July 27, 2010 sitting in front of the fan, yeah! It took a few days but I now have one to keep a little cooler, 38 degrees Celsius today. I am getting to know this hotel well. This is my sixth room. Literally I went from a hotel room with a pull out couch, not a bed and a pull out, just a pull out couch, to a king size, to a single, you name it. Good thing I haven’t been unpacking everything and it is easy to move.
I took a hydro foil today to the suburbs of St Petersburg to the Summer Palace. It was a beautiful spot with over 200 fountains and lots of walking paths and gardens. It also gave a little reprieve from the heat as it is on the Golf of Finland and heavily shaded.
Russia is a fascinating place with all this grandeur and wealth, yet the babushkas (old women) have been left to survive on their own with the fall of communism. They will literally be trying to sell one beet root to make a bit of money to try to survive. They didn’t have to work before and had their accommodation paid for and now they have been left to fend for themselves with no skills. St Petersburg is very European and Moscow, Soviet and then Siberia is just barren with the odd wooden shacks along the rails. They sure have a mix of everything.
July 28, 2010 and just spent the day having bevies in the park and walking the streets of St Petersburg with Kim Doolittle. (She is a musician on a cruise ship currently travelling through the Baltic Sea.) Kim is in town for the next couple of days and as coincidence would have it, should also be in Helsinki when I move on to there. We had a great day chilling and hanging out chatting. She is an awesome person and loving life, as we all should. It was so great to see her.
July 29, 2010 so after the last three hours I have had, I am in need of a little stress relief.
So I was going to go to the Circus de Soleil tonight and needed money for it and the mini bus to Helsinki tomorrow. So I head to a back machine, only for the f-ing thing to eat my card. So with me having no Russian and the security guard having no English, I act out that my card has been eaten and this girl running the cell phone kiosk by the machine has a little English to tell him. He is nice enough and calls the number on the machine to be put on hold for at least half an hour. Anyway we figure out that they will not come to the machine until tomorrow and I am to leave at 7am tomorrow for Helsinki. So I figure ok no worries, I have two days left on the old VISA I can stay get my card and go on the 11pm mini bus. But this woman nearby says in Russian they will not give her her card back anyway. So I think, right. F***.
So I come back to the hotel and say I need your help, I need to make a collect call to Canada, to my bank. Have you ever tried to make a collect call out of the country before? It is not possible. Sure the banks say, call collect, there is no way out of country, calling zero for the operator doesn’t exist. So I come up to my room and figure with the WIFI I will Google how to make a collect call from Russia to Canada. Nothing. So I try the Skype I loaded on the computer before I left and tried the 1 800 number for the bank. It worked. Not sure if it was my first free call that worked, as the screen kept advertising first call for free with Skype or whether all 1 800 numbers are free. Anyway an hour and forty five minutes on the phone to the bank and my credit card and I am feeling more confident with the money situation, knowing I still have a month away with now no bank card. You would think this would be easily fixed because I have a credit card, yes, but with no pin. So two pieces of ID, thank god I brought my driver’s license and a MasterCard bank and they should be able to give me cash withdrawals. I transferred cash to the card from my account and should be able to get Euros now. Here’s hoping the banks don’t close early on Friday’s in Finland as I don’t arrive until 2pm. Luckily I have American dollars and am not completely out. What a pain in the butt. Needless to say I am having a beer as I type this and looking for that stress relief.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Check out the pictures of the Summer Palace and the last few days at the following link;
Summer Palace Photos and Pictures from the last few days
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