Today we took the train to Helsinki. Susan woke up early at 5:15am to finish the laundry (it still wasn't dray) and pack and get ready to go. The other gals woke up at 5:45am and we were supposed to meet Aleksey at 6:15am, but we weren't ready to go until 6:30am. Thankfully, there wasn't any traffic, so we made our way tot eh Finlandski Rail Station in plenty of time for our 7:28am train. Aleksey was even able to drive us past Peter I's little wooden "Teremok" on our way - so now we can say we visitied it on this trip.

Eventually, we boarded our train and were on our way to Finland. We were all quite tired and rested as much as we were able to. After the train stopped in Vyborg, Russian Customs Officials came on board to check everyone's documents. After the Finnish border, Finnish IMmigration officials boarded the train to check everyone's visas and passports. Everything went smoothly for us and we were grateful to not have to wait in lines like you do at the airport.

We arrived in Helsinki and Claire and Susan went to find the car rental agency to pick up the car. We squeezed everyone (and the luggage - barely) into the Kia we rented and made our way across the Finnish countryside to the cottage we rented in Porvoo. It is very rustic, but hte inconveniences of no running watter, lots of bugs, and using an outhouse are overshadowed by how much money we saved by not staying in a hotel! Definitely worth it!

It's almost fun having to haul water for the dishes and boil water for our use (although we did buy clean water for drinking). The area around the cottage is so beautiful and the owner and his family are so nice (although next time we should brush up on our Swedish, instead of Finnish, before arriving). We had a nice hearty dinner outside before retiring late.

Labels: Europe 2008, Finland