Tallinn, Estonia

From Helsinki, Estonia was a short ferry ride for us across the Baltic Sea (specifically, the Gulf of Finland).  The country gained its independence from the USSR in 1991, and previously had quite a tumultuous history with the Russians and the Germans, as we were to learn during our visit.  Tallinn is the capital of Estonia, and its medieval Old Town was our destination. In addition to offering up Old Town, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Tallinn happens to be home to Skype’s software development center and has a vibrant IT development economy generally, an intriguing mix of old and new and of particular interest to one member of our traveling party.

I temporarily forgot this rich background when the taxi driver collected us from the ferry terminal and cut around behind a worn out circa 1970s fair ground to make our way into the Old Town.  Our cabbie sported a tracksuit with the stripes down the sleeves and legs, had an almost buzzed head and blasted Shania Twain from his radio.  All of the movie stereotypes of former Soviet regions washed over us in waves and we tried not to giggle. 

Two Thumbs Up

Because Tallinn has never been razed or pillaged, the old buildings still stand in all their glory.  Each one is incredibly unique and interesting, if inefficient with oddly shaped rooms and tiny corridors. The winding, laid-out-by-a-drunk-cow streets invite you to wander and explore without purpose.  To discover little passageways. To stop here and there impulsively for a pastry or glass of wine.  I love these types of cities the most.

History Day

Our stay couldn’t be all about pie and grog, though, so we took a day to visit history museums.

The KBG museum is located in the abandoned KGB office on the previously off-limits 23^rd floor of a hotel where foreigners were required to stay when visiting the city back in the day. The Soviets built the hotel in the 1970s as a means to accumulate foreign currency, and to keep an eye on all those “spying” tourists. The offices themselves weren’t particularly visually interesting, but the stories! It is hard to believe that this happened in our lifetimes – the KGB only abandoned it in the 1990s, after Estonia’s independence.

In the KGB's abandoned hotel outpost with a direct line to the also abandoned main KGB office.

One display included a list of Soviet “sponsored” prostitutes who were utilized because they were in fact an effective means of procuring information, or at least compromising photos.  The museum curators have redacted family names from the list, however, to avoid some local visitor from accidentally discovering a mother or grandmother’s name. There are also several hotel employees from the KGB era that still work in the hotel. It’s all that recent. 

My iPhone can do more than this old KGB equipment. 

The Museum of Occupation shares the story of the Nazi occupation of Estonia during World War II and the Soviets thereafter.  It wasn’t clear which of the two would take over during WWII but generally Estonia feared the Nazis less, a fact that left quite an impression on us. You know you are in a bad way when you face occupation by one of either the Soviets or the Nazis. And the Nazis are likely the better of the two.  The museum also included a wall of photos about the current Ukrainian unrest – a conflict that must be near and dear to Estonian hearts.

The Museum of Life. We finished off our history lesson on top of the wall surrounding the city.  As we tried to soak up the medieval architecture, we learned that a café on top of a fortified wall is a tourist trap that charges an outrageous, unlisted price for hot wine. Rookie mistake, but it was quite yummy and the view was lovely.

 

Tallinn Cobblestones

A word about the roads and sidewalks of this medieval town, if I may.  They are absurdly bumpy. Helsinki’s bricked streets battered the wheels of AD’s suitcase and Tallinn finished them off.  For the longest time all we could find as a replacement at the Tallinn mall was a giant bright pink Hello Kitty suitcase. It would have cost a fortune but I soooo wanted it to be the only choice for AD. I wished as hard as I could but alas he found a boring black duffle with wheels instead.  We took a taxi back to the port to return to Helsinki rather than walk through town because taxi fare is significantly cheaper than euro-priced luggage.

The locals don’t seem at all perturbed by the cobblestones however.  We could only stare with our mouths open at the girl on rollerblades. She nonchalantly continued on her bumpy way with her hands tucked into her jacket pockets. Level: expert. And I have nothing but admiration for the women in high heels that walk more gracefully atop the stones than I do on a smooth sidewalk.  

First Impressions of Helsinki

Language

When we travel to English or French speaking destinations I’m golden. When we branch out to Italian or Spanish speaking I can get by. Heck, even with German and Dutch I can pick out a word or two here and there.  Finnish freaks me out though.  Have you ever heard it? Interesting and pleasant to the ear, but there is NOTHING that I can pick up. Even when I look at written Finnish no words are recognizable, and in the off chance I did have an inkling what a word meant there is no way I could ever pronounce it. 

I make it a practice to learn a minimum of “hi,” “please” and “thank you” before going somewhere. Bonus points for learning “red wine,” “coffee” and “restroom.”  In Finnish, they don’t even have a word for “please.” It’s more of a concept. I kid you not.  You convert/conjugate whatever you say into a more polite form.  Given that I can’t say anything, much less conjugate Finnish, this is completely useless to me. Apparently I get the pronunciation of “thank you” all wrong as well. I feel so very rude. I try to smile and nod a lot to compensate.

