Documentation for Cyprus trip

I was examining the website of Finnish police. They say in there, that you should be able to travel to Cyprus with official identity card (Henkilökortti). That is not the information that I got from the travel agency when I contacted them few days ago. It is possible though, that the lady in the agency only checked if Cyprus is a Schengen-country or not - the fact is that it isn't but still the police say identity card is enough to travel there. Hopefully it is that easy. I will go tomorrow morning to police department and will solve this for good.

New week, same old things

Good news for me. I managed to get the HIV test taken and now I am just waiting for the results. Those should be ready in the beginning of next week. Let's hope that the invitation to Russia comes this week so that I can apply for Visa as soon as the HIV results arrive.

This week I am going to find out how I should manage the passport situation for the Cyprus trip. I am also trying to get rid of the tie-in deal of my mobile phone.

If things just were easy....

I tried my luck and went to local health center to get the HIV test out of the way. On the paper that procedure is really easy: walk in to local health center, say what you need, walk to laboratory where they take a bit of blood for the test and then you are ready to leave. The next step would be to wait for the results for a while and that's it.

Today, things weren't that easy. I went to my health center (because University students health care is on summer vacation), walked in to information desk, explained what I am after. So far, so good. Except they directed me directly to the lab, which apparently isn't okay. In there I saw 2 nurses talking together on another info desk. I waited for my turn (I was the only person in the waiting lobby) patiently. After a while my number was called and I went to see the lab lady. Well, could she then take the test? No, of course not because they need to have referral from another nurse so that they know what they are testing. I said I want to get myself tested for HIV. Still, I needed to go and see another nurse to get that referral...

Well, not a problem I thought. There were basically no patients at all in the whole building - at least I didn't see any. Just tens of nurses. Well, I walked up to another info desk (other section in the same building) and explained that I needed the HIV test. The nurse said that unfortunately that is something that they can not do at the moment, because the whole health center is now dedicated to swine influenza patients! They said, that I should reserve an appointment by phone on Monday. They couldn't do that from this center, because apparently it was too late for that (it was about 12:30 p.m.) and it seemed that the nurse didn't even know where to direct me. This raises a couple of questions in my mind:

- Why wasn't that said to me when I first walked in to info desk?

- Why didn't anyone tell me that while I was in the lab?

- What was so difficult of taking that damn test when I was in the lab?

- Why there wasn't any mention about this issue on the webpages of the health care center?

- And why on earth it wasn't possible to give me the referral to HIV test to another health center for next Monday?

Seriously, I saw about 5 nurses and some laboratory people just sitting around in the laboratory section. I bet that they could have taken and analyzed my test really quickly there. It's not that they were busy doing something else... Well, I guess I will have to call around on Monday then.

End of rant.

One month to go

Today there is exactly one month left before I travel to St.Petersburg. Not a lot of time actually. There are still numerous things to be done prior to the trip.

- HIV test with Russian translation

- Applying the visa (need the invitation from GSOM before doing that)

- Getting a second shot of hepatitis vaccination

I am most worried about the visa situation, because it just came up to me that they require my passport for that. Normally giving away my passport for a while would not be a problem, but because I am having a holiday in Cyprus just a week before going to Russia, giving my passport away is not that easy. I will need it to get to Cyprus also. There are some options like getting a short-term passport for my holiday and the alternatives need to be investigated in the coming days. I will try to get myself tested for the HIV in the beginning of next week latest.

I have been trying to learn some basic Russian during this summer. Really, really basic stuff like the letters and some common phrases. During the next weeks I will step up my learning efforts a notch or two so that I will have a bit better competence when I go to St.Petersburg. In any case, I will be starting with the basics in there also - I just want to be somehow prepared before going there.

Note to self: learn to type cyrillic alphabets with western keyboard...

More about health

This Monday I received the first hepatitis vaccination. The second should be taken at least 4 weeks after the first one and the third about 5 months after that.

You need to have a HIV-test taken before applying for visa to Russia. The test results should not be older than 4 weeks before crossing the border. I am traveling to St.Petersburg on Sunday 23th of August, so basically I should have myself tested at the end of July so that I have my results early enough to have time to apply the visa. Too bad that YTHS (Finnish university students healthcare) is on holiday at that time, at least in Helsinki, so I can't take the test there. Somehow I have a feeling that schedule wise something is going to go horribly wrong with visa application etc. Let's hope that's not the case.

Vaccinations for Russia

It is advised to take vaccinations for hepatitis A & B before going to Russia. Therefore I tried to get myself vaccinated this week. I had already reserved a meeting with a nurse about one month ago. This Wednesday I went to health center in time which I thought was the one we agreed on the phone weeks ago. Well, it turned out that there was a mix-up with the schedule. I was there on the right day and almost at the right time - I missed the appointment by half an hour. Wasn't that nice.... I tried to get that re-scheduled for another time at the same day, but it was "impossible" for them so I had to leave empty handed. On top of that I had to pay a penalty fee of 15 euros for missing my appointment. You can imagine how pleased I was when I left the building...

Well, luckily I have qualified person in my family who give the vaccination. That will be taken care soon, which is nice.

Overall I am quite pleased with my accomplishments regarding the move to St.Petersburg. I have studied some basic Russian, bank&insurance is okay, vaccinations will be okay in a day or two and funding is also shaping up quite nicely.

Bank & insurance issues

Today I went to my bank to solve possible problems regarding my time in St.Petersburg. I should be okay with my Visa-card, but I will also take another credit card as a backup just in case. Before going to Russia I will have to decide what to do with my savings, because it’s not wise to keep them in the same account. No, I wont transfer them to your account :)

I also took care of the insurance for my stay in St.Petersburg. The first three months of my stay are included in my normal travel insurance, but I had to pay extra for the rest of the months. If I had the chance to be in Finland for 14 consecutive days after the first 3 months, then this additional insurance wouldn’t be necessary. Anyhow, insurance should now be okay. My insurance covers everything, including my luggage and other personal property such as laptop.

Kick off

Lets begin with the basics. The purpose of this blog is to focus on my thoughts and experiences while studying in a two-year Master’s programme called MITIM. I was one of the 20 people selected to study in this unique programme from LUT. St.Petersburg State University (GSOM) will make it’s student selections during the summer.

I will write about my notions, experiences and thoughts about the studies as much as I can. Of course, I will also write about other things that I am interested in, but MITIM-studies are a huge part of this blog.