Back in Helsinki
So I'm back in Helsinki and once again the weather is perfect, although a little cooler than before. Yesterday (Sunday, 30 July) evening I was cooking dinner at the hostel and started talking to these two girls from New York, Sara and Becca. They had recently graduated high school (although you wouldn't know it by talking with them) and were traveling around before attended Yale in a month. We chatted for a bit and then they introduced me to some other people they had met and we all went out for a walk and a beer. It was a fun (and unexpected) evening. One of the girls from New York was a vegetarian so we talked about that for a while during dinner. I decided she would be an appropriate candidate to pass along my Derrick Jensen book ('A Language Older than Words') to. I had just finished it the previous night and I was looking to get rid of it since its so heavy and bulky and I'd been carrying it around for 2 months. It would have cost nearly $15 to mail it home and since the book only cost $20 I didn't think it was worth it for the condition it was in. But I also wasn't quite sure what I should do with it and was planning to just leave it a the meager hostel 'library'. So I was really happy to find another traveler that I could pass it along to who I think will actually get something out of it as I did.
This morning (Monday, 31 July) I went over to the travel agent to pick up my passport with my Russian visa in it. When I picked it up, the woman showed me the dates and it was for 1 August to 15 August. WHAT!?!?! The standard length is 30-days and that time usually starts from when you enter the country (or so I thought) . I still needed another 4 days to secure up my Chinese visa, so I wasn't planning to be in St. Petersburg until 4 or 5 August and it takes 6 days to travel straight through Russia by train without any stops. This was a huge, huge blow and I was really, really pissed. I was the most angry and frustrated I've been in a long, long time. I didn't know what to do. Even if I got my Chinese visa in 1 day and was able to get into Russia 2 days later, that still wouldn't be enough time to see what I wanted to see and hardly enough time to travel straight through. The woman showed me on the form where I filled in the dates. There were 2 fields, 'expected arrival date' and 'expected departure date'. I had no idea these were the dates that the visa was going to be valid for! So I really had no one to blame but myself for not understanding the stupid application (and stupid was not my word, when I was filling out the application the woman told me it was stupid!). I've never seen visas like that before.
So I wondered around for a bit being really pissed off. Went over to talk to another travel agent about Chinese visas. I ran all the possiblities through my head and decided this just wouldn't do. I didn't want to miss out on Russia. Went back to the first travel agent and asked if it was possible to change the dates. It was for 54 euros (about $70), but I really had no choice. I was worried this process would take another several days and set my schedule back even more but was happy to find out it would be ready the same day. So I went from being really pissed off to being out an extra $70, which itself is really frustrating because I've been so careful with my money. But on the bright side I won't be super rushed to travel through Russia. Everything has worked out so well for me so far on this trip that something like this was bound to happen sooner or later.
All that monkey business took the better part of the morning. Then I walked through a park at the southern tip of the pennisula that Helsinki occupies and along the the shore. It was a really pretty part of the city. From the path winding along the rocky shore you could see the numerous small islands that surround the city (and also a bungee jumping company set up there with a huge crane that looked really out of place, yuck). Then I grabbed a cheap and good lunch from the market before having some more monkey business to attend to this afternoon.
This morning (Monday, 31 July) I went over to the travel agent to pick up my passport with my Russian visa in it. When I picked it up, the woman showed me the dates and it was for 1 August to 15 August. WHAT!?!?! The standard length is 30-days and that time usually starts from when you enter the country (or so I thought) . I still needed another 4 days to secure up my Chinese visa, so I wasn't planning to be in St. Petersburg until 4 or 5 August and it takes 6 days to travel straight through Russia by train without any stops. This was a huge, huge blow and I was really, really pissed. I was the most angry and frustrated I've been in a long, long time. I didn't know what to do. Even if I got my Chinese visa in 1 day and was able to get into Russia 2 days later, that still wouldn't be enough time to see what I wanted to see and hardly enough time to travel straight through. The woman showed me on the form where I filled in the dates. There were 2 fields, 'expected arrival date' and 'expected departure date'. I had no idea these were the dates that the visa was going to be valid for! So I really had no one to blame but myself for not understanding the stupid application (and stupid was not my word, when I was filling out the application the woman told me it was stupid!). I've never seen visas like that before.
So I wondered around for a bit being really pissed off. Went over to talk to another travel agent about Chinese visas. I ran all the possiblities through my head and decided this just wouldn't do. I didn't want to miss out on Russia. Went back to the first travel agent and asked if it was possible to change the dates. It was for 54 euros (about $70), but I really had no choice. I was worried this process would take another several days and set my schedule back even more but was happy to find out it would be ready the same day. So I went from being really pissed off to being out an extra $70, which itself is really frustrating because I've been so careful with my money. But on the bright side I won't be super rushed to travel through Russia. Everything has worked out so well for me so far on this trip that something like this was bound to happen sooner or later.
All that monkey business took the better part of the morning. Then I walked through a park at the southern tip of the pennisula that Helsinki occupies and along the the shore. It was a really pretty part of the city. From the path winding along the rocky shore you could see the numerous small islands that surround the city (and also a bungee jumping company set up there with a huge crane that looked really out of place, yuck). Then I grabbed a cheap and good lunch from the market before having some more monkey business to attend to this afternoon.
posted by Dustin at 5:19 AM
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