Moy Moy Helsingfors, Privet Leningrad

I've been spoiled. English isn't obligatory in Russian schools. Russia doesn't put English on their street signs or their underground, especially those around the train station. As much as I've fallen for St. Petersburg, Russia hasn't gone out of its way to make me more comfortable.

A word about Helsinki before I gush about St. Petersburg:

It's hard to get a feel for a city after only 4 days. Understanding a city takes time and I was only in Helsinki for two day, taking into account all the time spent in Tallinn and Suomenlinna. But I have to say the Fins seem to have it figured out. My host Jim spent a lot of time describing the idiosyncrasies of Finnish culture. It's a culture of appreciation and care. Like many European countries which have respect for the individual, Finland maintains an egalitarian system heavy on education and mandated time off. In Helsinki the trains run on time and locations, streets, methods of transport, and signs are laid out logically and clearly. Throw in the unique sense of style: simple, elegant, modern, utilitarian, and you have a very attractive and easy aesthetic. And the people couldn't be more friendly.

St. Petersburg couldn't be less user-friendly. No one seems to speak English well. There's not much English on the signs, which is fine in most European countries, except that Russia has a different alphabet. This made getting around on the underground a real experience.

Riddim: Appreciating Foreign Music

The Pop
Benga & Coki - Night

The Filth
Skream - Oskilatah

When you listen to new music, it helps to have a location in mind. For example, when listening to rap music where do you think of? Don't say the suburbs.

Right, Brooklyn.

How about classical music?

Vienna, sure.

Country music?

Nashville.

So when I started listening to dubstep music, it was clear I had nowhere to place it. The dubstep I knew came from Baltimore. Baltimore is dirty. But dubstep, as you may have heard above from Skream, is filthy. Last week I found my dubstep spot. It's London. It's the London tube. It's busy, it's cramped, it's wet. I love it.

Dubstep?

London.

A Traveler Humbled

Time for an ego check.

If you've read my stuff before, or ever met me, you might have heard me talk authoritatively about travel. I retract everything. One week into EuroTrip 2010, I've managed to break all but the most cardinal rules of travel. Let me explain by speaking even more authoritatively. During the next month I'm going to dish about some of the do's and don'ts of travel. This is PaxPangea's:

"EuroTrip 2010: If Only I Practiced What I Preached"

Rule #1: Be anal

No seriously. Be really, really anal. Let me explain: Traveling is about variables. Just like life, there are known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. Your only recourse is to be as vigilant as possible.

The interweb is a glorious fount of information on things like visas, news, and whether or not your train ticket from Helsinki to St. Petersburg, that you bought well ahead of time in the U.S., will be rendered useless because there is track maintenance on the day you were scheduled to leave.

Rule #2: Keep everything

In 2008 I was traveling with a Peace Corps buddy of mine through West Africa. We planned to meet in Accra: the capital of Ghana, spend a week there, and cross the border into Lome, Togo. Whereas Ghana has recently prospered economically, Togo has not. A pseudo-dictatorial regime runs the country, the GDP is low despite abundant natural resources, and during the rainy season Togo's main highway is almost always out. In 2008, the 50 most dangerous cities in the world went: 1) Detroit, 2) Baghdad, 3) Lome.

I broke a rule by not doing my homework ahead of time and therefore not getting the all-important Ghanaian Visa. "No worries," I thought. I'll buy it at the airport, problem solved.

We rolled around Ghana for a week and came to the Togo border. My PCV friend had warned me what to expect: a run-down, militarized border where people were known to have been beaten for taking pictures. No smiling.

We cautiously walked to the shack outside the menacing archway, with a menacing watchtower, and menacing guards. It was, in a word, menacing.

The office was busy with people moving in and out. There were people dressed in uniforms and tourists whose perplexed faces mirrored our own.

The woman behind the counter didn't look happy to see us. She was equally unhappy about seeing our passports. My friend was first. He got his back without issue.

Then came my passport. She looked at it. Then she showed it to her friend. Then she checked something and looked at me. I looked at my buddy, sitting on the edge of his seat, eyes drifting quickly from perplexity into fear. He came over and she asked him something in French. He smiled the smile of absurdity, the worst kind of smile.

It's the smile you smile when you are forced to pay full price for parking because you lost your parking stub. It's the smile you smile when you are forced to walk through the entire airport departure maze when no one is in line. It's the smile you smile when a Togolese border worker asks you for the receipt for a visa payment you made about 500 miles ago, when the visa is clearly visible in the passport. My friend turns to me with the frown of hopelessness.

I wish I had a picture of his face when I told him I still had the receipt. It was the smile of elation. The best kind of smile.

Keep everything.

Finland as an Island

As an eighties baby, it's hard to imagine that some counties weren't always countries. Finland is one of them. Their history is not a pretty one. First they were part of Sweden for 600 years. Then they were part of Russia for a hundred years. Then, just when they gain their independence, they become entangled in a civil war.

There's a small island off the coast of Helsinki that embodies a lot of that history: Suomenlinna. First the Swedish built up the island waiting for a Russian attack. Then the Russians attacked and the island held. Then the Russians came back later and won. Then the Bolsheviks took over in 1917 and Finland declared independence. All the while Suomenlinna has been raised and razed. The results are quite special.

