Flying to Tallinn

We have to Fly America, and that's OK with me. It's a bit tricky though. If you use Expedia for example, you can get from St. Louis to Tallinn for ~$1,000, or maybe to Helsinki for $800 (the ferry is about $60 round trip). But that's on SAS or Lufthansa and I need an American flagged carrier. American, Delta, United all list fares of about $2,000 to Tallinn, or higher. Continental says $900 to Helsinki or Stockholm, but you can't get a fare all the way to Tallinn. SO, I bought 4 round trip tickets to Stockholm on Continental for $900 each. It's only $200 each for round trip airfare to Tallinn from Stockholm. So for the minor inconvenience of picking up our baggage and checking right back in on another airline, we save about $900 each. Since we go through customs in Stockholm anyway, it's not a big deal. Why is it so difficult to work out travel?

Tickets purchased, don't use onetravel.com

I bought the tickets, we're leaving St. Louis on Friday the 15th of January. I won't ever try to use onetravel.com again. Yesterday I booked 4 tickets on Continental, through Copenhagen, to Tallinn. In the middle of the night I got an e-mail stating that because of the short connection times they had to change the flights to Lufthansa, and it would be $700 more. Never mind that they had advertised the flights, now it's too short. On the phone I told them it wasn't too short, if I went to the Continental website I could pull up the identical itinerary as far as Copenhagen. Then they said it was the high season, all sold out. I said "expletive! It's 2 weeks after the holidays, that's not the high season, and I can see available tickets on the Continental website." The biggest issue of all is that I went from an American flagged carrier to a German one, so it was not acceptable. Finally they agreed to cancel the tickets without any cost to me. No confirmation yet, but they have not tried to charge anything to my credit card, and I called the credit card company and told them I'd be disputing any charges from onetravel, so I think I am safe. I'll post the actual ticketing process in later.

Finnish countryside

There are a lot on Finnish people in the upper peninsula of Michigan. I think that the U.P. does look a bit like Finland. Lots of lakes, birches and other mixed hardwood trees, and it is also cold.

Coffee

Finns love coffee. It's a fact that they drink the most per capita. My anecdotal evidence:

Today I had breakfast with coffee followed immediately by registration with coffee. Opening session for 1 hour followed by coffee. That takes us up to 10:30. My session lasted until noon, then lunch. Coffee anyone? Another session from 1 to 2, then coffee, a technical tour and finally the city reception (will there be coffee?)

Wired in Finland,

Eric

Speaking English "over there"

I always feel bad that I don't speak a second language. There is something very surreal about going to a conference and giving a paper, in English, to an audience where English the second (or third) language of everyone else in the room. I kept thinking either "I'd better speak really well since it's my language" or "I don't have to worry about my language skills, they are the best in the room." OK, that second one is an ugly American point of view, and I really did make an effort to speak slowly, clearly and enunciate as well as I possibly can.

Crossing the Gulf of Finland in a storm

Oof. Even on a large cruise ship size ferry it was rough crossing yesterday. The spray was hitting the windows on the front of the ship on deck 8. Up and down, up and down. It was hard to walk. The vikings must be naturals at sailing though. I saw hundreds of people eating pizza, drinking beer and generally enjoying themselves. Nobody got sick that I saw.

Dinner

The food is great. I'm pretty adventurous when it comes to eating, so I'd probably order by pointing at unknown words if I had to. Menus always have translations in the touristy areas, so no problem anyway. I had grilled salmon and rice last night, and for appetizers we had a selection of eel, herring, dried-salted-raw beef (a Georgian dish), pickles and other stuff. All good to me. I did pass when the dean of my college suggested vodka with the pickles, opting for a local beer instead.