If you ever want to go to Russia...plan early

Today we get to go pick up our visas at the Russian Consulate!  Sally, Todd, and I are planning on being lined up when the doors open in an attempt to avoid the two hour line wait (which was far less time than we thought it would be upon seeing the line) from our last visit.  Interestingly, I thought that getting the visa would be the scary/challenging part but (knock on wood) that has gone swimmingly.  Contrary to the 90 day rumor, it only required a week to process.  Transportation in and out of the country, however, has been a bit more complex.

We wanted to by express train tickets on Friday morning and returning Monday afternoon.  We wanted to get them together to make sure we were taking the same route and could be be near each other if specific seats were assigned.  This, and our general trend of waiting a little too long, meant that we went to the train station yesterday to buy tickets.  Each of us found out individually that the trains we wanted were sold out.  I was informed that only one route we wanted contained only 2 available seats in first class.

This information was a little daunting and the three of us were starving (it was 2 in the afternoon) so we went to get some lunch and regroup.  On the Russiantrains.com website we each booked a ticket and excitedly hoped this meant that the Helsinki train office only had access to some of the available seats.  During lunch we received notification that the trains were booked so we were back to square one.  Airfares, amazingly, were only about $100 more than the train so I thought were a viable option but Sally did not seem so excited.  As lunch wrapped up we decided to return to the train station for one last attempt.

The woman at the train station made our day.  While the express train was booked, there were two special routes available at times that worked for our schedule.  This train will take 6.5 hours instead of 3.5 but cost half as much.  The main downside is that on Friday morning we have to be on the train by 6:30am, but we will just sleep for awhile and then wake to passing countryside!

The saga is not quite over: each of us woke to an e-mail with a sales receipt from Russiantrains.com.  They have an office in the United States so we will be calling at 9am New York time to clarify if we have actually been billed and to hopefully remove the fee.