The night bus

So to get out of Russia, I took a bus to Finland. It was a night bus, obviously catered to Russians. Everything was conducted in Russia, which at that point, was no big deal. But still, when I talk, it is clear that I am a foreigner. Note to self, work on Russian accent. Anyway. The bus experience as a whole was awful. On a small part, it was nice. The bus was comfortable. That’s the end of the positive list. On the negative side. At the Russian border we got stopped more than five times to see our documents. And since I am not Russian, I was under even more scrutiny. There was even a Serb on the bus with us. We had to wait over an hour at passport control while they carted him away somewhere for questioning. Simply because he was Serbian. And the Russians didn’t want to make it easier. The Serbian spoke Serbian and English, but not Russian. And border control spoke only Russian. I offered to be a translator. But of course that would make things easier, so they declined. After horrible border control we continued our journey to Helsinki. I dozed off. It was after all 4am. And for anyone who knows me, I am the extreme opposite of a night owl. I had told the woman who worked for the bus line that I wanted to get off at the Helsinki train station. This was thoroughly discussed. Her response to me a few times was, “but the trains won’t be running that early.” I knew that. I was planning on catching a bus that picked up right outside of the train station to go to my friend’s apartment. I had been there once before, so I knew what I needed to do assuming that I was at the train station. Right before I fell asleep I asked the woman again if we would make a stop at the train station. And again she said yes. I was asleep. For some reason I woke up. And I saw out of my window, us pulling away from the train station! I ran to the woman, ready to strangle her. “STOP!!!” I yelled. She looked at me with a puzzled look. “why?” was her response. Stupid, xenophobic woman. “We are pulling away from the train station. I need to go there.” The woman looked confused. “We are going to the bus station now,” she said with almost a smirk. They weren’t going to stop the bus. Finally I had to get in the stairs of the bus until the driver agreed to let me out. I was steaming! I know the woman just wanted to screw me over. Its just because I wasn’t Russian. A way for her to get back at capitalists, people, whom she has been bred to hate. I decided not to push the issue further. Hopped off the bus, and (yes I know it is very uncharacteristic) flipped off the bus as it drove away.
But the Serb, obviously pissed off at Russians as well, with the border control interrogation and all, decided to hop off the bus with me. He helped me take my bags to the bus stop. It was early. Too early for the buses to run. I was going to wait for about 4 hours until the buses began to run. The Serb and I were prepared to wait. But there was a surprisingly large amount of people hanging around the bus stop. I found out that there was a night bus, that runs once a night on Fridays and Saturdays to take all the party people home. Two kind Finns saw that I had a lot of stuff and asked what I was doing. I told them that I was waiting until the buses were going to run. The Finns looked at each other, and almost without hesitation offered to let me stay at their place until a more decent hour. I was so impressed with their kindness. The Serb declined their offer. But I agreed. **Note to the parentals if you are reading this** don’t hate me or get angry. I was responsible, and nothing happened. The Finns even payed for my bus ticket. Made me a really nice bed, and drove me to where I needed to go the next morning. Helping to carry my bags along the way. It was very nice. One of the many things that makes Finland better than Russia.