Estonia and 'swing a cat to hit a souvineer shop' Tallinn

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Estonia - Tallinn

I arrived in Tallinn still very sleepy from my trip from Georgia, and in my state of 'half awake' I almost left the airport in riga (which was only my tranfer) before my brain thankfully engaged and I went to the right terminal for my connection. When I finally arrived in Tallinn I then got on the wrong bus, and managed to get slightly lost finding my accomodation. Finally I arrived in the Red Emperor hostel, run by an Aussie guy and I had my own 8 bed dorm for first night. For the rest of the day (after a well needed nap) I explored the old town without map. By now, after 8 months of travelling, I am a happy wanderer and prefer to explore without a map if I have time. I found lots of antique shops and enough souvineer shops to kill a brown dog (Aussie saying meaning far too many souvineer shops!). I tried to find cheap place to eat and ended up with pub dinner and rhubarb apple crumble for dessert.

Next day began with an unfortunate bed bug scare...3 loads of washing later and the drying process made my room look like the home of a chinese washer woman. Plus 3 new roomies. Yuri from Brazil, Damien from Sicely and Sebastien from Paris. Got on well with Sebastien so after the usual chat we headed off to the lookout spots to see Tallinn by night. We found two gorgeous spots and took our touristy photos before heading to Hell hunt, a bar reccommended by both the hostel and my friends that have been here before. They had my favourite cider, so a few drinks later we ordered snacks, wedges and russian dumplings to ensure we wouldn't stumble home.

Next morning we had an early (backpacker time) breakie at 10:30 before heading off to do the walking tour. Our guide was very good but spoke super fast and even I had trouble keeping up, and English was her second language! After we made our own lunch in the hostel and decided to walk town, we ended up at the harbour which wasnt as scenic aa expected so we cooked up some yum roast veges and had a few drinks in the common area before heading to the bar to meet the locals. It was pretty quiet due to it being mid week so we headed into town at 2am to find the bar we were reccommended by the barman was shut. :-( Luckily I spied two locals who were also scoping the scene and they were nice enough to lead us to another bar which literally looked like a tiny hobbit door leading to a dragons den below the street. However, once inside it was more of a locals hangout and they served hot local wine. Hot wine is my favourite when it's cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. Our new Estonian friends were working in the film industry and hadn't seen eachother in ages so we all chatted and drank happily. At one point the guys ordered a sandwich which was amazing....very kindly he also shared it with us. Sebastien and I didn't even know we were hungry, until we tried that sandwich...it was surprisingly delicious. Eventually the barman kicked us off our seriously comfy couches as the bar had closed...none of us realised we had been chatting aimlessly for over 2 and a half hours. Haha So we went to walk home only to be greeted by the 2 German guys from the walking tour. More chats....and then we went home.

Or so I remembered til the next morning when Sebastien said "that was so funny last night, on the way home!" I said "haha....oh yeah, those crazy Estonians...and meeting the German guys again" "Yeah, and then you rode the carousel horses in the town square, that was funny" "oh yeah.....that....(omg, inner child releases herself on hot wine...I had forgotten that) haha" "Yep, that's pretty much a good demonstration of my typical behaviour really!" Neither Sebastien or I remember how we did it but we managed to make it home at 5:45am....so we slept till after noon next day. Our final day in Tallinn was spent walking in the rain to the local gardens which looked beautiful in the pictures. The walk was interesting as we saw the less tourity areas, and the park was definately a local hot spot for mothers running with prams. The park looked drearier due to the weather but we could see its appeal in summertime. We found the official palace buildings where their prime Minister works but mostly the buildings were under renovations so we hid inside for a while in a clock and art museum while it rained outside before heading back for the long walk home for a cup of tea and a muffin. Another cook up later and a few drinks in the hostel bar led us to join the quiz night and we formed a team with a few other backpackers. We lost by one point due to a crazy girl who said we couldn't spell the name Ana with just one 'n' there needed to be two! Arg! Oh well, lots of fun chats with random people and back to our room at 4am. Not smart on my behalf when I needed to catch an 8am bus to Riga. Especially cranky when the crazy 5 Englishmen came home at 5am singing, crying, whinging....my inner grump was woken up and I told them a few choice words about what they should be doing at 5am. Haha Quick shower, pack bag and a half hour walk with 20kg backpack and 8kg hand luggage....I was grumpier, colder, sick, tired and quite happy to board a comfy bus and sleep the next 5-6 hours away! :-)

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