Through the lands in the end of the world

The journey begins in Finland, right on the top north. All of us have heard about the lands in the end of the world, for most of us, the home of St. Claus (in Laponia) and for some others, less informed, a city where penguins are walking in the streets. Well, I’ve only saw business man looking like penguins in my best but can’t say I was looking for them often. Right after departing from Amsterdam, where the sun wasn’t that much already, the sky gains a red fired color called sunset, almost strange to my southern European perspective, to fall quickly into the dark night, just before four o’clock in the afternoon, closing the sky even to the shinning of the stars. While there was still some light, from the plane window you can see all those lakes and wonder where actually there’s land. As someone was telling me, Scandinavia has thousands and thousands of them, you just need to define how big can they already be classified like that.

As the reader probably has read, Finland lands were too long occupied by Russians until, in the end of the WW II they got their independency. Although, many Russians still live in the country and the political relations between both countries are somehow stable, the social situation is not so calm. The old fin sitting next to me in the plane, with whom I’ve been chatting in between my Russian language study times, told me gently as answer to my “Do you speak Russian?” question: “No, I hate Russians.” I know that not all the suomi fell the same way, especially within the young, although this answer didn’t surprise me at all. He also told me that Helsinki is not yet covered with snow, as I dreamt it would be, due to unnormal high temperatures. You rarely can see aurora borealis in the city and, for that, I would have to go some 10 hours by train further north, which is a bit out of my path. Maybe next time.

Packing !?

Preparing to travel has always been much more than packing. It’s spending some of the free time looking through the guides in old bookshops, looking for the recent news and even weather forecast, looking forward to consume all the little details of the stories told and photos shown by whoever was there before. Also is reading those books, listening that music, even if so hard to find wherever, searching for culture alements on documentarie movies in old tapes stored in the basement, to somehow try learn some words that only a few understand. At some point is to be a local much more than the ones who are in fact. To fall in love for what you haven’t even seen with your own eyes yet. Preparing the journey is to be already there, although you’re not …

A starting point ...

I’m Joao Pita Costa, a member of AEGEE European Student Forum. I’m coming with the idea of connecting two far away points: Lisboa and St.Petersburg. I’ll be looking for common points in these two magic cities that somehow give the west and east limits to a Europe made of people and not of territory. I left on the 20th of January from Lisboa towards Helsinki, right in the north of the Europe that I know.

My path will start in Helsinki, in Finland, historically close related to Russia; from there I’ll go down to Estonia, one of the old Baltic USSR member states, that also chare many soviet memories, and from Tallinn, I’ll enter by bus in Russia. St. Petersburg is the starting point of my visit, the main contact. After that I only know I’ll be representing AEGEE Lisboa in the Winter University event in Moskva, as Dasha’s invited guest, the kind AEGEE President from this antenna.

Here in this space the reader should just enjoy the short stories posted and participate in it by writhing comments in Portuguese, Russian or even Slovene (why not?). They may be suggestions from who knows better, questions from what is written and even some quests. I’m open to any challenge my friends. Keep track of this journey as it was your own. My best wishes and thoughts of a sesljui novi god.