Tallinn is the capital of Estonia, the northern most of the Baltic States and is, of course, west of the Baltic Sea. The population is less than 500,000 which includes one fantastic CS host.
All in attendance: Kristen and Eric
There is a deal in Germany where you can take unlimited trains all day for super cheap and combine multiple people into this one ticket. The catch? You have to sacrifice 12 hours of your life to slow regional trains and monotony. Cue: not enough bretzel and schorle. We took a Ryanair flight out of Dusseldorf Weeze - a German airport literally located in nowheres-ville, Germany where the population of rabbits surpassed the population of Germans. We stayed at the airport's own hostel (an old army barrack converted to overpriced dorms) since our flight left early and sleeping at the airport was verboten. There was no food available for purchase around that night so we ate television shows with our eyeballs instead.
We made our way through the Tallinn on transit and by foot to our couchsurfing host's place. He had a lovely bed set up in his wintergarden and we slept among some suspicious plants and woke up with the sun.Our host loved tropical climates and lives most of the year away from Estonia but he returns in the summer because of his love for his home and opens his house to rift-rafts like us.
After scarfing down a huge container of kraut salad, Eric and I set off into the Old Town to have a peak around. Tallinn has a "Freedom Square" (or Vabaduse väljak in Estonian) with a large glass "Cross of Freedom" towering over it to commemorate the battle of independence between Estonia and the USSR.
We saw a large market by the town hall square where doilies and amber were in high supply. We wandered around for a good while among the whimsical cobblestone streets and castle city walls. We also happened upon some interesting non-permanent art installations on display as we headed up Toompea Hill.
On top of Toompea Hill, we got a panoramic view of the oldtown and stopped by the Alexandre Nevsky Catherdral and the parliament (Riigikogu) which was across the street. For dinner that night, we ate this this sushi restaurent where loud anime and J-pop music videos played on a big screen, the waitresses dressed in cosplay and pink lighting was deemed superior to white lighting. That night, we watched the worst movie in the history of Hollywood while chatting over-top of it it with our CS host.
The next morning, we went to the St Mary's Cathedral (Toomkirik). We ate at Kompressor for lunch - a place which served large crazy crepes. Here, I learned that even though I believe blue cheese to be an acquired flavour, it is certainly not suppose to be acquired in a larger than life crepe. Cue: inedible crepe that Eric could eat like a pro. We also took time to enjoy some fancy old town coffee. We explored out to the docks near Tallinn Bay where we contemplated the non-aesthetic of old communist style buildings. We continued on to Kadrioru park and there we saw the pink Kadriorg Palace, lovely relaxing Estonians, and a beautiful beach. We walked home through the Rottermann Quarter and hung out with our CS host that night.
That night, our CS host gave me a bit of his open-face sandwich which was composed of dark rye bread, margarine and a tasty-salty-cured fish. When I enjoyed my bite, he proceeded to give me 5 more sandwiches until I felt like fish would ooze out of my pores. I later learned this was Estonia's version of rotting-fish that I keep hearing about.
We went on 2 day trips in the next two days but used our CS host's home as our home base. How nice of him to let us extend our stay! He wouldn't even accept a meal of delicious cooked eggs by yours truly.
Things I learnt:
- "Pood & Tuba" = "Shop and Workroom"
- Estonia, although the capital city, has a nice 'small town' atmosphere
- More malls here than I've seen in a while
