a hello from the East (I have no idea what I'm doing)

Every time I find it so damn interesting.

You know, to cross the eastern border of Finland.

This time I went by train (Allegro) (it was my first time by train).

I followed in despair how the amount of snow on the ground grew the more East I came.

There were a lot of ponds and small lakes near the border. The water looked shady, orange and brown. That's actually why I assumed they were lakes (after thinking about different options considering pollution).

Yes, I'm used with the green (grey) sea.

I also saw two swans.

Honestly I wasn't too sure of if we actually had crossed the border until I started to see the colorful wooden houses, heavily used and crushed by time and weather.

I though crossing the border by foot (you know, walking into that building and out again and back into the bus) was a slight challenge for the nerves. Now I sat two and a half hours surrounded by both Russian and Finnish custom officers who walked around in the carriages and one of them had a dog and they all looked so scary. The worst part was that I didn't know the procedures of crossing the border while travelling by Allegro. Not that it really would have made any difference. I din't really know what I was doing but apparently I didn't do anything wrong. We got informed pretty well after all. (And no, you don't leave the train at any point)

And just so that you guys know, apparently Russia has changed their time system again. I didn't know that. They use switch to summer time again. But as neither my phone nor I didn't know that, I walked around not knowing the actual time for a day. And this also messed up the arranged meeting at the station with my host. Just saying.

I'm here for an exchange. I'm going to stay for three weeks. It's arranged by a teacher at a school here. I've been here for three days and I still don't know what I'm supposed to do here. Yesterday I joined two Finnish language lessons, one for 15-year old students and one for 8-year old. I helped the teacher a bit. Then I talked in Finnish with two last year students. I was told that I could go home whenever I wanted to. So after some talking and eating with those two students I went home.

I think it took three hours for me to get home to my hosts. First I walked some time to the only metro station that I knew for sure where it was (Gostiny dvor). Then I half guessed which station to go to. I like had almost no idea, I remembered the name of the station nearest to my hosts vaguely. And hahahahaha I guessed right take that. I took the journey home as a challenge. I had all the time in the world. If I would have gone the wrong way I would just have gone back to the start and try again, no problem. After the metro I started walking because I had no idea which thingy (bus, marshutka, electric bus etc) went where. All I knew was to keep to a certain side of a railway. I walked across it and after two minutes I realized I was walking the wrong way and turned back. After 20-30 minutes I gave up and asked google maps for help and got to know that the way I walked first was the right way. So I walked back again. Always trust the first gut feeling. Especially if you don't know what you're doing. After almost an hour of a nice walk I was at the right blocks of flats. The next challenge was to find the right house and then the right door. I found both without problem. Everything had actually gone so well until I came to the front door of the apartment. I hate doors and they hate me. After some time of trying to unlock the door (with two locks) I gave up and rang the doorbell.

Walking to the school from the metro the next morning was also based on a vague gut feeling. We had been looking at the map the night before but I'm terrible at remembering what I've seen. But I found my way even thought it again kinda felt like I didn't know what I was doing.

The second day at school my task was to, together with another person, play with the children during the breaks, and preferably try to include some Finnish words. It was kinda fun, and during the lessons I sat with my colleague in an office and talked.

I'm finishing this post 5 of April because I'm lazy.

And the most important, my hosts are awesome.  

you know you're in Spain when...

This was The Monday of Possibilities, the day when I finally could get the tickets I had reserved on Saturday. First I tried to print them from a machine, only to realize that I would need to pay the full prize for the reservations. Thanks to a assistant/worker I didn't do it. He told me to go to a normal cashier, and so I did. Then I experienced the finest part of Renfe's system. 

Still remember when we couldn't go to Sevilla because we should have made the reservation and get the tickets printed 24h in advance? Now in Barcelona the worker behind the desk just looked at me when I gave him my pile of booking numbers and said:

- Your reservations for the train to Madrid today has been cancelled because you should have gotten your tickets printed yesterday, 24h in advance.

