Red Square on New Year’s
In Moscow, going to be on Red Square for New Year’s. Sick, very sick. I know this won’t help, but I plan on being home by 2:30am. Hope it’ll be worth it.
Ryanair
For some time now I’ve heard from European students about the insanely low prices of Easyjet and Ryanair, but as my primarily air travel is intercontinental, I’ve never had the occasion to use them. In fact, when planning to come to Germany for Christmas, the thought of using one of them never crossed my mind. I went to the student ticket agency and reserved the standard Lufthansa fare. Though this time it was steeper than usual. I was expecting to pay around $400, but it came out to $515. Fine, I thought, I can’t exactly go by train.
A good friend is coming out to visit me in StP for New Year’s and we thought he could stop by Germany as well. Unfortunately, Lufthansa wanted $1,200, which is a little out of our league. I went back to the ticket agency and pleaded for them to find cheaper options. That’s when she suggested Ryanair, out of Tampere, Finland. This flight costs, roughly, around 250 Euros. Though you have to factor in another 100 Euros for transportation from StP to Tampere. And I booked my tickets one week in advance. Apparently, it’s even cheaper the earlier you buy.
Incidentally, Rob is coming to Frankfurt from Sophia on Central Europe’s low fare airline, Wizzair. Both use the Frankfurt Hahn airport, not the main Frankfurt terminal. Coming back, he’s going to have to spend the night at the airport, but that seems to be a common problem. When I arrived last night, I saw plenty of people camped out. It seems that Ryanair gets in at night, and Wizzair leaves in the morning. Well, at least he’ll have the luxury of spending the night in what amounts to a sort of free hostel, with lots of other young travelers. I’ve spent the night at several airports that cater more to businessmen than backpackers. As such, the businessmen had reasonable connecting flights, and I usually found myself alone with crazy homeless people. Though I suppose that many backpackers easily fit into the latter category.
Overall, the trip was an enjoyable experience. I traveled through Finland and visited some people it had been too long since I last saw. On the plane I met some nice Poles, who were gearing up for an overnight stay at “Hostel Hahn.” The only problem was that the airport was fogged in, and we had to land at another airport, Saarbrucken. We were then bussed to our original destination. Of course, Saarbrucken is closer to Kaiserslautern than Frankfurt, so I ended up backtracking quite a bit.
Explosion near St. Petersburg Nuclear Plant
A small explosion near a western Russian nuclear power station has injured three people, local media reported on Friday, but there was no radiation leak.
The explosion happened on Thursday at a metals smelter near the Leningrad Atomic Power Station, where the second reactor has been under repair since July, reported RIA Novosti and Interfax news agencies.
The ecological services at the power station, which is near Russia’s second city of St Petersburg, were monitoring the situation but radiation levels were as normal.*
Considering Russia’s history on honestly informing it’s citizens of disasters, perhaps it’s a good thing that I’m leaving today to spend Christmas in Germany.