Barcelona, Helsinki & St. Petersburg

8/25/02 - Barcelona  Well, I guess business class could have been more comfortable because we slept until nearly noon.  First order of business: find a "lavanderia".  Most of our clothes were still wet from Costa Rica.  We found one at Placa del Sol.  We dumped our clean clothes back at the hotel and headed off to explore Barcelona.  We gawked at a few famous Gaudi buildings (wacky and curvy) and then visited the Sagrada Familia, a huge beautiful cathedral, also designed by Gaudi.  We walked back to the hotel, changed into running clothes and took the subway to Guëll Park for a run.  The park is relatively small and on the side of a hill with large paved and dirt paths.  It climbs 300-400 feet and provides a perfect view of the city and Mediterranean.  We raced back to the subway, showered and met a friend of a friend, Paula Kortis for a Tapas dinner.  After dinner we took a late night walk down Las Ramblas to the waterfront.  I bought a $3 ring as a temporary replacement for my wedding band, which I left at home.  Leanne is still looking for one.

8/26/02 - Barcelona / Montserrat, Spain  Leanne went to an English language bookstore and I geeked at "Cybermundo".  We met at about 1pm and went to Barri Gottic (the old Gothic part of town).  Old, medieval buildings with narrow cobblestone lanes.  We then took the metro to a one hour train to Montserrat.  We arrived at 6pm and took the cable car up the impressive mountain to the monastery in the clouds.  It was surprisingly crowded and commercialized.  Pastry shops, gift stores, restaurants and hotels.  Not nearly as quaint and sedate as we had hoped.  We got bread, cheese, onion, tomato, etc. at the small grocery store and ate in our hotel room.  We visited the impressive basilica and famous statue of the black virgin.

8/27/02 - Montserrat  We bought some lunch food and set off into the mountains.  We climbed about  90 minutes and 1,000 feet to Sant Jeroni, which provided a beautiful view.  Along the way it rained and Leanne had one of her famous food allergy attacks.  Sneezing, cramps, closed throat and my favorite, head-to-toe hives.  She was a trooper and we hiked down to the funicular and made it back to the hotel.  Our former room was already occupied, so the desk clerk kindly offered us a room in the closed 1 star hotel adjacent to ours.  Leanne slept for several hours and I did who-knows-what on my laptop.  Leanne, now back among the intrepid, was ready to catch a 6pm cable car back to the train, and Barcelona.  We went directly to Paula's, who was graciously hosting us for the next two nights.  We walked aimlessly to find Tapas in Paula's neighborhood and finally found "Tapa Tapa" near our former hotel on Gracia.  Leanne had several nasty fish dishes and I thought I'd be safe with the meatballs.  Well, they were pink in the center and one had what appeared to be a gray piece of macaroni in it.  But wait!  Macaroni wasn't on the menu!  This was some sort of cow tube!  Leanne finished her meal and I got a Happy Meal (Snoopy toy!) next door.

8/28/02 - Barcelona  An easy day.  I went to the lounge in our former hotel and did some Cap Factory and other paperwork.  Leanne went to a Gaudi museum and the beach.  We met at 6pm and went for a run through town and along the beachfront.  We showered and took the metro to Pep Rubies (a Spanish colleague of Leanne's from the Salt Lake Olympics) apartment for dinner.  We had a welcome home cooked meal, and a fine time.  Pep and his girlfriend Blanca are heavy world travelers and we compared notes.

Barcelona Summary  An attractive modern European city.  Safe, clean and very well run and organized.  The people were quite friendly and there was plenty of English.  Transportation was a breeze and the metro was perfect.  The weather was 75 and sunny.  Currency: $1 = €1.

8/29/02 - Helsinki, Finland  We left at 9:15 and took the metro to the airport.  We hung around at the airport lounge and took a noon flight to Helsinki (4 hours).  I called a booking service and scored a double room for the evening.  We took a city bus to the Helsinki railway station and then walked about a km to our hostel (Satakuntatalo).  The street names were impossibly long and the signs difficult to find.  We walked a couple of blocks to Pizza Hut and then caught "Men in Black II"  It seems we've acclimated well in Finland.

