Tallinn & Riga

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After the craziness that is Russia, Tallinn (Estonia) was a wonderful relief! We were not able to get visas as we were hoping for Belarus but the Baltic's so far have exceeded expectations to make up for it!

We arrived in Tallinn early morning after the worst overnight bus I have ever experienced- the heater was on me all night and the icy road made for an uncomfortable bumpy night! None of the luxuries of south American semi-cama just rock hard seats and leg room for midgets.

Tallinn old town is a beautifully preserved medieval maze of cobbled streets and squares. There are plenty of tacky taverns with waiters/waitresses dressed in ye olde clothes which is unfortunate but that's what happens when easyjet start flying somewhere! The best thing (or worst depending on how you look at it!) is that Leeds games are shown live on TV in the Baltic's Mr Bates is obviously trying to spread the word although I don't think we'll be gaining too many fans this year! We were absolutely useless against Wednesday we couldn't believe how bad it has got Rui Marques now looks world class!

Estonia felt so different to Russia the people look very Scandinavian and they ALL speak English even a little old lady in a kiosk who Lee asked for a phone card very slowly whilst miming answered with extremely good English (which made Lee feel like an idiot!) They even smile- something which scared us a bit a first I definitely understand why Russians think that people who smile at strangers look stupid but we have got used to it now- its good not to have to be so stern faced all the time!

The Baltic states have a very sad recent history as most countries that we will visit in the next few weeks do, both Riga and Tallinn have excellent museums about the period when they were under Soviet-Nazi and then Soviet control again. Latvia particularly suffered as many of its citizens were sent to Siberia or killed and Russian settled in the area. All of Latvia's main cities including Riga the capital have a larger population of Russians than Latvians.

Riga is very different to Tallinn- it is much bigger and the style of buildings was so different. We got out of the city on our second day in Latvia and went to the beach even though it was covered in ice. The place we went to is a really popular resort town in summer and I definitely think it would be worth a visit again in future to actually see sand on the beach and not wearing my thermals.

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