Written on the bus to Russia, 14.12

YES, HELSINKI! Whatever you ask me. It's yours. Just give me in return what I ask of you--your shy creamy sunlight lighting up tidy low buildings and a sky as fresh and pale as an after-dinner mint. Your playful sprinkling of cotton-candy snow, the kind that swirls around you ticklishly, persuading you to fall in love even with the sharp wind that bites and stings. Give me your quiet, narrow streets, your sweetly enticing window displays, your idiosyncratic mélange of blocky art deco, sleek modern design, and charming, Scandinavian traditionality. Give me your smooth ski resort serenity, please, and in return I'll pay 5€ for a cup of coffee, rent an apartment by the week for what I'd pay monthly in the States. Just keep me sated on cobblestones and mulled wine, because your chic mellowed-outness is worth the trouble and the price. Kiitos, Helsinki. Ты--настоящий друг.

There's a ubiquitous aroma of nutmeg and cinnamon on the air here, not just outside restaurants but in elevators and museums and clothing stores, as though behind every closed door is a jolly blonde woman pulling a sheet tray of those omnipresent star-shaped spice cookies, so delicate and wafer-thin, out of a hot brick oven. The flurry of snow that descended starting early Sunday morning settled inoffensively on the trees and sidewalks like sugary icing on a gingerbread city. By the next morning it had turned into brittle ice like a layer of sparkling hard candy. The footprints I pressed into the fairy-tale snow each presented a thrill of a certain pride at being where I was. I felt privileged to be there, leaving my mark on the cement and stones, a guest of such elegant, ethereal people in such an enchanting town. This city is magical.

Now, with the long afternoon sun transfering a distorted rectangular shadow from the bus onto the blurry, snow-speckled highway speeding past, I'm reluctantly racing the daylight back to St. Petersburg. As the sun sinks I'm feeling a little despondent in the face of the destination awaiting me. St. Pete looms chaotic, dirty, and dark on the other side of these remaining 5 hours, seeming even more garish and overblown after the polished subtlety of Helsinki. The intoxicating luxury behind me I'm exchanging for an almost ascetic sparseness and the pile of temporarily set-aside assignments, obligations, responsibilites. The wide, noisy streets don't strike me as welcoming, and I'll bet I can count on these fading beams being my last taste of sunlight until December 26th, when my flight breaks through the palpable grey shroud above and around St. Petersburg into dazzling daylight, too lazy to penetrate the clouds.

Helsinki! Come with me!