3 for the Price of 1 (in 20 pages.......) - 25 Nov 2007

Tallinn, Estonia: One of Europe's best "hidden" destinations

***Note: I had been reading Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian" for 3 days straight when I wrote this (basically a fictional travelogue through Eastern Europe), hence the insane attention to detail and slightly ridiculous writing style.***

Hello everyone!!

Lots to report this time, sorry in advance for the novel! First and foremost I would like to wish all of you a (belated) Happy Thanksgiving!! My Thanksgiving here in London was surprisingly good. At lunch I went with some of my friends down to a place called Borrough Market where we found a lady selling turkey sandwiches. It was real Thanksgiving-ish turkey on a baguette with stuffing a cranberries!! It tasted almost just like home! The people at the office were very interested in Thanksgiving and asked me all sorts of questions about it. Thanksgiving night, some friends and I went to an American restaurant that was selling Thanksgiving food, they even had pumpkin pie (sort of)!! Overall I would have to say that it was a great day.

Thanksgiving+Borough Market = mmm mmm good

Now on to the trips! First I forgot to mention that when we went to Krakow, Poland a few weeks back, one of the more interesting things we saw was Oskar Schindler's factory. The very same factory that he ran in WWII saving over 2000 people from the Nazi's, the basis of the movie Schindler's List. It was in an abandoned part of town and the factory was very much worse for wear but it was interesting to see something so historical!

Last weekend I went to go visit my friend Netta in Santander, Spain. She is working there teaching English in a school outside of the city. I had never been to Northern Spain before and even with the research I had done I still was not prepared for how beautiful it was. The entire North is culturally very divided. In the East you have the Basque country and their ETA terrorist group. In that part of the country the language is Euskara, not Spanish. As Netta so eloquently put it, it is a made up language (due to the fact that it is not connected to any language in the world). In the Western part of the North, they speak Gallego (kind of a mix of Spanish and Portuguese).

Oh yeah, I was in Bilbao for an hour, just long enough to get my credit card info stolen....

Luckily Santander was closer to the middle and not wholly like either of these extremes. The countryside is very mountainous (which was so refreshing after living in the Kansas of Europe!) and the vibrancy of the green is only rivaled by places like Scotland. On top of all of this, Santander is also on the ocean. It was almost like paradise. The town is very quaint and has lots of random sights including a free outdoor zoo with penguins and sea lions, a big castle and the only remaining statue of past dictator Francisco Franco that is still standing in Spain.

Word on the street is that they finally tore down the statue

While there I had the pleasure of meeting many of Netta's friends including a few that spoke no English. We all had to resort to Spanish as it was the only language we all had in common and after about 30 minutes I almost forgot that I was speaking another language at all!!! Being able to hang out with Spaniards and just talk in Spanish like it was nothing out of the ordinary was something I wished I had done more of in Sevilla and something I will always treasure. After a fun (albeit short) weekend in Santander, I left the 70 degree weather to return to London and to my great surprise a light snow!

Sadly I never returned to Santander.....

After a week back at work it was off to Finland. The idea of doing this trip made me very nervous because I went entirely on my own. I got into town very early on Saturday, sometime around 2AM I think. I knew almost instantly that I was going to enjoy my time however. On the taxi/bus to my hostel I talked with some of the native Finns that were there with me. They were very curious as to why I came on my own and wanted to know all about me. They were telling me all kinds of things I needed to do and one of them even went so far as to pull out a bunch of tourist information and show me what I needed to do! Once we got into town the taxi driver was good tourguide pointing out every building along the way and giving a brief history of each, cracking jokes periodically. When I got to the hostel I left my new friends and went to go check in. I use the term hostel very lightly here. I entered to a massive lobby with a big desk and restaurant (definitely NOTHING like any hostel I have ever seen!). I was able to book a private room and went to bed pretty much instantly. In the morning it was interesting to see the people that were staying there. It consisted mostly of families and people 20+ years older than myself, again something very different from any hostel I had ever seen.

One of Helsinki's few tourist sights, complete with moon flare!

