We shared a cab to the airport with Tim and Candice, flew to Helsinki, dropped off our luggage at the Omenahotelli, the strangest place we have stayed. The room was fine, OK TV, good internet. But there was no lobby, no reception, no staff. When you book the room (on-line, of course) you are given a room number and a door code. That's it. And the code doesn't activate until 4 PM.
I am sure there are many great reasons to visit Helsinki; Uspenski Katedraali, the Suomenlinna Citadel World Heritage site and the plain old charm of the city. We are here so we can go somewhere else, namely St. Petersburg, Russia. But it isn't a do-it-yourself trip. We needed divine help in the form of Soile, Travel Goddess of Finland in the orange T-shirt, whom we found at the tourist information center. She confirmed that, yes, we could stay in St. Petersburg without an official visa for up to 72 hours. She got us round trip, overnight ferry tickets departing on Sunday and secured a room for two nights in St. Petersburg. She even helped us order advance tickets for the Hermitage Art Museum. Her colleague told us about Tin Tin Tango. It isn't the latest Scandinavian dance craze but an artsy coffee house with perhaps the only public washer and dryer in Helsinki. And it's free! We did two much-needed loads for the price of a cup of coffee, never mind that we walked a mile each way.
