From Russia with love

Well, it's been a full week.

Full of embassies, that is.

I've been to the Finnish embassy twice this week and am still no closer to getting a visa for Finland. This is more of a problem than it seems, given that Finland is an integral part of the Russian extravaganza and without the appropriate visa, I have little or no access to half that week's plans.

Anyway, the lady behind the counter at the embassy doubted my bonafides from the very start. She viewed me with unconcealed concern when I attempted to take my outer layer of clothing off (on account of it being a warm day, not some sudden desire to flash her). Admittedly I was wearing what counts as a 'hoodie' but if I look like the sort of person to have a bomb/weapon concealed about my person, then this is the first I'm hearing of it. She also clearly doubted the validity of my invitation letter from Tiina as she asked how I knew her and then obviously disbelieved my response that we used to work together. For an otherwise chilled out race of people, the Finns seem to have a severely bureacratic consular section at their London embassy. And they take two weeks to process applications, which doesn't really sit too well with my current travel time frame.

Contrast the Russian embassy this morning, where I waited in a queue for over an hour and then a grand total of 10 minutes submitting a mere two documents and paying for my visa. And, depending on how much money I was willing to pay, I could have the visa back on the same day or within a week. A glowing example of how embracing bare-faced capitalism isn't always a bad thing.

Met with my soon-to-be personal trainer last night and was gratified to learn that my upper body strength, flexibility and general fitness levels are better than I thought. Now if I just used them more often, I wouldn't be needing a trainer at all, but that's as may be.

Bank holiday approaches but finances dictate that Lakshmi will be spending the weekend sitting on her sofa, watching the final three seasons of Buffy. Oooh and Spidey.