8/30/02 - Helsinki / St. Petersburg, Russia  We got up early and started a load of laundry, conveniently located in the hostel.  Leanne went to the Radisson next door and used the health club.  I went for a long run along the waterfront, and with the help of a small map, found the harbor side produce market I had remembered from years ago.  I ran back through downtown, stopping at the rail station to confirm the location and timing for our airport bus.  We collected our laundry and I went off to a very nice, large private shower.  I struggled to lock the door and later found that I was too successful.  Locked in, I banged and shouted for a while and then considered the spectacle of me climbing down the fire escape ladder in a towel and thongs (on my feet, come on people).  It's a big hostel, so death was unlikely.  After about 15 minutes Leanne found me and someone who spoke only in consonants released me.  A bus ride to the airport, a luxurious lounge with Internet and we were off to the (former) Evil Empire.

An hour flight and we were in a different world.  Passport control looked very drab and forty years old.  With a loud stamp we were in.  We waited 45 minutes in a small, run down baggage claim area.  There was a modern currency exchange machine and we swapped some Euros for Roubles.  The terminal looked like a small rail station, with few seats and no services.  We waited about 15 minutes until the 'ole #13 bus belched its way to the stop.  This was an old bus, so crowded that it was unclear if the rear door would close behind Leanne's pack.  Filthy, smelly, torn seats... the Northern Kurds wouldn't take this bus for a free ride to Disneyland.  But we're no Kurds, and we're going to St. Petersburg!  Forty-five dusty, bumpy minutes later and we get off.  It was not as unpleasant as it sounds, and a swell value at 66¢. 

Ok, no one speaks English and the subway station and road signs are written only in Cyrillic.  It was like being deaf, mute and illiterate.  We had an excellent guide book, so one of us would read the characters from its map ("backwards N, coat hook, T, R, chair") while the other played pict-o-gram with the signs.  After a little walking in circles we did find a guy who spoke English (he found us) and he showed us where we were on our map.  We went into the Metro and an American woman told us a bit about how to get around.  Via a pantomime we bought a 10 ride pass for $1.67 and entered the longest escalator we've ever seen.  The Soviets designed the metro to also be a bomb shelter and we descended what looked like 200 feet (or more) on one escalator.  It's a long trip down.  The subway station was beautiful (we later learned every one has a different theme) and the train like any other city's.  We checked the pict-o-grams and found our platform.  We were informed that the stations are not labeled, so we counted our stops and got to where we were going.  We emerged onto the crowded and dusty Nevsky Street and pict-o-grammed our way to the hostel, about 1/2 of a mile.  Our double room was fine.  We got rid of our stuff and went back to the metro to seek out the ultimate symbol of the West's victory in the cold war.  I got a Big Mac, Leanne had a Royal Cheeseburger.  On the way back the Metro was closed so we walked and got our first look of the beautiful Church On Spilled Blood.

8/31/02 - St. Petersburg  We set off by foot to gawk again at the beautiful Church On Spilled Blood.  We shared a Happy Meal (Hot Wheels car) for lunch and headed of to the Herrmitage, the Czars' winter palace.  Unbelievable room after unbelievable room.  I didn't realize the grandeur of the Russian empire before the revolution.  This was a first class European palace.  We then took a one hour boat trip through the canals.  It was an excellent opportunity to see the Church yet again and countless other beautiful, albeit neglected, buildings.  Our guide book directed us to an excellent crepe dinner and then we bought 10 used CDs (to be copied to the computer) and a DVD of the movie "K-Pax" for $17.  We watched the movie on the laptop and fell asleep.

9/1/02 - St. Petersburg  We decided to walk this morning, instead of using the metro.  We came upon Trinity Church, a large domed church that was shuttered during the Soviet era, but now quite active.  Why would we go to lunch at McDonald's again?  Well, the city water is contaminated with a dangerous parasite and the whole place (as George Bush said of the post-Clinton Whitehouse) could use a good scrubbin'.  McDonald's is safe and clean (we still can't drink the sodas), one less health worry in our day.   We continued our walk to the front of the Hermitage, where we hoped to get a hydrofoil to Peterhof, Peter's Palace and grounds.  A woman's gestures communicated that the water was too rough and that the boat was not running.  We walked back to the metro and went to a bus terminal in an effort to find a bus to Peterhof.  After much confusion a bus driver with metal teeth pointed to the 404.  Darned if it didn't work and 45 minutes later we were there.  This was a nice bus, by the way.

