Helsinki, Finland

I had a spectacular last meal in Russia: borscht, beef, potatoes and vodka. Does it get more Russian than that? So now I must share my final thoughts about Russia. It's a very obnoxious country and not at all easy to like. But I would not hesitate to return, though preferably with my vile and foul Russian friends. Overall, St. Petersburg is a nicer place than Moscow, but Moscow still has Russia's most famous and beautiful buildings and is overall the quintessential Russian experience. Although not everyone in St. Petersburg was nice, they were definitely nicer than Moscow, which has got to be the world's most miserable city in every sense of the word. Russia really is a fascinating place. After having isolated itself from the world for the past seventy years it's entirely its own entity. It's not the West nor is it the East; it's not European nor is at Asian. Most certainly is it in no way the third world (not even close). In fact, except for the ugly architecture, it pretty much resembles the first world. Everything is clean, modern and works like a well oiled machine. But could you really call it the first world? You could definitely argue yes, but there are just things that go on and attitudes there that are inconsistent with the first world. Russians have a completely different way of doing virtually everything. In the new globalized world one usually encounters two ways of doing things: the first world way and the third world way. Russians do it neither way - they do it the Russian way. Take driving for example. Most Americans know the difference between first world driving and third world driving. But Russians have their own style of driving that is neither, nor is it somewhere in between, it's just totally different. It is difficult to describe this unless you´ve driven with a Russian, but when you do you will understand. Technically Russian driving is drunk driving, but the Russians even do that differently than everybody else. The interesting part is that there is no perceived inferiority regarding the Russian way of doing things. In the third world, people are aware that their way of doing things is the inferior way and the smart strive to do things the first world way. But Russians, after having been told for seventy years that they're the greatest and most powerful people on earth, carry no such stigma for their ways. Amongst Russians similar in age to myself, the ratio of nice to asshole was pretty much the same as in Western Europe. But anybody older had a hard life in the Soviet Union and look like they can't wait to die. I can't say it enough - there is just an air of misery there. The train to Helsinki was great. Like I said before, Russian trains are impeccable. The stations are modern, efficient and remarkably well organized. A recorded voice gave announcements explaining the border formalities every step of the way, trilingually: first in Russian, then in Finnish, then in flawless English with a North American female voice. Right after leaving St. Petersburg everybody's passport was collected. Then at Vyborg, the last major city in Russia, the train stopped and Russian customs officials came aboard. They tore the train apart, at one point coming on with a drug dog, who I swear to God was some kind of poodle. Then they questioned everyone. The official who came up to me greeted me with the safe word "zdrastvuytye" to which I did my best to respond without a stupid accent. He then asked me something in Russian and I played dumb saying "I'm sorry, I don't speak Russian." "Where are you from?" "USA." "Where is your luggage?" I pointed to my tiny suitcase in the rack above. "How much money?" Oh, shit, here we go again. But actually this was legitimate - their currency regulations are really weird and they're obsessed with how many rubles you're taking out of the country. I took out my wallet and showed him and he moved on. He was actually nice. The British guy at the end of the car was carrying some weird stuff that he didn't like, and he asked to see some documents for whatever he was carrying. The guy responded "this is just my personal stuff for work, I don't know what kind of documents you would need." They tore him apart searching everything he had until the supervisor came along and put a stop to it. Then the train started moving again and while it was still moving a very hot Russian official came by handing back passports with exit stamps in them. I couldn't figure out where the actual border was, but when we were at a station that still had Cyrillic writing (thus, still in Russia) there was an announcement informing people that Finland was one hour behind of Moscow time, and to move your watches one hour back. We got going again and then the announcement said we would be arriving soon at Finnish passport control and to have passports ready. I looked out the window and saw signs in the Roman alphabet, and knew we were in Finland. At Finnish passport control an official came aboard with the stamp and I was welcomed visa free into the European Union. A currency exchange guy came through the train. Good to have euros in my wallet again. Actually not good, since I made my money in US dollars, but you know what I mean. Since I had been carrying a large amount of rubles, I got back two 100 euro bills. I take back what I said about Indian rupees being the largest currency I've ever dealt. 100 euro notes are enormous. Although I've dealt with euros quite a bit, this was the first time I had ever carried anything over a 50 euro note in my wallet since anything over that amount usually isn't dispensed from ATMs. 20s and 50s are not much different in size than their American counterparts. All of Finland is covered in snow and very beautiful. Helsinki is a really nice, laid back city and I'm absolutely loving it here. Lots of restaurants, cafes and very cool bars. It's very strange - Finland is by far the most American-like place I've ever been in Europe. It's worlds away from the hardcore "euro vibe" of France or Italy, and at times I really could imagine I'm back in the States. Everything's just really American style. There are several McDonalds and Finnish imitation American fast food joints. I even saw I restaurant called the "Texas Outback Grill" with tons of "Don't Mess With Texas" signs. That's not something you see in most of Europe! I've seen a few hotties, though overall I've been disappointed with the quality of Finnish females. I'm sure there are many gems out there, but as a whole they're definitely not getting a gold medal from me. Everybody has been extremely nice. Everybody speaks English and immediately addresses me in English (how can they tell?). Some people speak it very well with no accent, others struggle and have thick accents. It really just depends on the person. I walked into a cool looking bar for a beer and ended up talking to the bartender for a really long time. He was really into Harley Davidsons, and with all his tattoos he wouldn't have stood out at all in a crowd of American bikers. I asked him if he knew where I could get some good reindeer, and he told me about a restaurant called "Lappi." Later I noticed that this restaurant was mentioned in Lonely Planet and was famous for its sauteed reindeer, so I headed there all excited only to be dismayed that they're closed on Sundays (as is almost everything in Helsinki). But tomorrow night I'm looking
forward to a delicious reindeer dinner. Look out Rudolph, I'm hungry.

One month ago I was in Muscat.
Two months ago I was in Cairo.