Updated: Never — Philip's Blog

15:06 MSD

Over lunch today, I decided that flying home would probably not be happening. In a fit of hyperactivity, I found my way back to Finlyandsky station to buy tickets on the early Repin train to Helsinki tomorrow morning. This, at least, will make my visa problem go away.

Booking tickets took all the sign language I could muster and lots of scribbling back and forth on a piece of paper with the prototypical railway sales agent. First class is apparently full (I think that's what she was trying to tell me, I guess I'm not to only one who prefers to be in control of his fate rather than leave it to the airlines) so I will have to make do with an upper berth in second class. Why they have sleeper cars on a day train is entirely beyond me, but since the train is leaving at 07:17, I may be glad for the rest. Something tells me though that I'll be spending most of the trip in the restaurant car. I have a good book, I have a laptop.

After getting back with my train tickets and chatting on IRC about what to do in Helsinki since flights will probably be a problem for another couple of days, I figured it may be a good idea just to keep going in roughly the right direction with ground transport. If I'm going to be travelling for three days, it might as well be three days in motion rather than three days stuck in a little corner of an airport.

So I booked tickets on the 17:00 Silja Symphony to Stockholm, arriving 09:30 Monday morning. At 122EUR, this is cheaper than it sounds: it saves me a hotel (though admittedly, I could couchsurf) and it gets me a bit closer to home still.

There are two flights a day from Stockholm to Brussels. If they operate, it shouldn't be too difficult to get on one of those. Otherwise, I'll take the train to Copenhagen and the night train from there to Brussels.

I'll get home eventually, I'm sure.