2800 kilometers in 24 hours
I have completed a long trip. But not using skates or skies or just bare feet. I went on a short trip to Russia for a number of personal reasons.
It is funny that a plane ticket costs less than train ticket nowadays. So I left Saturday morning on a Finnair flight to Moscow. I arrived at 1PM and went to pick up a car that I booked at Sixt. I was driving an almost new Ford Focus and I liked it a lot. The weather in Moscow was quite nice, around -10 centigrade and clear. But I had to spend lots of time in a traffic jam near Moscow. In total, it takes 12 hours to get from Helsinki to my home town Dzerzhinsk out of which I have to spend 4 hours or 1/3 of the time in a traffic jam.
I was surprised to find out that the highway is in a good shape and quite clean. But the surrounding areas look a bit deserted. Obviously, the financial downturn had a negative impact on Russian economy. It just occurred to me that in Russia there is no network of restaurants located along a road. There are smaller cafes here and there but they do not belong to a single owner. For example, in Europe there are lots of McDonalds along major highways, they are easy to spot because of their masts up in the sky.
I arrived to my home at around 8PM. On Sunday we were visiting various relatives and supermarkets where I got a few history books:
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Then on Monday at 3AM I drove back to Sheremetyevo airport. It was a chilly morning with temperatures around -20 centigrade. There were a few police patrols near Moscow but I was lucky to not get caught because I had plenty of time and thus was driving slowly. Another funny thing was that when I got to the final stretch of my journey a snowstorm began. It would increase my travel time dramatically if I got into a snowstorm at least half an hour earlier. After I dropped off the car I realized that flights will get delayed because of the snowstorm. It was partially true because the boarding delay was only half an hour and then we spent another hour on a tarmac.
I arrived back to Helsinki at 2PM and went straight to office. Then I did a bit of coding and went home later than usual. However, on Tuesday I left office as usual only to fall asleep at 6PM. I slept a whopping 12 hours and woke up 6AM Wednesday and finally unpacked my luggage.