We can’t stop here – this is bat country!

— Thanks to Lucie, and greetings to New Zealand!

Worth living:

My eyes are closed, I realize I just woke up.
I haven’t slept properly for 4 days and feel exhausted, tired, but I am awake now. I have found a position to sit which is extremely comforting. Everything is silent, I am at peace, calm, happy.
The sun warms my hands, my arms, my face, and I open my eyes to watch the world outside of the train slowly moving by. I am sitting at a big window and I seem to be the only traveler, noone and nothing is to hear except for the very soft movements of the train.
Looking around I realize that I am driving through (or over?) a picture: someone drew huge geometric figures on the surface, polygons of different shapes, and colored them in yellow and green and brown tones – farmland. And he even took himself enough time to take out a brush and put a touch of white on everything that is moving by – fields and trees, houses and fences – giving the whole world a peaceful, a silent, a serene and clear expression.

Helsinki, the capital of Finnland, is one of the most southern Finnish cities, but still colder than many others who are located far more north. Why is that?

Because of the wind. Due to the fact that Helsinki has maritime climate (it is located at the sea), the wind usually blows rather strong, thus the temperature feels way colder. Here is a very informative diagram.
(x: temperature in °C)
(y: wind in m/s)

*BRRR*

After spending nearly four months in Finnland, most of the time in Helsinki, I just have to tell you about the Finns, the Finnish culture, about the things that are “special” here. The things that are important. The things you better know before coming here.

- Santa Claus is called “joulupukki”. No, they actually take this seriously, it just sounds ridiculous.

- Sauna is a very basic thing in Finnish life. Everybody knows this, of course, I don’t have to tell you. But here is a nice quotation of an email about Finnish Christmas culture which was sent around in the foreign-students list – it actually shows, how *very* important sauna is:
“After the porridge and declaration of the Christmas peace people go to the graves, leaving candles for the dead relatives. Then follow often Christmas sauna and church.”
Christmas sauna?…

- It does not matter if you exchange money in the bank or buy something in the supermarket: You will never pay *.49 or *.99, neither will you pay *.21 or *.81, the money is always rounded (which, I hope, is the correct term). I felt kind of ripped off the first time I bought something for 2.98 and actually had to pay 3 Euros.
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Die deutsche Bahn hat auf ihrer Homepage den allseits beliebten und bekannten “Sparpreis 50″, bei dem man sage und schreibe 50% Rabatt auf eine Zugfahrt bekommt. Ich habe mir vorhin mal die Zeit genommen, mir die Details anzuschauen – es sind ledigliche geringe Restriktionen, wollen wir sie einmal einzeln durchgehen:

1) Der Sparpreis 50 ist leider nur verfügbar, wenn man Hin- und Rückfahrt zusammen bucht. Aber jeder muss ja am Ende dorthin zurück, wo er herkommt, insofern stellt das ja wohl kein Problem dar.
2) Die Fahrten müssen einen Mindestpreis von jeweils 15 Euro überschreiten – denn sonst wäre das ja wirklich einfach zu billig. Dafür habe ich Verständnis.
3) Die Vorkaufsfrist beträgt 3 Tage. Klaro. Muss geplant werden. Logisch.
4) Es giltzusätzlich, dass die Fahrt entweder über das Wochenende oder am Wochenende erfolgen muss. Im Klartext heisst das, Hin- oder Rückfahrt muss am Samstag oder Sonntag geschehen, wenn ich das richtig verstehe. Aber an Wochentagen arbeitet der gute Deutsche so und so. Fein.
5) Das Angebot ist nur begrenzt verfügbar – was ich natürlich verstehe, schliesslich passen in einen Zug auch nur begrenzt Menschen. Ansonsten wird es nämlich zu voll.

*kopfschüttel*…

All pictures are original, no working with Paintshop (yet…).

Random Skies … :

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The trip to Russia started at the 14.11.2005 at 5pm and lasted 7 days – a group of about 40 students, Helsinki railway station, Tolstoy night train to Moscow. The first hours passed quite fast, it got dark, and we had to give away our passports 2 times during border controls. The train stopped every now and then, and drove very slowly the rest of the time. The beds were more or less clean, but way too small for me…

Moscow
We arrived in Moscow in the morning at 10am, and were surprised that our hotel (Roosija) was about 5 minutes to walk from the Red Square and the Kremlin, extremely central, clean, and unbelievably huge. From the entrance hall, we had to walk about 5 minutes through the hotel (same distance as to the Red Square) to reach our rooms, and we got lost more than one time. 12 floors, and at least 200 rooms each floor.
The temperature was mostly around zero degrees celsius, no snow though. I spent most of my time in Moscow walking around in the centre, visiting “must see” sights.
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For all those incredibly curious people out there who are already missing comments and new entries: I am in mother Russia at the moment, Moscow, and will spend the next few days in St. Petersburg.

After that there will be lots of information about this trip :-)

EDIT: I am back home, going to eat and sleep now, details and pictures in the next few days.

Fireworks (1):

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