What? 

The office was closed during the whole weekend. Also yesterday. But luckily there were some seats left and the problem was solved. I got the rest of the tickets without any problems, double checked them and everything was settled and done. 

The train left on time. Can you believe that? Our bags were screened and all the tickets were checked carefully before boarding the airplane, sorry, train. The crew gave us earphones (for free!) and a movie was shown on the screens.  The system might be all dizzy but the service on board is the best I've ever experienced! 

"Dear passengers, we are arriving at Madrd central estation"

The subway in Madrid though was interesting. When buying a single ride ticket you were supposed to pick on which station you are getting off at, the shorter distance, the cheaper. 

You can only imagine our happiness when we found a huge map of the subway painted on the floor. After five minutes of trying to find our connections and stations we realized it was a map of the regional train network.

The subway trains are driving on the left side. 

I don't how to say this but when I saw the subway of Madrid I understood the economical difference between Catalunya and Spain. 

The next problem was faced at the Hat, our hostel. My booking hadn't reached their system. What. The receptionist had never heard of hostels.com. I don't know how long this kind of luck will last but there were some beds left. 

The Hat has a bar on the roof. Need to say more?

During these hours another friend of mine arrived from Turku. We two are going to continue for 10 days more and my other friend is flying home the next day.

The evening was spent by walking around in the center. The streets were full of happy and loud Spanyards, blocking the way as well as they could. There was a 50m line to a cafe that was specialized on churros. I also saw several fake Christmas trees with intense blue blinking lights. 

I might have been a mistake wandering around aimlessly without lookind at the street names or the map, but eventually, after a lot of similar confusement as in Barri Gotic in Barcelona, we found our way back to the hostel. 

The travel plan looks like this from now on:

Madrid-Granada-Madrid-Bilbao-Barcelona-back North

This was an evening when I realized that I had forgotten my towel to Barcelona. 

And that there had at some point been a misunderstanding at the ticket office in Barcelona because we had seat reservations for a train from Barcelona to Bilbao, but not from Madrid to Bilbao. I thought double checking would have been enough. 

F

the beloved lands of Mañana

Back in Catalonia, my dear Barcelona. We woke up to sunrise and thought about Sevilla, then "whatever" and just went to another hostel in Barcelona because it would be cheaper during the next two nights.

The first thing we did after changing hostel and having a cup of coffee was trying to get tickets for the rest of our stay in Spain. 

I pressed the button for the inter city journeys that departure after today and got a ticket with the beautiful sentence "no service" written on it. And yes indeed, on this sunny Saturday you could buy any tickets except the ones I needed. After some expolring I had also learned that you can't reserve seats on the ticket machines and that I have to wait until Monday. That's the day we were supposed to be in Madrid. I tried to book seats via telephone and succeded. There I sat half an hour at least and booked seats for 4-5 trains in Spanish only failing to spell my email adress correctly (I forgot a letter) so I never got them sent there. I would have to get early enough to the train station on Monday and get the tickets printed from a machine. My little inner Finn is suffering from severe nerve- related problems

It was a good idea to stay in Barcelona for three nights. We had time to walk around, wash clothes and get lost in Barri Gotic. My friend wanted to find a Primark, but on Saturday it was so full of people that it wasn't worth it and on Sunday it was closed, even if their webpage said it would be open 12-22, even on Sundays. Well. 

We basically spent the reat of the Saturday walking along the beach, having an ice cream at sunset and walking around in Barri Gotic. We even found a vegan café-restaurant there! The funny thing with this partnof Barcelona is that it's hard to navigate. You have to find things accidentally or search for them for an hour. We walked through the same squares, past the same shops and crossed the same lanes all over again but it felt like we were always walking forewards. And still we found new places all the time. The joke of the weekend was "Hey let's go back to that place in Barti Gotic that we found yesterday/two hours ago!". Good luck. Barri Gotic relly is wonderful, don't get me wrong, it's beautiful, you can get lost without really getting lost and you can find anything there, also a lot of tourists. 

