When you're bored with Helsinki...
Tallinn, Estonia's right across the water! This has always been my plan to do my second day here in Tallinn, and fortunately I have 2 friends to do it with. Lucy and I go downstairs to wait for Brenna. I have a perception that she is never less than prompt, and I am not disappointed today as she arrives at the hostel at the 9am time exactly.
The 3 of us walk over to the terminal. Lucy already has her ferry at 10 am booked, but unfortunately, it's sold out. Brenna and I have to wait for the 10:55! We tell Lucy that we may see her in Tallinn, but we know we probably won't. We share a coffee break and Lucy gets on the boat as Brenna and I find a park near the harbour to relax in while we wait for our boat. It's fun hanging out with fellow Canadians, we have common frames of reference. We chat for a while and then we head for the passport formalities. I go straight through, but Brenna's is a mosaic and the Finn guard admires it for about 3 minutes before telling her he doesn't have her entrance point. After a barrage of questions he lets her through. Once we are on the boat, Brenna zones out and I start into Kakuro. We arrive at Tallinn at 12:30,pass throgh another passport control (Yay! Another stamp on my passport! Brenna's stamp is so light the Tallinn part is barely visible, a shame, considering the collection she's building up. Once we're in the harbor we start the Rick Steves tour,walking through a gate to the old city (Cobblestones, old
buildings, souvenir stores, the usual.
Of course, we have no Estonian money, so I brave the bank machine to take out about $50 worth of Kroon, Brenna the same. The walk is nice, taking us past churches, lookout points, old town halls. We stop for a beer at a seemingly authentic brewery (Although it looks a bit too clean to be truly old). On top of the beer I order the garlic toast, which is said to be an Estonian specialty. It comes on black bread and it's quite delicious so we order another appetizer, the Estonian Fried cheese, which unfortunately is the same fried cheese you'd find anywhere in the world. That the cow was Estonian doesn't distinguish the cheese.
After our snack, we wander the tour some more, occasionally getting lost. Talllin also has a new area that is building up with skyscrapers to resemble a Western city. We see it from one of the lookout points. There are some nice sights, but we're pretty much done. Brenna, who was planning to stay 3 days and is now making a day trip of it, is counting her lucky stars, because it's clear to both of us that Tallinn is not a 3-day event. When we wrap our tour, we are walking down the Viro road towards the new city, and we decide to split up for an hour. It's a bit of a shopping time, I buy some Juniper trivets (These give off a sweet fragrance, which is even stronger when you put something hot on them). I also find a sticker that Says "Tallinn Estonia", and buy it for Brenna, she could only find Tallinn ones, and she decorates her journal book with a sticker from every country she visits. We have dinner at 5pm in a restaurant that I believe translates to "The Golden Piggy", and is heavy on the pork (It's even baked into the bread in small quantitiies) I have a Pork roast which is quite good, and Brenna's Salmon is also excellent, and we have lots of time to walk back to our 7:30pm ferry.
Returning to Helsinki, Brenna and I say our farewells. I had fun with her and hopefully we'll get to hang out again when she moves to Toronto this fall.
I'm now in prepare for Russia mode and my room, now a single, has all my clean laundry. Sorted and folded, I separate the things I'm not taking with me to Russia into the Dufflebag portion of my backpack, which hopefully I won't need as rain protection over there! As I'm leaving to put my dufflebag in storage at the Scandic where I'll be staying when I come back from Russia, I see Caitlyn and Rachel in the street, and they tell me that their hostel in St. Petersburg has been closed by the government during the G-8 summit which is starting tomorrow! I am obviously alarmed, and the three of us try calling my hostel, but I can't figure out how to make the call. We head back to the hostel, where we run into Kim and Alexandra, a couple of locals (Although Alexandra is from New York), and they offer us the use of their computer and their phones to contact Russia. A neighbour, Nisa, is using the computer, but she's done very quickly, and I start by checking my work e-mail, where I would receive a cancellation if one was forthcoming. Fortunately, there is no cancellation! I am still not sure, so we call the St.Petersburg hostel, and everything is ok. Unfortunately, they have no beds available for the girls, so we call around, and finally, we get a farily central room for Caitlyn and Rachel.
We are buoyed by the kindness (and eccentricity of strangers). On the way home, we talk about what must be going on in Russia (Is it chaos? Craziness?). The woman at the girls' hostel seemed genuinely distressed. When I get back, I grab my bag again, and this time I make it to my hotel, where I drop the bag into a locker. But when I get back to the hostel, there's some bad news. The Chechen Rebel leader has been killed by the Russians, and the security situation may not be stable there. Caitlyn and Rachel decide not to go. They don't feel safe and are going the Estonia-Latvia-Lithuania way instead. That American guy I met yesterday is going, but he seems a bit dull and not someone I see myself hanging around with. He has absolutely no idea about the Chechnyan situation. Lucy and I try to give him a bit of a primer on it. I say farewell to Lucy, hopefully we'll keep in touch. I get to sleep at around 1:30, too bad considering I have to wake up again at 6:15!!!!!
