todays program: starting bike tour through the Archipelagos; first day = approximately 70km

note: we know we have to report about a lot of things here, but right now we don’t find the time. We will be back on Sunday and hope to get by with our blog entries by Tuesday.

But I have to say the spring here is different than in Germany. While my mum was telling me that she has already eaten strawberries from our backyard, the trees here in Turku are just starting to get green. But anyway, it is nice to also experience a little bit of the spring here in Finland.

entry to be written

Here in Finland there is a lot happening around the first of May. This day is called Vappu . It is a national holiday and a day for the spring, the students and the workers. The tradition comes from the “Walpurgisnacht”.  Especially student celebrate Vappu with different events sometimes starting already one week before.

We started celebrating Vappu on the 29^th of April. As everyone we were wearing our overalls (haalarit) from then until the 1^st of May. In the afternoon there was a little get together for all the exchange students. As the weather was nice we were sitting on the grass at the hill of the art museum, just enjoying life.

The 30^th then got more interesting. A lot of students met in front of Educarium (one of the university buildings). There was free punch, a band was playing and we got the first balloons for that day. At around 5 pm students started to gather on the hillside in front of the Turku Art Museum. There were so many people. We didn’t know that Turku had so much! From each faculty there was one student carrying a flag, a band was playing, more balloons were distributed and everyone was happy. At 18:00 o’clock one of the students gave a short speech (in Finish) and then all Finish students put on their white student caps (ylioppilaslakki), which they get when they graduate from high school, all at the same time. After that everyone went down to the river. The dentist students then cleaned a statue, which is there, with a big toothbrush and the statue got a cap as well. In the evening we cooked together with a big group in one of the student village’s kitchens.

On the actual Vappu day, 1^st of May, everyone went to the Vartiovuori hill for a big, big picnic. Again a band was playing and everyone had a blanket, some food and drinks to have a nice day around friends.

Monday 18^th April
At 14:00 o’clock a bus picked us up from the Turku bus station to drive to the Makasiini Terminal in Helsinki. During the bus tour we finally got back our passport we gave away three weeks before to get the Russian visa and had the possibility to sign up for a lot of extra activities during the tour. At the ferry terminal we got on the M/S Princess Maria which took us directly to St. Petersburg during a 13 ½ hour trip. As there was still a lot of ice on the sea it wasn’t the most silent sleep we got there, but the breakfast buffet was nice :).

Tuesday 19^th April
Arrival time with the boat was 9:30 h. We were on time and just had to pass the passport control. Together with around 15 other people we went through there quite quickly and waited for the others in the terminal. After a while of waiting we thought that the bus had probably already left without us as nobody else was coming. Happily a guide came and took us to a bus and surprisingly enough no one else was there yet. We had to wait for another 45 minutes before everyone was through the control. We heard just afterwards that especially the American and UK people took quite long to pass as they were checked by two or three people very carefully….
Driving from the Terminal in direction to the city center we had a first little city tour.  We for example saw the most Northern Egyptian sphinxes. They decorate the shore banks of Neva river. We furthermore passed the Peter and Paul fortress, the Aurora battleship, the Split of the St Basil Island, etc.  At around 1:00 am we visited St Isaac’s Cathedral. When it was build, it was the tallest Orthodox Church and still is the second largest in the world. After the church visit we drove to our hotel called “Hotel Moscow”. It was located right next to the famous street Nevskiy prospect just around 3km away from the center. It is a huge building and our room was located at the one end. This means that we had to walk for hours from the lift to the room… After resting for about 30 minutes we had a small walk around the hotel area. In the evening we then had a Russian dinner with a folk music show. That was really nice, the food was good, we got a lot of vodka and the show was funny.

Wednesday 20^th April
After breakfast we started a bus tour to Pushkin, the Catherine’s Palace in the village of Tsar at 9:30. It is located around 26 km from the city center. It was the summer residence of the Russian tsars. Catherine’s Palace which was redesigned 6 times during the old days is the main building surrounded by other beautiful buildings and nice parks and is 325 meter long. It is already impressive from the outside. But we were lucky enough to also have a tour inside. It was so impressive with all its gold, the famous Amber room and all its decoration. We spent quite a long time there before driving back to the city. There we had free time which we used to walk around the city to e.g. visit Kazan Cathedral and the Field of Mars or Marsovo Polye, a large park. In the night we had a limousine cruise through the city. Our group were 16 people and we got a big dark red Ford limousine. Soviet Champagne was served and we had a lot of fun driving around and stopping at the Rostral Columns and St. Isaac’s Cathedral.

Thursday 21^th April
We checked out from the hotel in the morning. At around noon we started a guided tour of the State Hermitage Museum. It is a really big museum of art and culture which consists of 6 different buildings which are all connected to each other. It is one of the largest and oldest museums of the world and comprises nearly 3 million items, including the largest collection of paintings in the world. Our tour lasted for more than 3 hours. After that we were really exhausted. Not only the art they have, but also the buildings themselves are so interesting and we might only have seen a very little part of it. Probably interesting to mention is that we have seen works by Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, Rembrandt, etc. there. Even though we are not really interested in arts it was impressive to see pictures from all these famous painters.
In the afternoon we then also visited the Cathedral on the Spilled Blood, a very colorful and funny looking church. At 21:00 o’clock we ended our day with a river cruise through the canals of St. Petersburg with champagne. After that we drove to the Moscow railway station (in St. Petersburg) to take the night train Megapolis to Moscow.

The weather has been beautiful again and we decided to ride to the harbor on our bikes. As the day before there were lots and lots of people on their feet around the city. Awesome, how busy Finland turns with just a bit of sunshine. At the harbor we decided to go a bit further. There is an island just behind the harbor that was formerly known as an island of villas and a recreation area for the rich (?) – Ruissalo. It has many foot- and bikepaths that you an take through the woods and over the fields, which makes it really nice to visit by bike. And we even got to see some toads on their way to a pond.