Finland's Mexico

Estonia is Finland's Mexico: dirtier, cheaper, and going there may result in stories that need not leave Estonia.

If you're Finnish, the city of Tallinn in Estonia has a lot going for it: there's a medieval downtown, the city sits on the water, and it's a pleasant two-hour ferry ride away. Despite all the perks, there seems to be one overwhelming draw. Booze.

The only thing Fins love more than drinking coffee is drinking alcohol. They seem to have a particular preference for cider. The Finnish government, in an effort to curb drinking, imposes a 22% tax on alcohol. The Estonian government does not. And Estonia still works on the Kroon system...at least until next year. So people go over and buy crates of alcohol.

A Very Finnish Solstice

Grab your globe. Hold it straight out in front of you and pretend you're the center of the universe...um, the sun. Then tilt the Earth correctly and remember that in June the bottom is tilted away. Now spin it. Can you see Finland the whole time? Exactly.

I arrived last night at around 12am and it felt like 6pm. Woke up at 5am and it felt like 1pm. The city is beautiful and modern. The people alternate between quiet and silent. I'm too jet lagged to put together a cohesive thesis on Finnish life: here are some pictures.

Photography/Filling time between travels

Significant events from the last few months of my life. I was photographed for an article in the Washington Post, and I completed a photo project about a covered bridge in Lancaster County, PA. Links below:

Photo Project

Washington Post Article, Smar is one of my students.

See slide 6.

La Villa Capilla (The Slum Chapel)

Buenos Aires: Where Jesus isn't your only savior

Welcome to La Capilla María Madre del Pueblo in the Bajo Flores slum of Buenos Aires.

My article provides a fairly comprehensive summary of what's happening in Argentina's slums. The church is the only organization that's maintains a consistent presence there. I visited the Bajo Flores villa on July 3, 2009. It's also known as Villa 1-11-14. Back in the day the government numbered the villas, so Bajo Flores is essentially a mega-villa, three in one.

Father Carrara had to meet me at the corner across from a nicer neighborhood and escort me into the villa. Below is a brief podcast of the encounter.

Villa Capilla Podcast

What I hope people understand from the article, the podcast, and the photos from this and the previous post, is how amazingly difficult life is here, and how this difficulty produces amazing acts of compassion and courage.

Maté and Catolicsimo

Walls of la Capilla

Glass bottles decorate la Capilla

Father Gustavo Carrara

Slums of Buenos Aires

One of the most interesting things about Argentina is its cultural confusion. Go back to my first post from Buenos Aires and my immediate impression of the city was its european feel. With a mix of French, Italian, and Spanish architecture, there's little to indicate where BA is located. Looking at the faces of people walking around, one struggles to reach a concrete conclusion. Kirchner, as you might have guessed, isn't an indigenous name, and one of the priests I interviewed was named Jorge Oesterheld.

Day one, sitting in my hotel room in the "micro centro" of the city, I could have been anywhere but Latin America. Day two, my interviews for my first article quickly reminded me where I was. There's a sharp divide between European culture and Latin American culture in Argentina. Nowhere is that divide clearer than in the "villas", or slums, of Buenos Aires.

Here, people look different. Speaking with my contacts confirmed fears about discrimination and de facto segregation. The photos below remind me so much of what I saw outside of Mexico City in 2006: a mash of concrete block houses, farm animals, and dirt streets. The villas are isolated ghettos: places without running water, sewage systems, or much of a police presence. They've grown out of peoples' need to survive. They stretch for miles, and there is little consensus about what needs to be done.

I would have gotten closer, but these aren't places where a 6'2" white guy easily blends in. Many of these photos were take from on overpass. My driver Leo was uncomfortable even stopping and rolling down the window. I had to convince him to let me leave the vehicle for even a few seconds.

Friendship at 30,000 ft.

After I stepped on the plane at Buenos Aires' Ezeiza Ministro Pistarini International Airport, I thought to myself: cultural adventure over. I was quickly reminded that one's cultural adventure never stops, it just changes area codes.

I stowed my backpack and from behind me I heard the words "yo estoy acá". I am here.

For a minute or so that's all he said. As we sat down our eyes followed a beautiful Argentine woman coming directly towards us. Tall, with brown eyes and long hair, she stopped right beside our seats. Looking at the seat numbers she unmercifully chose the row right in front of us. Just out of the corner of my eye, I saw my new neighbor looking at the ceiling of the plane and stretching out his arms as if to say, "Why God? I have so little."

I laughed as he turned to me said the equivalent of "**it happens" in Spanish.

For the next 10 hours Rubén and I chatted about New York, photography, movies, and Argentine Beef. Whenever I doubt the value of travel, I think of people like Rubén Andón.

Check out his work.

Check out his favorite music:

Fabiana Cantilo - El Anillo del Capitán Béto

Fabiana Cantilo - La Bestia Pop

Emiliana Torrini - Me and Armini

Emiliana Torrini - Sunny Road

Leon Gieco - Ve La Luna

Leon Gieco - Al Atardecer