One of the most heart warming things was the weather. It really was. The sun was shining and it was +10/13, it was warm. I had so much fun watching the locals reactions seeing me in a t-shirt, long sleeced shirt and a summer jacket while they walked around in heavy winter jackets and what not. 

Everything became even better when we get to experience cheap food again, palmtrees and happy peo - no, actually, many were sad an grumpy. I don't now if it's the stereotypes not matching reality, the political situation or me trying to communicate in Spanish in Catalunya. Some imedialtely switched to English. I don't know if they didn't trust my skills in Spanish or if they just didn't like the language. Hard to say. 

The only annoying thing with the city itself was the metro maps. There barely were any in the stations or in the passages. The only thing was the maps of the lines, like a list of the stations, but it was so hard to find a map of the whole city with the metro lines. Maybe we are just spoiled by Paris but it usually helps a lot to navigate if you can see the street names and the metro routes on the same map.

The Sunday was spent in Barri Gotic mainly. And as far as I know I have all my belongings left.

How to get out of France

It was Christmas Day, 25.12 and we were leaving Paris. Honestly, we had had enough of France, but were still going via Lyon for one night. Our plan was to escape to Valencia, to +18 degrees and cheap hostels. We couldn't simply afford to stay in France, a train seat reservation costs 18€ and the hostels at least 20€ Per night... 

We had had enough of Paris too so we spent our last hours on Paris Gare de Lyon. You know, we didn't feel like walking around with our backpacks or to pay at least 10€ for keeping them in some lockers.

Paris was a pretty cold but beautiful and an expensive experience. It had been raining almost all the time, most of the places were closed due to holidays, there were tourists and pick pockets everywhere, it was difficult to find a calm authentical place and the people went cold when they realized that we actually don't speak French. But we saw beautiful places and met really nice people. It was time to go to South.

Gare de Lyon was a cold place, it's partly outdoors. When I waited for my coffee at Starbucks a shady man came to me and said something in French, and the worker who was making my coffee shouted to him (I only understood the word "respect") and then the shady man went away. Thank you. 

(And they spelled my name right on my cup)

To spend some time I went to reserve seats for the train from Lyon to Valencia. There were 26 persons before me in the queue and 4 desks open. After an hour it was finally my turn.

At this point I want to remind you that there are only 12 seats for passengers with Interrail/Eurail passes per French highspeed train, one reservation costs 18€ and it's obligatory. But what about the regional trains, which do not require reservation? Haha, we had forgotten them.

-Hi, I'd like to reserve two seats from Lyon to Valencia for tomorrow please

Full 

- To Barcelona?

Full

- From Toulouse to Barcelona?

Full

- To anywhere in Spain from southern France?

Full

Challenge accepted.

I reserved seats for the train Lyon -> Toulouse. First I got tickets from Paris Gare de Lyon to Toulouse because of a misunderstanding, but thanks to my habit to double check, I fixed the problem and got the right tickets.

Still having more than an hour left we had time to look for an alternative way to get to Spain. With a restricted amount of internet we booked bus tickets. First the booking site had a million errors but then we tried the mobile version and it worked. The mobile version excisted only in French, because the bud depatured from France. Sigh. But we succeded. 

The bus Toulouse - Barcelona would leave at 16:30 and arrive 23. We wouldn't have made it to Toulouse in time by using regional trains. Bu the time we had booked a hostel in Barcelona too we were pretty frustrated. 

Kids, book your French high speed train like a week in advance or just simply use the regional trains.

Lyon was really nice, we arrived pretty late but had time to walk around. The center of the city reminded me of both Turku and Saint Petersburg. 

