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Published: August 23rd 2007
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Today we had no plans to do anything but we did have a well needed sleep in till eleven. We walked down to the local shop and bought some fruit, bread and juice. Eero came and joined us and we had a quick look around a Russian market before going home to eat breakfast. We then looked on the Internet for tickets to Helsinki and bought some for approximately twenty pounds for a return journey for the both of us. Rather cheap for a two hour journey.
In the afternoon we went to the Tallinn open air museum and spent a few hours there. It was rather fascinating and we learned a bit more about Estonia’s endless history. Bits that I found the most interesting were the articles about the women in soviet occupation times. They actually had to be told by the government to decorate their homes. The government launched a two year campaign in an effort to make Estonia a less grey place to be. The rest of the museum was old buildings that had been moved from various parts of Estonia.
This is where the fun began. We had been told to get a bus from
a certain place and to get off at the train station. We got on the bus and didn't really know how to pay so we sat and waited for another person to get on so we could copy them. Every single person that got on sat down without paying so we ended up not paying for the bus. Anyway we got to a point where everyone else had left the bus and the driver looked questioningly at us.
When we pulled into a station. We decided that this was the end of the route and got off. Bad move. We had a map so we asked a girl to point us in the right direction of the old town. However She told us to get bus number six. We thought that would be a bit of a waste as we thought we were fairly near the old town. We stopped for a snack and set off to navigate our way through the high rise flats. Everything looked very similar and every road had the same name as the one our flat is on. As we were walking we were discussing the fact that this particular set of flats looked
so much like ours. Half believing that it was our flat; Rob went and tried the key in the door. It turned out that it was our flat so we stopped in for a drink and toilet break.
We checked the map and the right direction and we knew it was about seven kilometers. For some reason we decided to walk anyway. Looking back now it was stupid idea, but anyway we did it. The walk took about an hour and a half and went through some really grotty areas. We got to the upper town about half eight and found it strangely empty. We thought that this upper town was the main old town and I felt rather disappointed. The buildings were varied, some were big, majestic well looked after embassies and some were shabby unloved houses. The streets were empty and there was very little atmosphere. At one of the viewing points on the wall we stopped and watched the sun setting on the horizon.
From the wall we also spotted another part of town much lower down. We set off down the cobbled windy street to the old town. This part of the city was
Little Frog (Museum)
Tiny frog that Steph nearly stood on without realising, so we took several pictures of it. by far the best we've seen. It was getting dusky at this point, so all the restaurants had their candles lit and it made the main square rather atmospheric. We wandered around the old town for a bit and a little bit of the modern part.
We decided it'd be nice to try and find a bar to watch a bit of the England game. We went in one Irish pub that said they were showing it but were told by a kindly Scot that it wasn't being shown and he directed us to one that was. There we found ourselves surrounded by many different nationalities but there were many English. The game was actually rather dull, but we met a German man called Klaus that we chatted to quite a bit. We had to decide whether to leave at half eleven and miss some of the game but catch a bus home, or stay till the end and figure out another way home. Despite hating the idea of having to walk all the way home, we chose to stay and watch the game. After that we stayed for a few drinks with Klaus and I tried a drink
called Vana Tallinn (Old Tallinn). We decided we really needed to get to bed because we had an early start the next day, so we found a taxi that said he'd take us for two hundred crowns. We got in and as we drove away Eero phoned and told us to get out because it was a pirate taxi. We jumped out and Eero came and picked us up.
Back at the flat we had a drink and chatted a bit about Soviet occupation of Estonia as I am still a little confused about who ran the country and when. Anyway we went to bed for around three and fell asleep straight away.
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Nina
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: D
You guys look so happy in your pics! Im so cuffed you guys are having such an ace time. These travel blogs are great its like a fun yet totally bizare story!