The 3 of us walk over to the terminal. Lucy already has her ferry at 10 am booked, but unfortunately, it's sold out. Brenna and I have to wait for the 10:55! We tell Lucy that we may see her in Tallinn, but we know we probably won't. We share a coffee break and Lucy gets on the boat as Brenna and I find a park near the harbour to relax in while we wait for our boat. It's fun hanging out with fellow Canadians, we have common frames of reference. We chat for a while and then we head for the passport formalities. I go straight through, but Brenna's is a mosaic and the Finn guard admires it for about 3 minutes before telling her he doesn't have her entrance point. After a barrage of questions he lets her through. Once we are on the boat, Brenna zones out and I start into Kakuro. We arrive at Tallinn at 12:30,pass throgh another passport control (Yay! Another stamp on my passport! Brenna's stamp is so light the Tallinn part is barely visible, a shame, considering the collection she's building up. Once we're in the harbor we start the Rick Steves tour,walking through a gate to the old city (Cobblestones, old
buildings, souvenir stores, the usual.
Of course, we have no Estonian money, so I brave the bank machine to take out about $50 worth of Kroon, Brenna the same. The walk is nice, taking us past churches, lookout points, old town halls. We stop for a beer at a seemingly authentic brewery (Although it looks a bit too clean to be truly old). On top of the beer I order the garlic toast, which is said to be an Estonian specialty. It comes on black bread and it's quite delicious so we order another appetizer, the Estonian Fried cheese, which unfortunately is the same fried cheese you'd find anywhere in the world. That the cow was Estonian doesn't distinguish the cheese.
After our snack, we wander the tour some more, occasionally getting lost. Talllin also has a new area that is building up with skyscrapers to resemble a Western city. We see it from one of the lookout points. There are some nice sights, but we're pretty much done. Brenna, who was planning to stay 3 days and is now making a day trip of it, is counting her lucky stars, because it's clear to both of us that Tallinn is not a 3-day event. When we wrap our tour, we are walking down the Viro road towards the new city, and we decide to split up for an hour. It's a bit of a shopping time, I buy some Juniper trivets (These give off a sweet fragrance, which is even stronger when you put something hot on them). I also find a sticker that Says "Tallinn Estonia", and buy it for Brenna, she could only find Tallinn ones, and she decorates her journal book with a sticker from every country she visits. We have dinner at 5pm in a restaurant that I believe translates to "The Golden Piggy", and is heavy on the pork (It's even baked into the bread in small quantitiies) I have a Pork roast which is quite good, and Brenna's Salmon is also excellent, and we have lots of time to walk back to our 7:30pm ferry.
Returning to Helsinki, Brenna and I say our farewells. I had fun with her and hopefully we'll get to hang out again when she moves to Toronto this fall.
I'm now in prepare for Russia mode and my room, now a single, has all my clean laundry. Sorted and folded, I separate the things I'm not taking with me to Russia into the Dufflebag portion of my backpack, which hopefully I won't need as rain protection over there! As I'm leaving to put my dufflebag in storage at the Scandic where I'll be staying when I come back from Russia, I see Caitlyn and Rachel in the street, and they tell me that their hostel in St. Petersburg has been closed by the government during the G-8 summit which is starting tomorrow! I am obviously alarmed, and the three of us try calling my hostel, but I can't figure out how to make the call. We head back to the hostel, where we run into Kim and Alexandra, a couple of locals (Although Alexandra is from New York), and they offer us the use of their computer and their phones to contact Russia. A neighbour, Nisa, is using the computer, but she's done very quickly, and I start by checking my work e-mail, where I would receive a cancellation if one was forthcoming. Fortunately, there is no cancellation! I am still not sure, so we call the St.Petersburg hostel, and everything is ok. Unfortunately, they have no beds available for the girls, so we call around, and finally, we get a farily central room for Caitlyn and Rachel.
We are buoyed by the kindness (and eccentricity of strangers). On the way home, we talk about what must be going on in Russia (Is it chaos? Craziness?). The woman at the girls' hostel seemed genuinely distressed. When I get back, I grab my bag again, and this time I make it to my hotel, where I drop the bag into a locker. But when I get back to the hostel, there's some bad news. The Chechen Rebel leader has been killed by the Russians, and the security situation may not be stable there. Caitlyn and Rachel decide not to go. They don't feel safe and are going the Estonia-Latvia-Lithuania way instead. That American guy I met yesterday is going, but he seems a bit dull and not someone I see myself hanging around with. He has absolutely no idea about the Chechnyan situation. Lucy and I try to give him a bit of a primer on it. I say farewell to Lucy, hopefully we'll keep in touch. I get to sleep at around 1:30, too bad considering I have to wake up again at 6:15!!!!!
posted by Steven at 11:58 PM
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