I meet Dad at the train station in Helsinki and caught a taxi back to the hotel. We had an early night because we had to get up 4 something something the next morning for a boat across the Gulf of Finland to Estonia. Good thing about Europe, the countries are so close, which seems like a silly thing to say, but they are a lot further away in Australia.
(more…)Tag: travel
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Helsinki – Take 2
This time with mohawks
The train ride back to Helsinki was punctuated by the Russian border control taking my passport for a while and going for a walk, to another carriage. Turns out my visa had been stuck in the passport upside down, and they couldn’t scan it on their machines. Didn’t have any issues getting into Russia, but this time they wanted to check with a supervisor on what to do – manually type in the visa details on their machines.
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Saint Petersburg
It is very famous in Russia, you know it?
The first day we had booked a guide for The Hermitage. It was within walking distance from the hotel, so we set off on foot. The cost of the guide paid for itself when they negotiated our way through all of the queues and straight into the museum before it was actually open. I think they used dad’s walking stick as an excuse. The only down side was I didn’t like being rude, and cutting past that many people was a bit award, they had been waiting a long time to get in.
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Day 4 – Iceland to Helsinki – Midsummer
Today started early, again. 4 AM alarm, got dressed, checked out, and into the car.
Seems accurate. We negotiated the rather quiet and slightly familiar streets back to the highway to the airport. There were hardly any cars, but there were some roadworks at 4:30AM! Good time to do them, no one about. Dropped off the car, walked the 1.5km back to the terminal, and lined up for baggage drop. They asked to see passports, but only to confirm our tickets. Dad asked about passport control, “Not until you return to the UK.” Ha! Jokes on you, I mean, of course, not until we return to the UK.
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Day 3 – Iceland
Even the town drunk speaks English
We had finally started getting onto GMT, and woke after 7, without an alarm.
Today was spent around Reykjavik. First stop was the Leifer Erricson monument out the front of Hall church. They have a lift to take you up 8 stories in the bell tower. Much easier than stairs. From there you can see most of Reykjavik.
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