Washington, District of Columbia/Newark, New Jersey, USA/Stockholm, Uppland, Sweden/Turku, Finland Proper(!), Finland
H: 15/9/4/3 L: -2/-6/4/0 Weather: Overcast/Mostly Cloudy/Light Snow/Clear
Yes, friends, it's time for another European adventure. I feel like you all must have heard this story at one point, but, here goes: once upon a time there was a Facebook News Feed, and upon that Facebook News Feed one Jonathan Andrew posted a link to an entirely accidental sale by a regional Norwegian air carrier. Lo, and much flailing was had, and much wailing and gnashing of teeth about the failure to take the $399 Turkish Air deal to İstanbul was recounted (actually, I found that deal independently of the Flight Deal, but I knew it would have shown up there at the time!), and it was resolved to definitely for sure take advantage of probably the cheapest flights I will ever see to Europe again in my lifetime.
And so I posted on Facebook requesting compatriots to join my in my travels, after someone who shall go nameless claimed that he "was already going to spring training in Florida". The marvelous David Bogojevich had meanwhile posted the same deal to his Facebook Wall, stating his desire to go to Scandinavia. I said I just wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, gosh darn it. We agreed to travel together to Stockholm. I accidentally got a return ticket for a Monday rather than a Sunday, but whatever. Hurry, hurry, hurry, some previously unknown part of my brain shouted at me. And so I bought tickets. But disaster struck: though I had a receipt, and was ticketed on United the next day, my dear David was not so lucky, and his purchase never went through.
So, yeah. That's why I'm going on a Baltic Sea tour for my spring break, rather than seeking warmer climes... say, Spain, or Italy. My itinerary is as follows:
14-15 Mar: Traveling (via Newark and Stockholm) to Finland
15-17 Mar: Finland
17-19 Mar: Estonia (nothing says St. Patrick's Day like Estonia)
19-21 Mar: Denmark
21-24 Mar: Sweden
It's definitely fast-paced and exciting, but that's just how I like things!
The morning of the 14th started off way too early, at 5, which is not a time that most humans should often see. I propoelled myself out of bed through sheer force of will, ate the last of my strawberries, drank the last of my milk, and set off for the College Park Metro station. The day started with an ill omen. Just as I get to the top of the escalator, sure enough, I hear "doors closing" and I get to watch the perfectly-timed "rush" Yellow Line train head for the airport and other places in NoVa without me.
Timing was a big worry during the day. Not the timing of the Metro—the Yellow and Green lines share vast sections of track, and indeed I only had to wait a minute to transfer. I wasn't worried about the transfer between planes—due to the parameters of the tickets I bought, I would have 8 hours to make my flight to Sweden. I was using those 8 hours to visit my good friend and former labmate Prashanth Rajarajan. No, the problem was in Stockholm.
Some time in the not too distant past, the Swedish government decided that the whole business of regulation was passé. An unusual sentiment to Swedes, to be sure. So, in their infinite wisdom, they decided to abolish (almost) all regulations on taxis. In one fell swoop, Sweden, of all places, became one of the most unregulated taxis systems in the developed world.
What does this have to do with anything? In my itinerary, I had taken a gamble. I only had 75 minutes to get from my plane to my ferry to Finland. Factor in customers, and at least 20 minutes for a trainjust to get to Stockholm, and I was already worried. When I discovered on the 13th that that the ferry port was in fact nowhere near the railway station, and I'd probably have to take a taxi, I was upset; I absolutely despite taxis. (Something about the financial transaction and the having to explain a destination in an unfamiliar land.) When I discovered the Swedish system is what it is, and that I'd have to hunt and pick for the "right" taxi (certain brands with certain "unit prices", listed on their back windows), well... I was not a happy camper.
So, as I saw the Yellow Line train pull away, I hoped that I was not getting a premonition of the ferry doing the same. But thing started looking up pretty quickly. Just as boarding began for my flight to Newark, I got an email from Couchsurfing; the amazing, talented Minnesotan(!) living with her husband in Copenhagen accepted my request to crash on her couch. My plane was 30 minutes early to Newark. As I bought my tickets to and from the airport (oh, I can get both directions simultaneously? how convenient!), an NJ Transit train showed up immediately. The conductor used an adorable hole punch to punch an adorable hole in some sort of mysterious slip of paper that was slipped in front of my seat.
Lunch with Prashanth was absolutely delightful. I could practically feel his excitement for his work and his future oozing out of him. We talk about science, our programs, our friends, and swapped gossip and stories. I can't wait to see him again (come visit me, PRaj!). As we went our separate ways, and I entered Penn Station to return to the airport, I assumed that my luck and struck again: I heard that a train headed to Newark Airport was leaving posthaste for Track 4. I made my way down there. It was an Amtrak train, but it was taking basically the same route as the NJ Transit ticket that the NJ Transit folks had been so kind to provide me with earlier, so it was basically the same, right? People around me grabbed hold of some paper printouts not at all resembling my ticket, but they had just bought tickets a different way, right? I nervously looked it up, and the route I was on was listed as a recommended route for getting to the airport by NJ Transit. Great. So I was good, right?
