Sunday, July 16, 2006

Exit Visa

It is my last day in the hectic, overcrowded city of St.Petersburg. As the city gears up for the G-8 summit, I feel happy to be making an exit, the city is too hot, too busy, too mosquito infested (St. Petersburg was built over a swamp, much like Washington D.C.) This means one last joyous hostel Breakfast (My egg actually peels well this time!)

I pack and leave my large bag in the luggage room. I am not doing any sightseeing today, only buying souvenirs! I start at the other end of Nevskiy Prospekt, buying some Russian Dolls, the kind that you open and there are 5 dolls, each one within a larger one. St.Petersburg souvenir shops are full of them.

I also browse the Passazh department store, which had a nice bag section

(I need a travel bag to carry extra stuff in - souvenirs, gifts etc.), but I realize that all the prices I like there have 1's in front of them and are 1,000 rubles more expensive than I thought! I am still willing to look for something, but the 3 ladies in the shop talk to each other and completely ignore me!!! Maybe it's cause I look like a punk in my Small Cute Dog T-shirt, but I am pissed off and leave without buying, deciding to go across the street to the other major department store, Gostinny Dvor, where I find a better and more importantly cheaper selection of bags. I am eyeing some tennis bags, and one of the ladies in the shop is extremely helpful despite us having virtually no linguistic common ground! The racquet bag would be nice for squash but I am looking for something bigger, and she seems to know it - "Bolshoi?" she asks? I know it means big and I say yes. She brings me a cheesy looking bag but well constructed, and it actually says "St. Petersburg", and has pictures of the raised bridges(A site I unfortunately never stayed out till 1:30am to witness)! I say Souvenir, and the woman understands that word. I know Gostinny Dvor is having sales everywhere, and I try and ask her if there's any discount but she doesn't understand me, until I realize that the symbol for their sales is "%", and so I get a piece of paper and write the percentage symbol on there. She and the other lady laugh and shake their heads the negative. I am disappointed, but at least I enjoyed being able to communicate an idea to them.

A bit more shopping takes me to the Yelitseev's deli where I look at Vodka and Caviar.

I buy a very small jar of Beluga caviar for a small fortune and some Vodka that the woman assures me is of high quality and is not an exported brand. Yelitseev's was recommended as the place to buy these items in the eyewitness guide, so I suspect I have chosen well.

I also crash a small store in an alley called Sekunda where there is supposedly some good Soviet artifacts, but all I find are some coins. Nothing I want to take back with me that I wouldn't lose. So with that done, I head back to the hostel, stopping for some fast food Bliny on the way (These are crepe-like pancakes with meat and tomato filling). I also have a Shwarma Pita as the Bliny are really small. Having collected my bags from the hostel, I make my way back to the train station via the subways, and after 35 minutes and a half litre of sweat, I am at my train to Helsinki.

On the way out of town I get a last view of the horror that is the St.Petersburg suburbs. Otherwise, the train is a pleasant experience, my seatmate is a goofy Finn from Tampere. He's been travelling in the Urals, and he spends most of the trip in the Bar car, except during the customs inspection, when they close the bar car and toilets for an hour between Vainikkila, Finland, and Vyborg, Russia. The border process really is a formality, I hand the conductors my passport and it gets handed back to me stamped 2 hours later, no questions asked. The Finn border guard even remembers me and asks if I had a nice time in Russia. The Finns are very friendly people, and despite the fact that we didn't talk much my seatmate offers to email me photos from Lapland. I expect him to give me his e-mail address but when her is exiting one stop before me, he wants mine, says his is too complicated, and I just don't feel the desire to write it down. So we simply part, but I can't help feeling that I've snubbed him.

Arrival in Helsinki is nice, it's very cool and I heck into my hotel, which has a sauna I hope to use and a free internet station in the lobby! I get into my room which has a nice, modern, Scandinavian design, but it's small, and I connive a slightly better room because the in-room safe isn't working.

I have dinner at a funky Bar Restaurant called Zetor, designed by one of the designers behind the Leningrad Cowboys (You can surf the web to find out more about this strange Finnish cinema/music phenomenon). The food is all very Finnish, and I order a Finnish antipasto, which includes Marinated Garlic cloves, a creamy Roe Foam, Grava Whitefish, creamy garlic herring, onions, Reindeer liver pate, and Reindeer Carpaccio. Very tasty, and I follow it with Reindeer stew which comes in a massive serving and I can't finish it.

It's now about midnight and I walk back to my Hotel. Tomorrow is my last day in Scandinavia, and I want to get an early start.

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