I depart from St. Louis on a flight to New York with connecting flights on to
Helsinki and St. Petersburg. I have a very large suitcase with rollers and
extendable handle which I check in, and another smaller suitcase which
meets the size requirements to be carried on the plane. The flight from
STL to JFK is uneventful, thank heavens. I knew my Finnair flight was to
depart from terminal 8 so I headed there. I had deliberately given myself a
scheduled 4 hour layover to account for any late planes, other delays, etc.
At terminal 8, I approached the first counter and asked the woman where
Finnair was located. She ignored me and continued to sort through some
items, so I repeated the question. This time she threw her hand in a left
ward direction but still would not look at me or speak. Always great to be
in NYC! I walked in that direction (to the right from my perspective) and
found the Finnair counter at the very end. There I talked to a very nice
man who turned out to be a Russian who had lived in St. Petersburg. He
changed my seat on the next two flights from aisle to window seats which I
had previously requested but had not received when I picked up my
boarding passes in St. Louis. He and I spent several minutes talking about
where he had lived in St. Petersburg relative to where I would be staying,
etc. We had to end our conversation when others started to arrive at the
counter. He very carefully told me which direction to go and what to look
for in finding the boarding area for the next segment of my flights.
Obviously he had not lived long enough in the New York area to get the
real hang of how to treat people.
[Note: I had deliberately chosen to fly on Finnair for one main reason and
some others. First and foremost, a non-stop Finnair flight from NYC to
Helsinki would provide the longest possible time interval for trying to sleep.
On other flights, any possible sleep would be interrupted earlier by plane
changes in Stockholm, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfort, etc.
Second, I had heard that Finnair had some of the best service in the world.
And third, their prices were at the low end of the competition. This pricing
was surprising since Finland has some of the highest costs in the world for
living expenses due to the very high level of social benefits provided to its
citizens. I think the government is probably subsidizing these flights in the
hope of additional revenues from persons who spend time in Finland. I
had found that the ticket prices for these flights dropped substantially after
the first of September. The prices dropped another $100 or so for flights a
week later, but I was worried about waiting too long into the fall because
cold weather arrived sooner in the St. Petersburg area than in most parts
of the USA.
I had spent much time on the Internet comparing prices from dozens of
sources, but in the end I purchased my ticket from Expedia.com, that I had
used many times before. The cheapest prices can usually be found from
Imandi.com. However, this source and many others featured flights on
Northwest/KLM. These tickets were $100-150 less than most others;
however, there is a hidden cost. The return flight requires that the traveler
spend a night in Amsterdam (because the flight segments do not match up
well), which is a very expensive city and the cost of a hotel is not included
in the ticket price.]
By now it was about 2:45 PM and my flight was due to depart at 5:55 PM.
As I walked toward the boarding area I came to the food court area. Then I
walked to the security scanner area and asked the man if there was food
available down that way also. He said there were just snack bars in the
boarding areas. Then I walked back to the food court area and sat down a
while and made some notes. I still wasn’t hungry enough to eat, but my
printed itinerary only mentioned breakfast on the 8 hour flight from NYC to
Helsinki, Finland. I thought surely there was an error and that there would
be a dinner meal, but I was still debating if, when, and what to eat before
boarding. Finally I decided to go on through the security scanner and go to
the departure gate without eating anything.
When I got to the appropriate gate, I noted about 6 couples (50s and 60s
in age) there. So I approached and asked if they were going to Helsinki
and they said they were. I asked what their itineraries said about food, and
they replied that food would be ‘continuous.’ That confirmed what I had
suspected, so I stopped worrying about eating. I talked with these people,
showed them some of my guide books, alphabet conversion tables, etc.
and time flew by. They were all with a tour group that was going to
Helsinki, then to the Baltic Countries, then to St. Petersburg, and back to
Helsinki. One couple was from Dallas, one from Chicago, and one from
somewhere in Vermont.
At around 5:30 PM we began boarding Finnair flight number 6 scheduled to
depart at 5:55 PM. The flight was scheduled to take 7 hours and 55
minutes and cover 4,108 miles. This flight was on an MD-11 aircraft which
had 61 rows. The rows were in three banks with two aisles. The left and
right banks had 2 seats and the center bank had 4 seats. In one section
near the back there were only 3 seats in the center, and probably fewer
seats in first class up front. The brochure indicated the seating capacity
was 403, and cruising speed would be 910 kph at a height of 13,100
meters. I am in the window seat on right hand side in row 60. This is
convenient as the toilet is just a row back and the food gallery and
attendants were just behind me.
We departed around 6:20 PM. The captain apologized for the delay saying
they were waiting for some passengers. Many people remarked that no
plane would probably ever wait for them. About one half hour after takeoff,
they came around distributing bags of pretzels and drinks. Then about an
hour later came the dinner meal. This consisted of a green salad with thin
strips of raw salmon, crackers and cheese, bread rolls with butter, chicken,
rice, cut squash, and a small portion of ‘so called’ cherry pie. The service
was excellent and they returned many times with offers of refills of various
types of drinks, more rolls, etc. After eating I set my watch ahead 7 hours
to correspond to Helsinki time. Then I took a prescription sleeping pill
(Ambien) and told the attendants not to wake me for breakfast in the
morning if I appeared to be sleeping.
