Events

The good: Spain beating Germany last night. The bad: The sound of "¡Olé olé olé olé!" ricocheting around my aching head this morning. The ugly: Receving a (hopefully-mail-merged) message from the program reminding me of the importance of attending class after I missed for the second time in my MBA program.

I've got KML files of the boat tour and walk from which I took some of the photos posted already in the blog. Of course, as GPS receivers are illegal in Russia, I spent a lot of time meticulously figuring out the coordinate pairs in these files, including the zig-zag lines that perfectly simulate the distorted readings someone would get walking in a heavily-urbanized area.

I took a walk yesterday around 9pm, down Nevsky Prospekt to the Hermitage (about 8 km round-trip). Like today, yesterday it was about 30°C outside. And like today, the sun never quite set. This is from half past midnight: Earlier in the walk, before the Netherlands-Uruguay game, the Fontanka River: The Hermitage Museum (Winter Palace), south face: And (last one today) the west face, as seen on many postcards: Today's fun included six hours of classes so far, then a reception followed by another football...

I didn't come to Russia for the food. This is fortunate. The lunch buffet yesterday had pork filets, penne with cream sauce, white rice, salmon roulades, roasted carrots with butter. Then the dinner buffet had pork roulades, spaghetti with cream sauce, black and white rice, salmon filets, roasted carrots with butter. Same Sunday, same Saturday, though there was a minor stir when we found out the Halal meal was lamb chops, which the Muslim students eagerly devoured leaving none for the rest of us. A...

They started us off beautifully this term, with one class yesterday followed by four hours of free time and a tour of the city. Then they gave us the morning off today. I wish all the residencies had started so easily. This gave me a chance to get some photos processed, starting with the train ride from Helsinki. This is near Vyborg: Findlandski Station in St Petersburg, with very-Russian looking trains: And from the boat tour: More coming, of course. Even with a morning off from classes it turns out...

Does anyone else—outside of climatology or Contiental Europe, I mean—find it odd that France has had 33°C temperatures this week? I mean, the last time that happened, 14,000 people died as a result.

I love that for €54 and an hour and a half (round-trip, both numbers), you can take a boat from Finaland across the Baltic Sea and be in Estonia. The abandoned immigration and customs counters look a little forlorn to me, but have got to look completely eerie to anyone who made the trip before 2008, when Estonia entered the Schengen area. The ferry terminal on the Estonian side is a ghastly pile of Soviet concrete too horrible for me even to photograph. To give you an example, this is directly across...

When I left home, my iPod, Kindle, computer, and GPS were all fully charged. When I got to Finalnd, my iPod and computer were still fine, but my Kindle and GPS were completely drained. I have no idea why. All of them were in the same bag, all of them were off (except the laptop, which I used in flight), and the two that were drained were completely drained, not just low. Plus they recharged just fine once I got here. What gives?

Helsinki Cathedral: And the Esplanden:

I just got in to Helsinki. I wrote the following on the flight: 29 June 2010, 18:33 EDT, 10,500 m over the Maine-New Hampshire border Finnair’s A330 business class is the most comfortable experience I’ve ever had on an airplane[1]. First off, the plane is brand-new. It’s quiet, clean, and (not surprisingly) very European-looking. But this isn’t your grandfather’s Airbus. Dig it: Finnair has introduced new seats in business class. The left side alternate 2-1-2, the middle are all paired, and the right...