Our hotel was interesting. Hotel Iris. Perfectly in the heart of the city. We were the last guests to arrive and we saw no one else (but we did hear them sometimes). The rooms were behind another front door than the reception and couldn't be locked. Then you walked up some stairs in the backyard, opened another door that couldn't be locked and entered the corridoor with the rooms. The door of the room could be locked. I'm so happy we only stayed there for one night, it was pretty scary. There was nothing really that could have been done about it and we were to tired to start looking for another hotel/hostel, that would not have been a lot more expensive (we payed 35€ for this night, each).

We were supposed to have five hours to spend in Toulouse. Hahahah.

After falafel (the waiter didn't know wether to call me madame or monseur and I never gave him any answer) and some happy walking around in the sun we went to a bar to have a coffee (almost every place was either closed or expensive). Here the magical internet told me to book tickets for Spanish trains two weeks in advance if travelling during Christmas. And we had been thinking of continuing to Sevilla the following day. Haha. 

So I called Renfe and guess what, there were no seats left. And I should have had to booked 24h in advance, not 23h as I was doing at the moment. Well excuse me. And when I half an hour later tried to call again concerning the tickets of the rest of the trip I didn't even get through. 

At this point we had a situation of having all the hostels booked for the rest of the trip all over in Spain (except Sevilla) but no tickets and they really seamed to be sold out. What had I been thinking? That no one would travel around Christmas and New Year? We would be stuck in Barcelona. It wouldn't have been a problem if my freind's plane wouldn't have left from Madrid 30.12 and my other friend's plane wouldn't arrive to Madrid 29.12. But as we couldn't reach Renfe by phone and you can't reserve tickets via internet, our only option was to believe in Mañana.

Did I say that the bus to Barcelona should have left at 16:30. Haha. Forget it, we're talking about Southern Europe. The bus came 17:30 and we left at 18. It was difficult for the inner Finnish me to accept this. 

I don't like the fact that you have to reserve everything in such advance and then everything is always late (our every single train and bus in France has been late). What if you might miss your connecting train, that you booked a month in advance, and then you're stuck because all the seats in the later trains are sold out? Ok interrailers might be the only ones facing this problem because of The 12 Seats. I at least don't want to pay 35-60€ for a normal ticket if SNCF fails and not me. No tight connections and run at the station is the answer I guess.

Anyways, we arrived only half an hour later than estimated to Barcelona. I don't know how but I apreciated it. 

Finally in Spain.

a backpacker's Christmas in Paris

The subway was so full you couldn't move. Two shady men were starring at my friends backpack. It's 5pm. 

Welcome to Paris.

We found our way to the hostel easily and to our surprise the whole staff spoke perfect English. Aw yeah. Our intention was to go to sleep early, but instead we walked around in the neighbourhood and then had a beer at the hostel with some other really nice travellers

until late.

The sun was shining on Christmas morning 24. It was so warm that I had to take of my jacket. I have understood that there is snow and -10 degrees in Southern Finland. 

When we arrived at the Eiffel tower we had some croissants and cheap white wine with us. It was absolutely wonderful to feel the sun warming my face. We had no wine glasses, nothing, no glasses at all. Shady people asked for money and other shady people tried to sell shady souvenirs. All the lawns were closed. 

I wish you all great holidays!

Instead of paying for queuing we continued to Montemartre. The view from the top was amazing, fantastic, the sun rays were still pushing through the gathering dark clouds. Also here shady people tried to sell shady souvenirs, and after a couple of "no"'s we promised them behind their backs to either shout NO and swear in Finnish or to make an American drama-scene the next time someone of them would try again. But no one did.

There was a moment in the subway when both had forgotten where we were supposed to get of. Oh well.

After looking at the L'arc de Triumf we walked down Champes Elysè , half of it was a big horrible over-priced Christmas market, to Louvre. And we of course visited the Disney-store. 

Louvre was besutiful on the outside but we didn't care about going inside. We were super hungry at this point and it took a pretty long time to find a place to eat that was open, not to expensive, not a McDonalds and not a bar (they were also closed anyway). Eventually we found a small restaurant and everything was alright. Otherwise we just would have bought something from a grocery store. 

