Across Europe, extended version, Summer 2018, Part II

Did you enjoy the new features of my blog? I hope so! Finally being able to write something in english, even if it’s not very well written, but hey, I told you, if you want the full experiencie, buy the spanish-language pack!

Let’s continue with our trip!

It was 7^th of July, and got out of Saint Peterburg by “elektrichka”, basically a soviet train for short distances -soviet because it looked very old-. We arrived to the Fox’s Nose -that was the name of the stop- and started pointing our thumbs up.

We got a ride to Vyborg, the “last russian city”, and the driver even stopped there to show us the city and tell us a few interesting facts about it. He also talked with me about Franco -the dictator- because he liked to talk about history and he had been a few times in Spain, and gave us his phone number just in case we had problems on our way to Finland and wanted to stay with him that night.

Vyborg is a portuary city located in Karelia. In finnish is Viipuri, and the people of Finland still consider Viipuri one of the most shaming defeats of World War II, but they keep a strong relationship with this city, and it’s a turistic destination for finnish people.

The biggest monument of the city is the fortress, built by the swedish -because it was also under swedish control, but for us, the most interesting thing were the drakkar -a special viking ship- they had .

After Vyborg, a truck driver took us to a spot 20 km off the border, it was a short ride, but really funny, because he was incredibly excited. Why? Because he was helping the only spanish of Vologda’s Oblast, of course! He shook my hand 3 times in 30 seconds, while whispering to himself something like “¡woah, a spanish! ¡I’m helping a spanish guy! ¡hitchhiking from Russia to Spain! ¡Incredible!”.

From the spot he left us -where we managed to observe a fox crossing the road-, got a ride with a van to the border -the russian guy who was checking if we had our passports was also very excited when he noticed my spanish passport-, and then we were offered a ride with 2 guys to cross the border. Everything was going under our plans till the woman checking the passports started questioning me, and I felt for a second like in an interrogatory:

“Where are you going? What for? With who? What are you going to do after that? And after that? …”

But the worst thing was to come when she said: “there’s a problem with your passport, didn’t they tell you the last 3 times you entered the Russian Federetion trough Moscow at the border?”.

I was already panicking a little bit and thinking they were going to send me to the gulag, when they realised it wasn’t my fault, actually, it was a mistake made in one of my first visas and they repeated that error in the new one. So they called to the KG… Moscow and Vologda, and solved it.

Once in Finland, the guys who took us didn’t stop at the spot we we’re supossed to -probably they were scared thinking the russian border control officers were going to arrest them for help a spanish spy or something similar- and we ended up at a place in the middle of nowhere, 2 km north of the border.

We tried to hitchhike there, but there were the same amount of cars than in “Mad Max” films, that is, almost none, so we decided to walk back and start from the original point. We managed to cross the forest and arrived to the spot, we were stopped by a van of border guards who checked our documents -maybe they thought we had crossed the border illegally- and found another ride -after waiting a little bit more than expected- to Hamima, a small city near Kotka.

This new driver, showed us the city -apparently we had that day free tours all over the cities we were passing by- and waited in a new spot for other drivers to get to Helsinki. That’s how we met Maarit, an incredible woman, yoga instructor living in the capital, with whom we shared a lof of interests and hobbies.

Thanks to her, we arrived our destination, Helsinki, and managed to complete the first 1.000 km of our trip. As soon as I got out of the car, I fell completely in love with the city, but the next day that love would dissapear because of the strong winds and the freezing cold we had that day…

We stayed at Christian’s house, Natasha’s friend, in Katajanokka. He’s a charming guy who treated us like if we were his family, and thanks to him, our time in the capital was wonderful.

Helsinki is incredibly beautiful, a little bit expensive for my russian/european standards, but anyway, amazing, and feeling myself again “in Europe” gave me an indescribable sensation. You can even feel the difference in the air you breathe, the vegetation… In that moment I understood how tired I was of the dust -because russian cities have a lot of dust, believe me!!!

We went to a lot of places and also tried during our time there licorice ice cream -a very typical thing of Finland-! We visited the Municipal Museum -where we learned more about the history of the country and the city-, the Orthodox Uspensky Cathedral, Helsinki’s Cathedral (biggest lutheran cathedral, because it’s the main religion in Finland), the Market Square, the Kamppi Chappel or Chappel of Silence -modern style, made of wood in a way you get isolated from outside noise, and you can only hear your own breathing, next to a center in where people in need can find professional help if they need it-, the Central Station, the Temppeliaukio Church -built directly into solid rock, and that’s why it’s also called the Church of the Rock-.

We also enjoyed the parks and Sibelius Monument -Sibelius was a famous finnish violinist and composer-, wich left me speechless.

After spending two nights in the capital, decided to move on and boarded the ferry to Tallin trough the Baltic. There -in Tallin-, our friend Olga was waiting for us, along with a lot of surprises!

Well, that’s all for today, if you want to know what happened next, follow the blog and wait for the next entry!! Thanks!