Finland what a busy place

We escaped from Russia yesterday into Finland. I imagined that it would be full of bumpkins chewing straws, what a mistake. Sarah, who knows better informed me that the Finnish economy is almost entirely industrial and post industrial. the bottom line is the road that I thought would be a quiet country lane was a roaring highway. Mercifully Finnish drivers are very lovely so the only challenge on today's run was a 20km/hr headwind. What do you expect when you start to go west?
never mind all this Sarah wants to talk about St Petersburg and Russia.

If we were culture shocked leaving Russia we were even more shocked when we arrived in St P. I suppose it was our first large city since leaving London but first impressions were not good - noisy, dirty and hard work to do anything. However, we revised our views. It is a huge place - there are so many beautiful buildings that you become used to passing palaces and cathedrals at every step. It was very nice to have an apartment so that we could escape and cook our own food for a change. We were amazed at the security arrangements. The agent took us through the drill of locking the courtyard door (most St Petersburg flats are in a series of buildings all at the same street number and arranged around a courtyard), then the iron door of the building, then the steel enforced door of the flat with at least three huge bolts that fitted into sockets in the reinforced steel doorframe. Here's the picture of the crumbling courtyard in which our flat was located. The stairwell was the sort of place you could imagine a junkie flaked out - and in fact on our last day there was one. Ted had to virtually lift the bike over him as he didn't want to move.
Have to stop now as we are in a public library and it's closing time.