I did get some sleep and much more than on my typical flights, so the pills
had some effectiveness. But I was awake when the attendants started
serving breakfast at 7:30 AM. This meal consisted of orange juice, coffee,
yogurt, and a large croissant roll with cheese and ham inside. Again,
unlimited amounts of orange juice, coffee and water was offered. Some
asked for and received another croissant, but I was feeling full enough.
There were TV type screens through out the plane and they periodically
showed the path and progress of the plane on a geographical map. I
noted we were just starting over Norway, so I looked out the window. The
mountains appeared to be dry and barren and reminded me of a ‘Death
Valley’ with ridges. There were no signs of life or people, and I suspected
this was the far north of Norway.
The attendants announced that we would be arriving at gate 32 in Helsinki.
I told one of the attendants of my flight number on to St. Petersburg and
asked what would be my departure gate. She said she would check. She
returned and said she had asked the captain to make it as easy for me as
possible, so he had arranged for my next flight to depart from gate 31
which, of course, was right next to 32. :-))
As I looked out the window it was striking to me how the top of the clouds
looked like huge ice glaciers; it reminded me of TV documentaries I had
seen of the landscape in Antarctica. As we descended through the clouds
near Helsinki I noted that all of the roads and farms looked neatly
manicured. Most of the trees appeared to be of the coniferous type. As
we dropped lower I noted several instances of rock outcropping in among
the trees.
We landed at 8:55 AM (compared to the scheduled time of 8:50). I am
struck by the extreme sense of cleanliness and brightness here at the
airport facilities. As I walked into the main hallway I spotted some sort of
Internet device on the opposite wall. I thought I would send an e-mail to
some people, so I walked to it and started looking at the directions. It
looked more like an ATM machine than a computer and no mouse was
available, only the cursor type found on notebook computers. It would take
a credit card which I inserted but could not seem to get anything to work. I
tried the credit card a second time and then started worrying about how
much I was being charged. A uniformed lady came by and I asked her
about the machine. She said she knew nothing about its operation, but
she used her cell phone to call someone who worked for the owner of the
machine. By now, however, it was 9:20 AM or so and my next flight out
was at 9:50 AM. She told me I would not be charged anything because I
hadn’t gotten far enough along in the menu for that. She said someone
would come to help me, but I told her I wouldn’t have any time left. I still
wanted to go to bathroom and I knew they would start boarding within 10
minutes or so.
We lifted off from Helsinki at 10:00 AM and I immediately moved my watch
ahead to 11:00 AM to reflect the time in St. Petersburg, Russia. This plane
is an MD-82 seating 140 to 156 passengers, flying at a speed of 825 kmh
at an altitude of 11,300 meters. The flight is scheduled to take one hour
and cover 187 miles. There are 2 seats on the left and 3 seats on the
right. I am in the window seat of row 20 on the right hand side.
Just as we level out, they begin distributing small bags of pretzels and
juice. The foil cover over the juice says APELSIN JUICE. I assume this
means Apple Juice, but the taste was definitely of Orange Juice. Then, I
thought maybe Apelsin was the name of the manufacturing firm. I question
the attendant and she says that Apelsin means Orange in the Finnish
language. So then I ask how Apple would be spelled in Finnish and she
replied, Ominahoma (or something close to that). Go figure.
I sight Russia for the first time at 11:35 AM. There are large farming areas
to the south of St. Petersburg just inland from the coast. The landscape
appears to be very flat in every direction. As we descend lower, I note
some US type of residential blocks with single family dwellings near the
airport; the yards were very unkempt. The wheels touched down at 11:45
AM and the runway was not very smooth. The grass was not mowed on
the side areas. As we approached the terminal building I could see
blacktop crews at work on the taxi areas. Their dress, safety vests, and
equipment looked very much like that as in USA.
I walked through the standard exit walkway to the main corridor and turned
to the right. Immediately I caught the smell of cigarette smoke. I had
already been warned that smoking was widespread in Russia and not
banned in many locations. I walked down this main hallway and then to
the left onto a down escalator. Then through the passport and visa control
areas where they tore off the right hand side of the three part visa. Date
stamps were placed on the remaining two parts of the visa and the
passport, and both returned to me. Then a turn to the left, walk a short
distance and descend the stairs to the luggage carousel. We had been
given customs forms on the Finnair flight and I had listed some US
currency, my watch, and camera. I retrieved my large wheeled suitcase
from the carousel and proceeded to the customs area. Here the man did
not look up from his desk while he circled my items on the declaration
form, drew lines on it to prevent future additional entries, stamped the form
and waved me through. No one looked into any of my luggage or asked
me any questions. I was walking into the main lobby of the airport by about
12 noon.
Despite the fact that St. Petersburg is home to about 6 million persons,
and is an international center in Russia, this airport facility is no larger than
would be found in a city of perhaps 200 thousand in the US. However,
there is a second facility on the other side of the runway for domestic
flights. This was a feature left over from the earlier soviet days when every
attempt was made to keep foreigners separated from the local citizens as
much as possible.
Rex
