The Finnish Line

Finland! Lapland, Scandinavia. Land of saunas and things made from birch wood. Our brief visit to Finland was enough to double my geographical knowledge of the place. I went in knowing the name of one city and came out knowing two!

I always roll my eyes at people who claim 'culture shock' when travelling. For me it is right up there with 'the accent I acquired while in Australia'. So I will not call what I went throught 'shock'....more like 'awe'. From the moment we disembarked the train there were people who could willingly speak English and were helpful, people didn't stare and laugh at me, there were heavy metal posters at bus stops, you can drink the water...right out of the tap!! And, there were designated bike lanes that are respected by motorists. I kept, to B's annoyance, expressing wonder at these features. I think that is as culture shocked as I can get. Well...I guess I can imagine a little bit more. In the past the most vivid 'culture shocky awey' thing was witnessing the abundance of food in our home grocery stores, all organized and well lit.

After a day of roaming around and a night of playing pool and drinking, B flew home. (must have been the 4 euro beers?) I remained and through the warmshowers website found a great fellow named Markus with whom I spent my remaining two nights. I also got a tour with Kari, twin bro of Artsi who stayed with me in Revey some years back. Did you know that Helsinki hosted the 1952 summer olympic games? I didn't. Part of the Kari tour was to go to the outdoor wooden architecture museum with his dog. There were plenty of cool structures for me and lots of squirrels for the dog so it was a successful outing. I much prefer the more modern buildings to the old, one small windowed, dismal log cabins. And speaking of modern stuff, after visiting the design museum I am convinced that everything at Ikea is copied from a 1950s Finnish product. You see, they were a little isolated for a while and needed to produce stuff for themselves so they pushed the design envelope and the result was a lot of groovy furniture made from wood. Ikea, come on, give the Finns some credit! Also, did you know that orienteering is a huge spectator sport? Somewhere in there I visited a store and bought new shoes...much needed shoes.

And why didn't I fly home too, you may be wondering. Well, here startith my little solo adventure across Europe. First stop Switzerland, second stop Montpellier. OK, you're right. It's fall and getting cold...that'll just add some 'spice' (aka: misery) to the voyage. (just to interject here...I'm writing this 25 days into the tour and I have seen 0...ZERO other cycle tourers...I think I missed a few memos) The plan is to get south quickly by going through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland. Then some sort of route around Czech and Austria to Germany through to Switzerland and then down to France. Details will follow. I didn't even know that Estonia had its own language until Markus told me the day before. "Really!", I thought to myself, "I'm so ignorant!". I visited the bookstore in Helsinki (highly recommended by the way...so big and so cool) and got the 3-in-1 "Balticum" map and went back to the Markus basecamp to "plan". Or was that to drink beer, I forget. Anyway, I learned the name Tallinn which was the first city in Estonia that I would hit when I ferried across the Gulf of Finland.

Tallinn...cool, I though. Sounds like a bird of prey claw. Or a chicken's.

Moscow and St. Petes, day by day

Our arrival in Moscow marked the official completion of the full Trans Siberian Railway trip. I'm probably more excited about having done it now than then. I was probably more worried about thieves and maffia swarming me as soon as I stepped out of the rail station! OK, so I wasn't that worried and as it turned out it was easy to bike around (on side streets and side walks) as long as you scrammed at the first sign of a black luxury car. No kidding. Audis, BMWs, and Lexuses(Lexi?) were the favourites. At least some were modded (mechanically altered to go faster) and they would fire along any street with absolute lack of care. At least we could hear them coming...8 cylinders at 6000 rpm is hard to miss. This aspect of Moscow was one of the first I saw and it's one that I'm the most incensed with. I'm sure the consequences for these "elite" people is minimal if they were to hit somebody (cyclist!). It's so extreme that it revolts me. Then you have a whole class of people (in black cars of course) who have these blue lights on their roofs and a distinct horn not unlike a fire engine horn. They just honk and fire up their lights whenever they want people to get out of the way. Don't get me started.

Anyway, after a bit of poking around we found a place to live for a few days and proceeded to enter full-on city tourist mode. We immediately jumped into the metro system and made our way to a market filled with junk. The metro stations are fantastic. Ornate and riddled with socialist artwork. The market itself was OK...mostly filled with "authentic" stuff from the Soviet era. I did manage to find a few little goodies that I'm pretty excited about.