The palace was very impressive, like Versailles.  Huge manicured grounds with fountains and statues.  There was also another remarkable Russian church (Peter and Paul).  The backside of the Palace had a monstrous cascading fountain which flowed into a canal which lead to the nearby Gulf of Finland.  Impressive.  Given that we didn't arrive until 5pm we didn't go inside  the palace.  The city is too crowded and polluted for running, so we had worn running clothes hoping to run here.  It was a good plan, with miles of grounds to enjoy.  I set off for a 90 minute training run for the half marathon I plan to do in Poland.  Leanne kept our daypack and looked at old stuff.  At 7pm we switched and I took the pack while she ran.  There were booths selling stuff for tourists and I found one where I was able to trade the "K-Pax" DVD for "Don't say a Word".  We waited a while for the 404, and had an extra hour's worth of traffic on the way back to St. Petersburg.  It was frustrating watching cars dart around both sides of the bus, any way they could.  "Savages" I mumbled.  We made the difficult decision to forgo dinner in favor of showers before they closed at 11pm.  To our pleasure, after much effort the woman at reception found a pizza delivery place and we had our pie, and ate it too. 

9/2/02 - St. Petersburg  We met our guide and one other in the hostel lobby for a 5 hour walking/metro tour of WWII siege sites.  Leningrad (as it was called then) was under siege by the Germans for 900 days.  This part of WWII is called "The Great Patriotic War" by Russians.  We first visited one of the many mass grave sites with white obelisks memorializing the civilian victims.  We learned a lot about the German advances, their positions, tactics, etc.  Our guide said that virtually every family in St. Petersburg today lost family members during the siege.  We heard stories about the conditions the citizenry endured, the “road of life” across the nearby Lake Lagoda and of the Finnish attack from the North (who knew).  We then went to the final front line, a mere 14km from the Hermitage (in the center of St. Petersburg).  We saw a fortified Russian bunker, a tank and tank traps, intended to repel the Nazis.  It really was quite interesting.  We got some groceries and relaxed in our room and caught up on our journals.

9/3/02 - St. Petersburg  We had a lazy morning and then headed off to the Blockade Museum of the German siege.  It was closed for a few hours for a meeting of veterans, so we visited the nearby Summer Gardens.  We then split a Royal Cheeseburger and looked (unsuccessfully) for a cheap temporary wedding band for Leanne.  We then returned to the siege museum, which they now said was closed for the day.  After a brief discussion they flipped on the lights and a young guide showed us around the gymnasium sized exhibit.  German uniforms, captured weapons and countless photos of the hardships of being in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) at that time.  All of the displays were in Russian, but it was interesting nonetheless.  Most striking for me was a series of three photographs of a woman during the 900 days.  Her health and weight decreased to horrible levels.

Next were the 3 Islands in the center of the City (Krestovsky, Yelagin & Kamenny).  We took a metro to the first island and had a lovely walk over a bridge to the second.  It was quite a refuge from the noise, pollution and bustle.  It had lakes and canals and was very green and pleasant.  We passed yet another incredible palace as we approached a bridge to the third island.  This island was used for leisure by the communist bureaucrats and is now home to the rich and a State Retreat, where the president stays when in St. Petersburg.  We completed our circle at the same metro station and went back to the hostel to regroup for dinner.  En route to our pancakes and crepes we stopped by our favorite used CD shop and traded the aforementioned CDs (which I had transferred to my computer) for 12 more.  This time the damage was $7.50.  After dinner Leanne retired and I went to the common room where I alternatively copied CDs, prepared the photos for the web and launched into murderous rages against the mosquitoes (CDs: 10, photos: 49, mosquitoes: -7).

 9/4/02 - St. Petersburg  We left the hostel at 9:00am, and navigated the metro like pros.  Before you knew it we were back at the bus stop for the 'ole #13.  Wait a minute, what's this?  A clean modern mini bus with about 25 seats.  About 25 of us boarded and we were off.  The cost: 33¢, half as much as before.  Oddly, we passed the other #13-from-hell en route and got to the airport in less than 15 minutes.  What a bizarre surprise.  Equally surprising, the departure lounge was normal, with stores, etc. and a lovely business lounge with food and drink that we could trust.  Finnair, take us back to the West!

St. Petersburg Summary  A very interesting visit.  St. Petersburg, and likely the whole of Russia, appears to have one foot in the third world, one foot in the communist past, and one foot in Europe (that's right, three feet).  Most of the buildings are hopelessly dirty and in disrepair, but restoration projects are everywhere.  This was once a proud European city, and someday it will be again.  Meanwhile don't drink the water and leave a lot of time if you don't have a subway token.  Once acclimated, we got around with relative ease and there was always enough English to eek by.  The weather was perfect, 70-80s and sunny.  Currency: $1 = 30 Roubles.