The only bright spot is that one version of hello is pronounced “hey.” I say that anyway so I feel pretty local when I walk in a store and exchange “heys.” But that’s all I’ve got – heeey… Thankfully, everyone speaks English, possibly better than me. And I think I get a pass because really, if I were to learn a third language, I can’t say I would be faulted for not picking Finnish given its limited utility elsewhere. 

Sites

For the first days while AD finishes up with his conference, I try to adjust to the time difference (read: nap a lot) and finalize our vacation plans.  I go for long walks (you know, to the places I didn’t see on my whirlwind tour with my suitcase in tow the first night) but haven’t checked out the tourist destinations since I’m saving those to share with AD.  So an actual description of tourist sites is still to come. I have noticed though that the entire city is thoroughly ribboned with biking and walking paths.  Given the extensive public transit as well, this would be a very easy place to avoid driving. Even the 30 minute bus route to the airport is mirrored by a bike path. I am duly impressed. Though I declined to wheel my suitcase along the path and opted for the bus. 

Angry Birds

A Finnish company created Angry Birds, and the country seems rather enamored with the accomplishment.  Those birds are everywhere. Angry Birds cookies. Angry Birds stocking caps. Angry Birds perfume (yeah, perfume). Angry Birds soda. Even Angry Birds yogurt.  

Food, so far

During the pre-tourism and preparation phase of this trip, I’m a regular at the small grocery across the street from our hotel. I actually love to visit groceries in new places to see how their fare differs from what I know.  In this case I have learned nothing since I can’t glean anything from the baffling language on the packaging.  Lacking a kitchen, I’ve had to choose these mystery prepared items and for the most part I have no idea what I’ve eaten. I’m fairly certain I had yogurt (not Angry Birds). I did manage a prepackaged salad with an odd assortment of veggies, fish and pasta that were a bit of surprise because the package was mostly opaque and the description useless to me. Yummy but difficult to eat since our full, double set of travel utensils I bought back in 2010 has shrunk to two spoons. I blame AD – he definitely lost the forks, first his and then I foolishly loaned him mine.  You try eating a salad with a spoon. 

Next Up

Estonia!

The Journey

Travel from Vancouver to Helsinki requires about 15 hours of actual flying plus all the fun of airport check-in and layover time, so approximately 83 hours as far as I can tell. The only way to survive is to treat it as part of the excitement of travel and go well prepared – I had three books, a science magazine, snacks (never travel without Peanut M&Ms as emergency rations) and confirmation from AD that in-flight entertainment offered an excellent selection of movies.

Of course getting out of the door and on my way is the hardest part.  Oliver has somehow cosmically inherited Raleigh’s “you crush my soul when you go on vacation” goodbye face.  Despite his best efforts, I made it to the airport on time, and my bag was 11.5 pounds UNDER the weight limit. This frightens me.

As an anti-cankle maneuver, I wore my running compression socks for the trek. At some point I realize that wearing them for a bazillion hours straight of flying may have been a bad idea but I’m scared that my ankles will actually explode if I remove them now 14 hours into the journey. I can’t risk it because I’m wearing what one could call ill-advised, non-stretchable boots. The boots are super cute with my outfit though.  

Upon arrival in London I find I’ve lost the ability to calculate time and what day it is due to sheer exhaustion – my movie fest on the flight from Vancouver did not leave a lot of time for sleep. I just have to trust the airport clocks and my automatically updating Apple devices (thanks for that, Steve).

AD emailed me detailed information of how to get the hotel in Helsinki (we’ve been married for 8.5 years so airport meetings are apparently a thing of the past).  The bus to the city’s train station was a breeze. And the hotel was only a short 10 minute walk from the train station. I mean, 10 minutes if you exit the train station the right way. Otherwise it is more of an hour and 15 minute walk, including going back to tag the station as home base. Kind of like in the video games that AD plays – when the evil character slays him he has to go back to an early point in the game and start his journey over. The city streets slew me and I had to go back to start over at the base I knew since I didn’t have a full map of the city. At least in the video game AD doesn’t have a suitcase to wheel over endless #$^*(%@# cobblestones.  

Welcome Back to Squircling!

Well well well. Shortly after I terminated Squircling, a trip to Finland and its neighborhood fell into our laps. The blog gods mock me.  Since I am writing about our adventure for myself anyway, I decided to reopen the blog temporarily for the Nordic Limited Edition series. The rest of the blog remains shut down because I'm just not interested in updating it. Consider this a private viewing for the regular readers who don't need an "About" section to know what's what.

This trip came about because AD had to be in Helsinki, Finland for a conference.  We can’t pass up an opportunity to explore a new section of the world, so we tacked on a Nordic tour.  I arrived just before the end of his conference and our actual adventure (i.e., he is no longer working and I might finally be done with jet lag) officially started yesterday. I find myself in the fortunate position of having a few posts already written about the trip over and getting settled into Helsinki, and I fully intend to milk those over a couple of days so that I can stay ahead with my writing.  I am on vacation after all.