The next day was Kremlin Day! And walking around and Red Square and St. Basils Cathedral...holy cow! So much to see! The Kremlin was awesome, the hightligh of which was the armoury. Filled with gold and silver and expensive stuff...no wonder there was a revolution. I had a similar reaction to when I was in Versailles...wanting to grab the nearest pitchfork and attack the bourgousise! But I'd settle pretty quick if they just gave me that one bowl made from 3 kg of gold...and the Fabergé egg with the mini train inside. Every revolutionary has his price and mine is one little bowl and one egg! Just one little egg....c'mon! Outside, but still in the Kremlin, there was a gigantic cannon (the Tsars cannon) and a giant bronze bell...GIANT! And, of course, a cluster of churches. Red Square...it's not exactly red but if you close your eyes you could still see the nukes being paraded along. And that crazy cathedral-St. Basils. It's wonderful and bizaar...it's real and not a disney land sort of fake church.

The next day we grabbed our bikes and did our own city tour. We managed to find paths and safe routes which we found encouraging. We made our way through Gorky park, along the river, saw the crazy monument to Peter the Great, the 1980 olympic stuff, and got to the university atop a hill with a great view. The university building is a great specimen of the Stalinist neoclassical architecture. In particular the layer cake / ziggurat skyscraper that resembles something from Gotham city. There are 7 such sky scrapers...named the 'seven sisters'. There was an 8th planned but it never got built. Of course, it was to be the biggest EVER! I'm a sucker for these buildings...I love'em. From the university we made our way towards the WWII monument which is an impressive spire. We actually never made it up close due to getting lost a few times. We gave up the search when our particular route was suburbs-projects-park with shady characters-terminating at some spooky railway tracks with a few black SUVs parked. Don't ask how we managed to get that far along without calling it quits. Making our way back to city central we cruised along the famed Arbat Street which didn't seem like it should be that famed..but fun nonetheless. Some more Kremlin and Red Square views capped off the day and we hunkered down for some middle eastern food with belly dancers every half hour. We loved the belly dancers.

A museum day. To start, we saw Lenin's corpse. Yup, an honest to god embalmed Vladimir Lenin laying there peacefully. Admission was free, of course (can you imagine otherwise??), and the tone was serious and dark. On way in we passed by the tombs of a bunch of other socialist big wigs including Uncle Joe. Then off to the Pushkin museums...lots of art, archeologica, and the treasures of Troy. I can't say I'm a big fan of Russian paintings but there were plenty of other works as well. Back on the metro to the space monument, Cosmonaut Alley, and the space museum. Space is pretty cool.

Then the night train to St. Petes. The smallest bike shelf yet combined with a cranky lady in our compartment...oh well, we really didn't care that much. We just muscled in and scraped our bikes into place while she huffed and rolled her eyes. "This is the last time we do this, who gives a crap if she's cranky." It must be Russia wearing off on us.

For me, the first two days in St. Petes were the highlights. The sleep deprivation from the jerks in our hostel had not kicked in yet. As soon as we got our hostel setup we beelined to the Hermitage for opening. It's called the Hermitage because Katherine the Great said something like "I can just come to this place and be a hermit." The place is huge and is chockers with fantastic art and rooms from the tsar era. Absolutely mind boggling. I did have to temporarily suppress the pitchfork urge several times, however.

The next day I bought a small guide that had many of the city's building in it and we cycled around and read about what we saw. Of course, much of what we saw wasn't in the guide and was equally fantastic. We happened upon a graveyard at one point that was basically a forest with tombstones. A very organic and different sort of graveyard. The cycling was easy due to the paths...but stray onto the roads and all bets are off!

We started the next day by bitching about our hostel but figured the money we were saving would soften the blow of the opera AND ballets that were on the agenda. The Peter and Paul fortress had a cathedral with the tombs of many tsars including Peter the Great, Katherine the Great, Nick II, and some other Romanovs. On to St. Isaacs for some more ABC touring. (Terry's acronym for 'another bloody cathedral'!) A neat little photo exhibit made for some nice down time while browsing their book collection before heading to the Mirinsky. Yup, the Mirinsky...you heard me...THE Mirinsky for a ballet.

Next day...I reached burn out. Canned some lofty plans and went to a food market and bought an over priced pickle. That was pretty much all I could handle so I hunkered down and caught up on news and drank coffee. B was a little more enthused but also admitted to enjoy doing nothing for the afternoon. We finished our last night in town with an opera. It was a different theater and the audience was much less touristic and thus more respectful. (and unfortunately for us, better dressed)

And, of course, the train price to Helsinki was much more in comparison to similar distances within Russia. Go Scandinavia! Bye bye Russia! And good bye you bastards at the hostel. One last bike disassemble and package-up to placate a huffy train person only to put them between cars...sheesh...it'd be easier just to have left them assembled. Something about "regulations". Like I said, good-bye Russia!