At this point we could relax after some hours in the pickpocket risk zone.

The doors of Notre Dame were open even if there was a mass going on. It was interesting to listen to it (even though the pope spoke only French), and we go so close that we could see the pope. He sang beautifully. I've never attended a Catholic event before. This was impressive, the atmosphere was strong, the singing beautiful and the songs too, the cathedral of Notre Dame massive, candels were lit everywhere and the corridors on higher floors on the sides of the big hall bathed in violet light and the audience was all scilent.

The Seine was beautifully lit too, and it was now even harder to find a bar that wasn't closed. We were'nt surprised, but it had been raining for some hours now and we were freezing. Eventually we found a happy gay-bar, but got thrown out immediately as it was only for men. Luckily another bar across the street was open and we had a glass of wine and wrote some postcards. 

Luckily the hostel offered Christmas dinner, so we didn't have to worry about food in the evening. We got to know more travellers and actually went to sleep early. And I called my family.

Happy holidays

the road to Paris

One of the first things that happened just moments after we left Luxemburg (I'll write about that later) was that a couple of police officers entered and checked the ID of some passengers. But they didn't care about us.

We're at the moment sitting on a train to Paris Est and it's the second (and last) train for today. And on both trains someone has been playkng music out loud from their phones or whatever. In the Lux -> Metz is was an older man palying rock and some acoustic guitarr music, and on the train to Paris someone played house. Me and my friend have felt really tempted to go and these persons a pair of headphones. 

And now I want to be a little kid and brag about that we actually got some food when we used our "skills" in "French" at the cafeteria on Metz railwaystation. I've never studied French and my friend did it for a month. Aw yeah.

And the first thing we found on that station was a book shop. 

The landscapes today have once again been wonderful, but all our videos and pictures are terrible because the train windows are so dirty. 

I think we are in Paris already. 

Berlin

The thing I loved the most with our visit to Berlin the last couple of days has been the distance to the huge tourist attractions.

I've heard a lot of stories about cheap food and lovely falafel. I approve both. You get a delicious falafel for 2,5€ in Berlin and in Turku you get one bus ticket for 3€. Think about that. 

I loved the local alternative bars in south east Berlin, the riverside and how easy it was to use the local transport and of course the impressive graffiti when found. We stayed at my friends apartment and without him we would have been so lost, whoa. 

To calm the professional Tourists down, yes, we saw Brandenburger Tor, twice. From a bus. 

Actually, if you want to see the center of Berlin in less than an hour and it's raining/hailing, I recommend to take the S-bahn 41/42 from eg. East to West and the bus nr 100 across the center back to where you came from.

At the Alexanderplatz market 

We visited a couple of Christmas markets, the first one after our s-bahn+bus tour and another further away. The later one had a Nordic theme and there were Finns selling honey and muikkuja, and other things like that. But really there were manily Germans.

The absolute highlight was when we went a ride with the Merry-go-round. It was one of those with seats hanging from chains! Hih

We also ate some Austrian pancake-thingy's with apple sauce. (Please don't ask me the name)

Another very impressive thing was a concert that we spontaniously went to see. The orchestra played some classical music for a couple of hours and it was fantastic.

Classical music is way too underestimated.

(And I'm a person who listens to rock, alternative, hip-hop, rap, pop etcetc)

The only main tourist attraction that I got a closer look on was Checkpoint Charlie. It's funny because I've been starring at a postcard of it in our history class the last four months.  But nothing I've ever seen in my life has made history as real as Checkpoint Charlie did. 

It was almost midnight when we came up on the roof of a parking lot of a mall. You could see the lights pf Berlin so well, it was so beautiful. Nowadays there's also a bar but they were about to close in an hour so we didn't bother to go, and to pay for entrence.

I was also impressed by that I didn't get lost a single time, even if it was so damn hard to remeber street and station names (they all sounded like shshshsh to me). I'm so lucky that the human kind has invented pens and paper.