Well, Tom and I are still in Helsinki. There have been a few “we’re still in…” starts to my blog, sorry if it gets boring to read about the same places too often, feel free to petition for a faster trip.
Helsinki is a pretty lively city and it is very possible to go out on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, well every day. We should know. The trouble with the Finns is that after a 9-month winter they live it up in the summer and many stay out until past 4am while others get up at 8am for a stroll through the park, inconsiderately close to our tents. We are fast becoming sleep-deprived.
Before the weekend we got in touch with a guy called Harri, who we had met in the north of Finland but lives here with his wife Virpi (I hope I’ve spelled that right). On Saturday we visited their summer cottage and spent a really fantastic weekend there. Of course there was plenty of alcohol and delicious food and of course we were not allowed to spend a cent. The cottage is on a smallish island with no neighbours within about a kilometre. Tom and I took a swim over to a nearby island and have claimed it as our own as Brits do. The natives may not be thrilled by this acquisition but after all they don’t have a flag, and so the world is that little bit pinker once more.
We are still waiting for the lovely Russian folk to process our visa and so decided that we should visit Estonia in the meantime. The problem with our plan is that our passport is with said lovely Russian folk, this had escaped our attention until we were at the ferry port. I felt like I was 16 and trying to get into a pub ‘have you got a passport?’ ‘Yeah. Hang on, Damn, I think I left it at home. And so has Tom. But here’s my library card.’ ‘No’. I then had a similar conversation at the next desk.
Actually the Russian visas are a little more tricky to get now (through no fault of the officials) and we are only able to get a 2-week visa. So we now plan to go to Stockholm on the 23rd, to Tallinn on the 27th, back to Helsinki on the 31st, get a train to St. Petersburg on 3rd September, spend 3 days there (and get a ticket for the transmongolian train), get a train to Moscow, spend one day there (and get a new Mongolian visa) and then get on the train to Ulan bataar, entering Mongolia with a few hours left on the visa. What could possibly go wrong?
Mum and Russian officials, that is the end of my blog.
One night not so long ago Tom and I were experiencing Finnish culture and I ended up at an after-party. I left in the not very early hours and was about to head to the park when I realised that my bag was still at the party. The door was locked, the buzzer didn’t work, there were no windows in sight and no stones to throw, there was no other door, my bag had my camera, money and passport in it. So, after a while I spotted an open window, not to the flat I had been in but to what looked to be a communal kitchen. It was located one floor up and right next to a drain-pipe and so I entered, planning to then go to the party flat, recover my bag, go to the park and get half an hours sleep before the walkers arrived. As it happened the inside door was locked and so my plan failed, also it didn’t look much like a kitchen after all but I was too tired to care, I decided to wait until morning to get my bag and laid down to sleep for a while. I woke up as I heard a key turning and stood up just as someone came in to what turned out to be his unfurnished flat. I think it’s fair to say that we were as surprised as each other, he didn’t say much and I mumbled some incomprehensible apologies as I left. If I had been more awake I may have been inclined to claim squatter’s rights.