St. Petersburg, part I - St. Peter's Line, PR Maria (i)

This is a part of the journey that I both enjoyed and remember less fondly than others. I have to say that the bad part of the journey, the bits I disliked, could have been resolved easily if I hadn't forced myself to operate within such a tight budget. That is to say, if I'd been able to afford a (ridiculously overpriced) cabin of my own, I would have had a much more enjoyable journey.

A little prelude/introduction would probably be helpful here. I'd booked the entire SPB trip via one of those student-managed tours. The tour guide, who was also in charge of managing and booking everything, was my age. I'd been looking forward to this part of the trip for simply ages, for one very simple reason: St. Petersburg was one of those cities which I'd wanted to visit for as long as I could remember. I would not be exaggerating actually if I said that SPB was in the top three on my bucket list. From the beginning, though, there was SO much trouble. Firstly, Ksenia, the girl whom I'd booked the trip with, got all my reservations wrong - my name, my passport number, and my reservation dates, even. I had to go through all the e-tickets (bilets? Been travelling too much) she'd sent me with a toothcomb, and point out to her every single mistake that she'd made. One of the most ludicrous booking mistakes I remember was when she emailed me my e-tickets at the end of June 2016. The e-tickets were valid for mid June 2016, dates which had long passed, unless I somehow stumble across a DeLorean and go back into the future. I kept finding more mistakes, and at one point was seriously considering changing over to another student-managed SPB tour agency, wondering if this all was just an elaborate scam, but Ksenia took it all very seriously, and phoned me to apologise and reassure me that all was well. I relented - she did seem very apologetic after all - but it wasn't till I'd successfully checked into the St Peter's Line counter at Helsinki's West Terminal, that I felt more at ease about the whole debacle. I spent hours agonising over this with my friends, and ex colleagues, even, most of them advising me to just switch over to the other agency, even if it meant forking out for an extra 100 euros. Like the cheap skate I am, I decided to just go along with the flow, and it paid off - ish.

I bounded onto the ship as soon as the boarding gates were open, and found my room, which had 4 bunks. I supposed that I'd have company sooner or later, but held out hope that I'd somehow be able to have the cabin all to myself again.

I went through the entire ship, and was a bit disappointed. I'd expected something like Silja - spotless bathrooms with hair dryers, loads of tax free shops, free WiFi, especially free WiFi. Still, I was too full of beans about finally going to SPB to dwell on minutiae.

At about 6, a crowd of girls came into the room - my cabin mates. We introduced ourselves, and they stated that they were on the same package tour as I was. They were all from the U of Helsinki on an Erasmus exchange term. Most of them were German, the only exceptions being a Dutch girl and a Brazilian girl, the latter two of whom were both in my cabin. The third girl was a tall, rather heavyset German my age from Munich, called Giorgia, whom I took an immediate dislike to, an animosity which was returned with gusto. She was just one of those people whose personalities clashed with mine on almost every level - we hated each other almost on sight - and she didn't even have the good manners to hide her enmity towards me. Hitherto my blog has been about all the wonderful people I met during travelling, and I can say that Giorgia was, hands down, the most dreadful person I had the misfortune of meeting, by a long margin. She came across as a spoilt and petulant rich girl - complained about anything and everything, and during the entire trip her shrill, discontented voice rang in my ears every day. 'Urgh - this bed, I cannot sleep in it, it's disgusting, it's horrid. You guys, my bed SUCKS.' 'This cabin sucks! This bathroom sucks! This is so gross! I've never been in such a horrible ship before! I'm not going to take a shower,' were some of the choice phrases we were all subjected to. She found fault with anything and everything and didn't hesitate to make her opinions known. Several times during the trip I was sorely tempted to give her a hearty slap and tell her to shut up. I had the feeling that her other friends didn't like her that much either. Suffice it to say that my SPB trip would have been much better sans whiney, bossy Giorgia, but no matter. I'm usually a very easy going person, but I really do not enjoy entertaining eejits.

Also, if the SPB tour has taught me anything, it's that I really do not enjoy being stuck with a bunch of strangers for days on end, doing every single activity with them. Ksenia wouldn't let us out of her sight, and basically micromanaged us during the entire trip, which was probably understandable, as she was to an extent responsible for us, but it was incredibly stifling and took a lot of the enjoyment out of the entire travelling experience per se. On the very last day, me and the Brazilian and one of the German girls were taking a bus to the port, sans the other people - and we spent the entire bus journey heartily complaining about Ksenia and how we didn't like how she'd micromanaged the entire trip and wouldn't let us do anything we actually wanted to do, insisting instead on adhering to her (really rather rigid) itinerary. The Brazilian girl, I think her name was Vittoria - stated that she could not be happier that the trip was over, and that she was not a fan of Ksenia by any means. I can say one thing for sure, that the next time I go back to SPB, I'll be travelling alone. After meeting so many qualitypeople, I guess I was bound to meet some idiots.

And now that I've finished griping, we'll have a look at some of the pictures I took aboard the PR Maria.

Helsingfors West Terminal

Helsinki, part IV - West Terminal and St Peter's Line

This is mostly going to be a pictures entry as I've said all that can be said about this part of the journey in my last entry. I located the West Terminal after copious amounts of Baltic walking, then realised that I had hours to kill before the boarding, so I walked around the neighbourhood a bit. I didn't want to walk back to Kamppi - though I would have had enough time - because I didn't fancy the long walk up and down Tyynenmerenkatu again. I went to the 'nearby' supermarket, got some more food, which I munched upon a bit morosely as I milled around taking photos and looking at the Brutalist buildings. There was a fairly large electrical appliances store nearby, which I went to visit, although I have to say I found it a bit boring. I got a kick out of seeing all the ASUS and ACER products on display.

St Peter's Line, pr Maria

Helsinki, part III - Kamppi and Tyynenmerenkatu

I walked, VERY slowly, in the general direction of the West Terminal, getting lost a few times within the rather confusing labyrinthine concrete roads of Kamppi. It's hard to keep all your bearings sometimes when every street more or less looks the same, and leads into identical squares. It was lunchtime by then, so I found a gigantic supermarket in Kamppi, bought myself some extremely economical ham and cheese slices (YUM!) that amounted to about 3 euros. I found myself a bench in one of the identical squares, and munched through my ham and cheese. When I'd nearly finished, a couple came towards me, asking me for money. I told them I had none but they persisted. I managed to shake them off, but decided that I was vulnerable, so gulped down my last slice of ham and headed off sharpish.

I got lost somewhere close to Pursimiehenkatu, but saw a tram heading in straight to West Terminal, so decided to follow that. It was all worth getting lost, though, when I turned a corner, and saw the sparkling blue waters of the port.

I figured that the West Terminal was just around here, and walked down Tyynenmerenkatu jubilantly. What I hadn't reckoned on was how long it was. It went on, and on, and on, and at several points I seriously wondered if I was really on the right trail. I found another supermarket, and went in to get some more sparkling water, and asked the cashier where the West Terminal was. Just keep walking down, he said. Righty then.

I found the Terminal and checked in to the St Peter's counter. I have to admit that I wondered a bit whether the ticket that I'd bought via Ksenia was valid or not, and I heaved not a small sigh of relief when the ticket officer confirmed my booking and printed off my tickets. I still had about 4 hours to go before the ship was scheduled to leave, so I went back, and spent most of the remaining afternoon dangling my legs over the Baltic sea water and walking up and down Tyynenmerenkatu.