2012_09_01 More from Russia

on Sept 1, 2012 Alexa sent me this in response to my notification that she has a new blog address, which she can update herself some day..

Thanks, Barbara, and here is an informal update of the latest.

Terrible end to my journey to Russia. 
Today it is raining. Couchsurfing continues to bless me!
I realize I have an awful lot of photos. So no place really stores so many for free. I am always on borrowed computers but I will have a look asap. I realize itäs one heck of a lot of work!  (And Estonian keyboards are weird!)
I realize I have an awful lot of photos. So no place really stores so many for free. I am always on borrowed computers but I will have a look asap. I realize itäs one heck of a lot of work!  (And Estonian keyboards are weird!)


At the 6 pm train to Tallinn, the ticket-taker saw a problem. My visa would expire at midnight, I would reach the border at 4 am. Disaster! What would happen? 

At least my seatmate left the train and I had two seats to try to sleep in. I was removed from the train and left in a border control building for hours until a taxi took me to a bank that opened at 9:30 (I spent my last roubles on New Trestakyovski Museum, and the sculpture park, fantastic, many pictures) and my visa card did not work but I had some dollars ready

 and taxi back to the building, got my passport, taxi back to the border and six times the fare the policeman mentioned was demanded. 

A long time with the Russian customs woman, many phone calls before I was allowed into Estonia, a 2 euro 2 minute taxi ride to the bus from St Petersburg to Tallinn and conversing in French with an Estonian woman living in Siberia. 

A kindly Russian woman had alerted my hostess in Tallinn of my troubles-I did not know of the time difference, but Mare was waiting for the bus. We did not recognize each other for some ten minutes, her hair was a different color and she was not smiling as she was in her profile picture. A beautiful flat close to the old city and we will take a bus excursion to Kolkja and Varija tomorrow.