?" The woman shook her head no, said something in Russian, and pointed in the direction from which I'd just come. Wandering back that way, I asked at the metro ticket counter, "St. Petersburg?" only for her to shake her head no and point back in the opposite direction.

Frustrated, I sat down on the ground and pulled out my map again then instantly realized something I hadn't noticed when walking with my Russian friend...she provided a buffer to me. Without her around, I was suddenly aware of everything. The most personally invasive incident happened when a group of young women surrounded me and started shouting. At first I thought they were demanding that I get up and move, then they started poking and prodding me and waving their hands directly in front of my face, and finally they all pulled out cameras and began taking my picture. When I tried to move out of the circle, they pushed me back in. Though I haven't had any incidents with Russian men, many of them shouted things to me as I walked by, waggling their eyebrows and making kissy faces.

I felt stupid for even coming to Russia, or at least stupid for relying on only one person. That will never happen again.

I'm almost surprised I didn't start crying while I was walking around desperately, but perhaps my subconscious knew better. Tears would surely have only made things worse.

Notes from Today

Today I learned that it not enough to merely attend the breakfast buffet. One must be sure to arrive there before everyone else as well. Failure to do so will result in one being deprived of the good parts. By good parts, I mean bacon. My need for bacon has resulted in me waking up at 6:30 a.m. every morning, an ungodly hour no matter which time zone you're in.

In the afternoon, I visited the Royal Palace and the Grand Hotel today and spent more time than was necessary in both. For the Royal Palace, the reason was that I wanted to get my money's worth as I had purchased the full tour tickets. For the Grand Hotel, the reason was that I needed to satisfy my curiousity that it was indeed too grand for me.

I was too tired to walk to any of my other planned excursions such as the Vasamuseet, the world's largest Ikea, or the Nobel Prize Museum. My chest and throat feels like a mouse went scurrying about in them and left tiny scratches with its paws.

Today I learned that Stockholm is actually composed of islands connected by bridges. Today, I also found Old Town which is a lot like Little Five Points in Atlanta, only blonder.

I am rapidly becoming addicted to European chocolate. Chocolate covered candied orange peel may well be the new crack and I mean that in the most affectionate way possible.

I also get lost everytime I go outside. This doesn't bother me much as I don't really have an agenda and I often have interesting experiences along the way (like explaining to the Swedish Parliament security guards how exactly I found my way into their building).

Tomorrow I leave for Russia and will be there for the next two weeks. I think I can I call my brief time in Scandinavia (one week already?) a success.

Oh, and today for dinner I had buttered salmon with potatoes for 135 kr. I'm beginning to see a pattern here.

Tomorrow, tomorrow...

In something like 18 hours, I'll be boarding a plane to Europe.

Between now and then, I need to check, double check, and triple check that all my stuff is together.

In other news, my Russian visa was approved, so yay!

In slightly worse other news, my international phone doesn't work, so boo!

And I'm off!

good news

My travel visa to Russia was definitively approved and is on its way to me as I type.

Russian bureaucracy is notoriously unreliable. So, even though I applied back in April, it was still up in the air about whether I would get one or not until last week.

Fortunately, none of the other countries I'm visiting require visas.