Right?
I broke into a sweat when the conductor announced he was checking train tickets. I was reminded of when I was churchshopping and had to stare every time to make sure how this next church decided to do communion; I eagerly scanned to try to see what everyone else was doing. I didn't see a cute little hole puncher. I saw none of my tickets, in fact. I started shaking a bit. I was in the second compartment. He entered mine and got within 5 seats of me. 4. 3. And then... he briskly walked away. I froze. He did not reappear. We got to Newark station. He did not reappear. We pulled out of Newark station. He finally showed up again. But the victory was mine. The next station was the one for the airport.
So when he got to me, and confirmed my worst fears—though I had bought an identically priced ticket, it was not the right one, and I was in fact doing a Very Bad Thing (tm) by having boarded the Amtrak train—he basically just shrugged and told me to get to the end of the train to make sure I actually left at the Newark Airport Station like I said I was going to do. I had to take a Walk of Shame to make sure I did so, but I considered that a small price to pay.
The screening process at Newark was uneventful. But, as I got to teh front of the line to get on the plane, my ticket caused the scanner to beep unpleasantly. I frowned. "Oh," said the gate agent, "You have a new seat. There was a baby on board that meant that someone needed to be reseated. 11A is your new seat. It's also a window." At least it's also a window, I thought. But, as I discovered, it wasn't just "also a window"; it was also an Economy Plus seat, the sort of seat that they give you a formerly-normal-coach amount of legroom in. Sweeeet! It had a defective screen at first (also, did you know that United's inflight entertainment runs on Linux? I learned this from the errors!), but that somehow magically repaired itself after Peter texted me to get a flight attendant on the case. As we took off, the captain informed us that our flight time was going to be a full hour early into Stockholm, so maybe those taxis would be no problem. Maybe the Metro wasn't a premonition at all, I thought, as I watched Frozen and Who's Line Is It Anyway, and then drifted into a fitful couple hours of sleep.
We did get in an hour early, which meant that I had time for such luxuries as "going to the bathroom" before I headed on the train. The train was gorgeous and new. And the ticket person immediately assumed I was Swedish, greeting me with a cheery "Hey, hey!" (actually "hej", but it's pronounced identically and is adorable). I've honestly been very curious about whether people would do that. On my previous journey, nearly everyone assumed I was German (I remember this being particularly true in Frankfurt... which is entertainingly coincidental given that my actual German ancestors were actually from very near to Frankfurt). However, all Americans constantly believe me to be Scandinavian (which is, in fact, false, according to my research). I figured Scandinavians would be a good test case. If they went by statistics alone, I should be Scandinavian. But if my appearance strongly suggested that I was German, they should assume that.
Oh, and no one should assume I'm American, as no Americans ever travel internationally. People seem to be pleasantly surprised when I say I'm American. I know our own self-perception of us as international travelers is terrible, but in reality, although we're perceived to be uncultured and somewhat brash, we're also perceived to be exceedingly generous, outgoing, and cheerful. We're the kind of people you'd like to get a drink with. People are alarmed by our use of guns and the death penalty, but, well, if you're someone interested in traveling abroad, you're probably also alarmed by our use of guns and the death penalty, so that's nice.
I got to the central train station, and by this point was somewhat unsurprised to find that the ferry's official bus was pulling into the station about five minutes after I showed up to take people to the ferry. I bought my ticket and got whisked off, then boarded the ferry, which is a nice, new, small little cruiseliner with free wireless internet. Nifty!
There was not much to the ferry ride... it was longer than the plane ride, but there was WiFi, so that helped. Also, lots of loud, bellowing groups of Swedes and Finns who were about the age of my parents but liked to take about four shots each at 1pm. Also, there was a woman who looked like a witch. She had a long, flowing black cloak, hair down to her knees and also sticking straight up a half a meter or so above her head. I would've taken a picture if I hadn't known I'm completely incapable of being inconspicuous. She was kind of terrifying.
Finally, I stepped out onto the ground in Turku, and my friend Essi came right over. Apparently my smiling face was conspicuous amid the crowd of boisterous yet somehow still dour Nordic faces around me. She and I boarded a bus for downtown Turku, and stopped at what she explained is Finland's answer to McDonald's. We then had an entertaining exchange with a cashier wherein all were flummoxed (but me) that somehow my card does not have a chip in it (things that are found in every single card other than those issued in the US), and talked about the tragedy that is people who have a Harry Potter character who is someone other than Hermione (though Neville could pass by our estimation). I'm now in her apartment, trying to slow down and get ready to obey my body's instructions: SLEEP. SLEEP NOW. Good night!
