Day 9 2016.10.02 Lappenranta

After the long evening it was nice to sleep long. For breakfast we went out again and lena showed me a nice retro place. It was a kind of bakery still from soviet times. I couldn’t remember the names of all these dough balls cause they are available with so many different fillings. If you ever in Russia see these baked dough balls ask for the filling it is comparable to a Sandwich. Crazy fact to this bakery it has an own bakery cat. It reminded me a little bit to Garfield. She had a behaviour like hey this is my place I do whatever I want. Problem with this place was they had no Sireniky. This is a special thing that I also wanted to try. So we had to go to another place. We both weren’t able to eat everything so packed the rest for later. Time to say good bye. I left in direction Kronstadt. My hope to have a good view on St Petersburg was soon destroyed. It was too cloudy. But I found Lenas recommendation the Cathedrale dedicated to the seaman.

From now every km brought me nearer to Europe again. I passed two police controls on the way. The the policeman showed me to continue, the policewomen insisted to control me. No big problem. So I opened my jacket and looked between all my layers for my passport. I quess that action caused at least 10 annoyed car drivers behind me. After that I arrived at the border. So the same thing again. I was confused I expected the border later. I still had around 50€ in Rubels left that I wanted to use for an accommodation and a full fuel tank. Stupid now I have to wait till next year use this money. At least everything was done fast. The next City in Finnland had also a Hostel. 72€ with breakfast for the Room, 50€ for a Hut on the campsite, and 32€ for the dorm bed. Easy decision. My Roommate was called Eugeniu or German=Eugen, English = Eugene and Russian=Ewgeni we had long discussion about that. Eugeniu is from Moldova so his Russian, Romanian was much better than his English. Stupid that it is complete opposite in my case. The good thing we shared the same interest in motorcycles and other vehicles. So we exchanged a lot of pictures and had a nice time together. He also gave me the nice hint to have a look on the Minsk RX250. I don’t think it’s really an option for me but it’s interesting to know that it exists.

Beside the conversation I also booked a ferry ticket and changed the route for the following days. The weatherforecast expected a top temperature around 5°C in Oulu and I was already freezing on the bike. I had the necessary equipment to continue but it was at home so only slowing down would solve the problem and that was no option. My decision was to ride the warmer BeNeLux states instead.