Room 711 (St Petersburg, Russia)

I’d joined a package tour in Helsinki to St Petersburg, as recommended by my Finnish friends.  The group of 14 or so turned out to be from down under, one of whom would pronounce her room number (711) with such clipped vowels (sounding something like “sivin ilivin”), when asking for her key, that every one of the different Russian receptionists on duty had trouble understanding her and she’d be asked to repeat it every single time. 

After a few times of this, I helpfully suggested that she might like to spell out­­ the numbers in isolation—as “seven one one”, which would perhaps solve the problem.  So she took my advice the next time she asked for her room key at reception: “Can I have the key to Room Seven One One, please?”  The receptionist on duty this time said, “Oh, you mean Seven Eleven?”

(Event happened August 1996)

The police escort (Tallinn, Estonia)

After a day wandering around the old part of Tallinn in Estonia, I took the bus back to the harbour to board the ferry for the return journey to Helsinki.  

I headed for the ferry which was in clear view — except that, from that distance, I couldn’t see the wire fences that separated the area I was walking in from the ferry embarkation area.  

By the time I got close enough to see that I couldn’t get through and would have to walk all the way back, and enter the embarkation area via a different opening, a police car had arrived, having been alerted to the fact that this obviously foreign intruder was wandering around where she shouldn’t go.  

I pointed at the ferry, and they kindly offered to take me there, so it was that I arrived at the ferry in a police car, with the whole of the ferry population turning out on deck, watching keenly, wondering what I might’ve done.  

When I got out and the policemen and I waved a friendly goodbye to each other, I could feel a collective sigh of relief from the passengers — and perhaps disappointment that there was no drama to be enacted in front of their eyes after all.

(Tallinn, Estonia, August 1996)