Days 8 and 9 (Jake and Katherine go to Finland)

Just to let everyone know: on this day, February 4th, my little brother turns 16. Happy Birthday, John John.
Sunday night I said goodbye to all my friends from IMOP and jumped a metro to the center of town with Katherine Wells, our wonderful RD, to catch the night bus to Helsinki. The bus was dark and quiet, luckily it was only about a quarter full, giving us plenty of room to lay out. At midnight we stopped at a gas station to grab some food and stretch. Later we stopped to pass through Russian customs. After they stamped my passport, it was the point of no return--since I only had a single-entry Visa, if I wasn't able to get my student Visa in Helsinki, I wouldn't be allowed back into Russia. At 2:00am we got out and went through Finish customs, and got back on the bus for another few hours. We rolled up on Helsinki City Center about 5:00am. We walked over to the Train Station, where I was able to give home a ring and let my parents know that I was not in the country they sent me to, and, of course, to tell John John 'Happy Birthday'.
As I'm sitting in Helsinki Train Station, I realize that Finnish doesn't sound like English or Russian, in fact, it sounds like something you would hear in a Star Wars movie. Upon further research, I found that Finnish is just weird like that. I expected Finnish would fall under the category of Scandinavian languages, which are an off-branch of Germannic (and therefor Indo-European), but instead, Finnish falls into a catagory of Finno-Ugric languages, which are not part of the Indo-European language family at all. Indo-European languages, if you don't know, include everything from Slavic (Russian, etc.), Hellenic (Greek), Romantic (Latin-based, such as Italian, Spanish, French, etc.), Germannic (German or English), even Hindi, Urdu (There ya go, Hadi), and Persian. Finnish is related to Estonian and Sami, Livonian, Komi, Mordvin, Mari, and Yukaghir languages. What's notable about Finno-Urgic languages is that inflection (declension and conjugation) only makes up part of their grammar. The rest is Agglutinated (like Korean), which means that its morphology consists of morphemes affixed to the base of the word. Basically, this means that Finnish words are really, really long because of the prefixes and suffixes that are added as words change form. I only expect Ted or Mr. White to understand this paragraph, so for everyone else: Finnish is just weird.
Katherine and I ate breakfast, then she said she had some business to do (at 6am??), so she'd meet me back in the same spot at 7:30. I had to go to the bathroom, which proved to be a fun time-killer. In true American fashion, I went price-shopping for the cheapest bathroom. The cheapest one I found was a Euro ($1.31), so I waltzed into the nearest fancy hotel and pretended to be a guest. I asked the counter attendant where the bathroom was and she pointed to the right. The hotel bathroom was a dream: big, quiet, and covered in Marble and track-lighting.
Katherine met me again and gave me a public transportation pass. Then we hopped a tram over towards the Russian Embassy. Standing in line we met an Englishman named Paul who teaches in St. Pete. He was really cool and friendly. Katherine said she doesn't meet other English people very often. We also met a girl who goes to Emory and a guy from Montana who imports cranberries for a company that sells to all-natural food places. After waiting in the freezing cold for the embassy opened, we went in and got searched, then I got a form from the counter attendant. I filled out the form in its entirety, then waited in line, and gave it to the attendant. She circled a spot in red ink in the corner of the form that said "The Russian Embassy of _______", then pointed to a table in the waiting area. "Are you serious?," I thought. "That's seven letters, and I have to wait in line all over again?" So it goes. After turning in the form, we walked to a bank a few blocks away (you can't pay for your Visa at the embassy apparently), then returned and stood in line again. Eventually they took my passport to the backroom for my new Visa. I now have 4 Russian Visas in my passport.
We said goodbye to our new friend Paul, then jumped the tram back to City Center (Stockmann's/Train Station). Stockmann's is a huge department store that, from what I've heard, has it's place in the culture of Helsinki. Katherine told me that she had some AIFS business in the west end of town, so she was going to let me go for a few hours, and said that it was imperative that I meet her back at the train station at 2:45.
