Category: travel

Oodi Library

Nobody bothered to tell me that the pictures in the previous post were not visible (and I know that many people saw that post). I just realized it and fixed the pictures, so if you are curious about what you’ve missed, you can check it out :).

Now – more pictures! This morning, my friend Natasha gave us a tour of the famous Oodi library. Boris and I visited it shortly after it was opened, but even then, we realized that we needed a tour with a Finnish-speaking person :). Then, it was COVID, and finally, it happened!

I think everybody heard about the Oodi library in Helsinki. One might say that none of the features is unique, but being brought together under one roof of the building designed to host the best library you can imagine makes it one of a kind.

That robot scans the books you return and directs them to different transporters to be dropped into a different bin
This DNA-shaped staircase lists all the kinds of people this library is for (Natasha says, no word is repeated:))
THe second floor is the library of things, a digital library and a library of activities
In this area, you can use sewing machines
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A Flight To Helsinki

Except for everybody wearing masks, I do not see any material difference between traveling now and pre-pandemic. There are not that many people traveling, but close to that. First time in a year and a half, I didn’t need to present a copy of my marriage certificate, just the passport, and the vaccination card. That’s all that was required for boarding, and the same thing in Helsinki – my passport and vaccination card. The border control office even joked like in old times about me visiting “for just a couple of days” and about being torn between two countries. 

The food was close to normal (almost), and the new cameras on the aircraft are just OMG!!!  

A new cool feature
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Climate

I am going to Helsinki. Yes, after Boris and I decided that we are not making these super-short trips anymore, first he came for three days, and now I am going there for three and a half days. A perfect illustration of all these discussions about “whether there can be love after 40.” Or 50. Or whatever 🙂

As it always happens when I travel in the fall, I can’t wrap my head around the fact that I need to dress warmly. When Boris said that I needed gloves, I was like “what gloves? why gloves? what are gloves? and anyway, I still wear sandals!” I can’t get a feeling of how it is going to be when it is 45F outside.

And actually, I just checked, and now the weather forecast says it’s going to be 56F, not 45F. I think I can leave gloves at home 🙂

Mom Went To Saint Petersburg

Mom went to Saint-Petersburg. Her flight was on Thursday evening. I did not want her to go, but there were some things which she had to do in person, and I found too late that there were ways to avoid the trip. I think that I won’t be able to stop her in any case, and if she decided she needed to go, she would still insist on going there.

I already told all my friends why I worried so much about this trip. In Russia, the vaccination rate is very low (twenty-something percent), and we do not know how many vaccinations are fake. The transmission rate is high; people do not wear masks unless they are forced to do so. For example, they would put the mask on when they enter the subway but take it off immediately after they are in. Or they would be without a mask in the store and pull it on during checkout.


Mom does not wear a mask properly. When I am together with her, I fix it all the time. It is not so important here: she is vaccinated; our vaccination rate is close to 70%; the transmission rate is less than one, and the overwhelming majority of people wear masks and wear them properly. If she goes to Morse Market, I am not overly concerned with her not wearing the mask properly, but it is a different story in Russia.


In addition, there is a lot of paperwork associated with the trips to and from Russia these days. I had to sign her up for two COVID tests, on entrance and on exist, register her at the government website to fill in the form for returning citizens, and fill in several other paper forms, some in Russian, some in English.
I requested a wheelchair for her for the whole trip, but I only managed to get her in it in O’Hare. As she reported, she “didn’t find” it in Helsinki. Having that they wait right on exit from the plane, I agree with Boris that you have to try very hard not to find them… but what can I do?


My friend met her at the airport in Saint -Petersburg, and they went home. For three weeks prior to the trip, I tried to explain to mom that it is dangerous to take public transportation in Saint-Petersburg and that I wanted her to take a cab all the time. Boris gave us a number of a very reliable cab company and asked her to use their services. She resisted for a very long time. I asked my friends in Saint-Petersburg to make sure that she called the cab (she has been doing it for a day and a half now :))


When they came home, they found out that the heating in her apartment was still not turned on. Also, one of the water pipes was leaking (the plumber will only come on Monday), and she could not turn on her electric stove.


And she refused to stay with my friend for the next couple of days… Also, although she is supposed to wait for the test result in Saint -Petersburg, she is going everywhere because nobody is checking.
I want these two weeks to be over (and actually, there are only twelve days left)

More From Pullman

Yesterday, I forgot to add Igor’s pictures which he shared with me, and he made much better ones. Besides, he had a chance to see the cars (this one accidental ticket I got from a person who didn’t need it)

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The Rest Of Weekend Activities

To recap the rest of our weekend activities: after the architectural tour, we went to the Chicago Architectural Center – we disembarked right there, and also, Lena didn’t visit it since it moved to this new home. We saw the exhibit of Helmut Jahn, which I saw earlier with my mom, and the permanent exhibit on urban development, which was very interesting.

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Chicago Architectural Cruise

The Architectural Cruise is the best attraction in Chicago! I heard once that if there is only one thing you have time to do in Chicago, do the Architectural cruise, and I can’r agree more! Each tour is different because each docent prepares their own tour, although the list of the places they need to cover is pre-defined. I’ve been on that tour at least twenty times :). The docent we had this time was just OK, not great. However, Lena really enjoyed it – it was a while since she was on that tour, and there are lots of new buildings which didn’t even exist seven years ago!

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Living Every Moment Of Chicago Summer…

Lena and I had a great weekend together! I am happy I created a mini-vacation for her, but I also did the same thing for myself – otherwise, I will be working all this time :). There are high chances that I will work ten hours a day each day of the upcoming week to compensate for that, but we still had a great time!

Saturday morning, we went biking on the Lake Front Trail. Lena saw all my pictures with beautiful sunsets, and she wanted to have the same experience. We ended up being at the right place at the right time, and I could even film the sunrise!

I didn’t have time for a blog post yesterday, but I posted a lot on the instagram. Now I am trying to save some time and embed the instagram post, hopefully it will be visible. You can click on the arrows to scroll through the picture.

As you can see, we biked far enough but not as far as I hoped. To be fair, Lena didn’t bike for over a year, so the long bike ride was a little bit too harsh of a start.

When we returned home, I made quiches for breakfast (and shared with my neighbors)

And then, we were off for another adventure. I booked the Architectural Cruise for PM departure, and we had time before that to visit the Millennium park one more time (there was a Zumba class in progress) and then we went to the Lurie Garden

We strolled through the West Riverwalk one more time

had some ice cream in the Tiny Cafe, and then headed to the boat tour –

Visiting Michigan

Over the weekend, I was at the beach house of my son-in-law’s family. His mother was trying to organize this trip for a very long time, and each time, something didn’t work. We finally made it, and I was also able to convince my mom to go. The weather was absolutely perfect- very warm and sunny, but not too hot. There is a real forest surrounding the house, and the water is as clean as it can be. Of course, that also meant more time with Anna, John, and the girls.

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***

Boris flew in on Friday, and it took him almost two hours to get through the immigration. He said there were just two agents for several hundred people. Then, we made a mistake. Or rather, I let this mistake happen.

Since we moved to the city, Boris said that now we do not need to take Uber to the airport because we can take L. I told him it would be a very long trip because you need to get into the city and get out again. Last time, I called Uber because we were fixing things until the last minute.

Now he mentioned it again, and I said – let’s.

Because the inner airport train is still not operating, it took us 30 minutes to get Terminal 5 to Terminal 2. And then – another two hours with all the waits! I told him – at least, it was on the way from the airport, not the other way 🙂

I hope that one experiment was enough 🙂