The traditional "I lost my camera" post

In Summer 2009 I blogged about how I lost my camera in the London airport. Some of you may remember that tragedy. Well, in order to keep with tradition, it turns out that I left my camera in Finland. However, this time it wasn't on a train platform in the biggest airport in the world but instead this time I left it at my friends' apartment where I stayed Saturday night. So unlike The London Disaster, this time I will see my camera again. However, it also means that the blog is going to remain photo-less for a while longer...atleast from photos taken on my camera. Sorry.


Finland was great! I'm glad that it's so close and that I'll be able to visit there semi-regularly. Well, after December that is when my visa will allow me to be able to leave Russia. (I can't leave the country for three months. After that I'll be able to come and go as I please.)

Yesterday, Polina, Olya (my two friends from St. Pete who were in Finland this past week and whom I met up with after I arrived), and I took a mini-bus from Helsinki to St. Petersburg. Normally it's about a 5-hour drive but this time it took a little bit longer because we were stuck on the Finnish border for over an hour. (No, not because of me.) There was a Russian girl on the bus who had apparently overstayed her visa to Finland and so that's what caused the massive delay. Luckily it wasn't raining though so we just hung out outside and got to know the other passengers.

We arrived in St. Pete last night around 11:30 PM. All the palaces and bridges were lit up--It's really such an amazing sight. Even though I've been a fairly frequent resident/visitor of the city for the last 7 years I'm still always blown away every time I come here by how impressive the city looks. Imagine Dubai or Las Vegas only everything was built (very tastefully) in the 1700's and there you have St. Petersburg. (The picture above is just a photo I found online to give you an idea of what St. Pete looks like at night.) Since I had my luggage with me, our friend Shurik was nice enough to pick us up in the center of the city in his car and take me to the place where I was spending the night.

Now off to my first day of work/school/life in my new city!