So begins my solo adventure in Helsinki. I stood on the corner for a minute, wondering what I should do from here. After all, my previous studies and my study abroad trip are all about Russia, not Finland. I had no idea what there is to do in Scandinavia. I decided a good starting point would be to go back and look at everything cool that whizzed by the window on the tram earlier that day. So I walked down a few streets, photographed some statues, saw a cool cathedral, and strolled down to the Gulf of Finland. One interesting note about Helsinki is that it has more coffee shops per capita than any other city in the world. So if you want to open a coffee shop, don't go to Helsinki. It's a saturated market.
I perambulated central Helsinki for a while, taking pictures and marveling at the cleanliness of the frozen city. Whenever I got cold, I wandered into a shop or a mall. One shop had a stack of Reindeer pelts up to my belly button, no exaggerating. Although not as bad as London, Helsinki is an expensive city. The only thing I bought there was a small Finnish-flag patch for my backpack. By the way, my Jansport zipper broke again, so I need to send it in to get it fixed (not from here, obviously). I love that backpack.
So after seeing central Helsinki, I decided that, with 2 hours to go, I would put my public transportation pass to good use. I hopped a bus and rode for a while. Eventually I got out and felt the freezing Scandinavian wind on my face, and thought "I have no idea where I am... mission accomplished!" I started walking towards where I thought city center was, but, seeing as the bus took many turns, I didn't really know where that was. So I wandered and wandered. Before I knew it, it was 2:45, I was late to meet Katherine, and I had no idea where I was. Now is a good time to say that the population of Finland is much nicer than Russia. Also, many Fins are fluent or near-fluent in English. I asked some school kids where the train station was, and they suggested I hop the tram. At the tram station I talked to another guy, who was a native Estonian (also a Finno-Urgic Language, by the way). Since he was going to somewhere near city center, he offered to escort me most of the way there. He could tell I was from the States by my accent, and was a big fan of the US (hoo-rah). One of his friends moved to Boston, and he is looking forward to going to the States one day. I told him if he was ever in Virginia, look me up.
I was only about 20 minutes late meeting Katherine (which she was thrilled about). We hopped the Russian train back to St. Petersburg, which takes about 5 hours (3 less than the Bus). The coupe was a 6 seater, and our company included a Professor from Novgorod State University and his wife. I supposed Katherine and I are a bit of an odd pair-- American Student and an English woman, both involved with the State Polytechnic University in St. Petersburg, coming from Finland. They were very interested in why an American student would study abroad, and what experiences I had had in Russia. What I thought was strange was that they directed all questions about me to Katherine. When I could, I would respond in Russian, otherwise I would ask Katherine to translate. Eventually I fell asleep in my bucket seat as birch trees covered in snow whizzed by the window (I took a short video).
Upon returning to the dorm, I got a warm reception from everyone. Many of them wanted to come with me, but our multi-entry Visas haven't come back yet, so they couldn't. Maybe in the future I'll return to Finland. Until then, as the Fins say: hey hey.



2 AM: The Russian-Finnish Border








5 AM: The empty streets of downtown Helsinki








7 AM: Light appears on the horizon over the Helsinki Train Station








9 AM: Outside the Russian Consulate of Finland








This is a tram, an electric train that accounts for most of Helsinki Public transportation. There are also busses and a metro system, but it only has one line.








I spent many hours wandering Finnish streets just like this. At the intersection you can see a white cathedral (also pictured below)








Ah, the Gulf of Finland-- ripe for a morning swim.







Here is the Helsinki Cathedral, which was built in honor of Russian Tsar Nicholas I (hence the statue). The Cathedral was completed in 1852, before Finland declared independence from Russia (1917).








Two Finnish stamps on my passport. As you can see, the entering stamp (->) shows that I took a automobile, the outgoing (<-) shows that I took a train.