A few hours later I got up and got on my ship to Tallinn, Estonia. This city is a place I will never forget. I do not think my words can even do it justice but I will try. Arriving in town I only had 5 hours (instead of the 9 I was planning due to works on the early and late ferries) so I decided to skip the tour and do it on my own. I was amazed how much of the city was kept intact even after the blight of Soviet communism! As I wandered through the labyrinth of old cobbled streets, a feeling of rebirth and ancient strength seemed to ooze from the walls of the very buildings. From the fairytale Medieval style buildings to the grand Russian architecture to the kitschy souvenir shops that littered to main square, all the pieces seemed to meld together in perfect harmony while still maintaining a feeling of definite confidence; time has been good to the city and it has aged well.

The Russian Cathedral

One of the highlights was the amazing lunch I had. I went into the most touristy restaurant in town (mostly just because it had giant torches in front and the menus appeared to be written on old parchment). Everyone inside was dressed in clothing from Medieval times and there were no electric lights anywhere. I am no gourmand, but I ate like a true king! They specialized in typical Estonian cuisine from the late 1400s. They also borrowed a bit from other cultures as the beer steins were typical of Germany and the wine glasses were all Czech Bohemian crystal. The beer I got was their own brew and was a dark beer with herbs. I could pick out hints of juniper, cloves and a touch of anise, giving it an almost Jager taste. My appetizer was Estonian cheese baked with herbs and juniper berries, a mix of flavors I could never had imagined. For the main course, I tried to order the bear, but he told me that no hunters were able to get one today and I had to "settle" for cutlets of elk and wild boar. This was all served over a mushroom sauce and covered in a cranberry sauce. It also came with smelt (a type of barley) cooked in garlic and a small miniature garlic cheesecake (which was actually amazing). For dessert, it was rose pudding. It tasted like the richest creme brulee with a hint of rose and the texture of a fine mousse. All of this was about 1/8 the price I would have paid for it in London so I was incredibly satisfied.

My favourite dining locale in the world: http://www.oldehansa.ee/

Then it was a quick run around town to snap some nighttime photos and then back to Helsinki.

The building in the middle was the tallest in the world for hundreds of years, who knew?!?

My first real night in Helsinki was a great one. I had time to see most of the city (much to my dismay the next morning!) and again was able to indulge in fine foods. I walked what seemed like miles to go to a restaurant that served traditional food from Lapland, the arctic North of Finland. All of the food was imported daily and all the decorations were also directly from the North. My chances of getting a table looked bleak, but I was finally able to. My dinner was a little smaller than the last but consisted of bear rolled into meatballs and cooked at the table in burning sherry. It was served with mashed potatoes and lingon berries and covered with a creamy game sauce (I do NOT want to know what was in that!). I was able to wash it all down with a glass of South African wine and really felt like quite the jet-setter.

Far away shot of the Western World's largest Orthodox Cathedral, again, who knew?!?

The next morning I explored the city more. Despite the lack of tourist sights, the below zero (centigrade) temperatures and the abundance of rain, the city still had a cheerful feel. Everywhere you looked it seemed like Christmas whether it was the busy shopping streets, the children in Santa Clause suits singing the Finnish version of Jingle Bells at the base of the country's largest Cathedral or the small Christmas parade with the real Santa Clause all the way from his official residence in the far North of Lapland. It made for a pleasant experience although I will admit that I see no need to return.

How do you say Jingle Bells in Finnish?

Overall, life is still going amazing and should only pick up. I will be going with 5 friends to Stockholm, Sweden this coming weekend and sometime soon be going to either Paris or Amsterdam (after I get more pages added to my passport!). I hope all is well and I look forward to talking to all of you again soon!

Sean

Dzien dobry od Polska! - 15 Nov 2007

Inside "Head" our favorite Polish monument

***See note at end of post

Hello everyone!!

Sorry it has been so long since I have written!! My computer died and I was just able to get a new harddrive set up (even though my power cord does not work now and I will not have a new one until next week at the earliest....). Anyway, besides that mishap things have been going very well here in London.

Work is still not very exciting and feels very much like the movie Office Space. Regardless, I am here for the experience and to build the resume even if I don't take a job with UBS after this year. At the moment, I would probably not take a full time job if they offered it to me. Luckily, it has gotten a little more exciting. My newest responsibility (and most important) is to manage the various books of different traders. I have to make sure that everything is balanced out and report the overall profits and losses for the day to the traders. I definitely understand a lot better how the business works because I have to answer constant questions from different traders on pretty much everything I do. That is exciting when I am doing that kind of stuff, but at the moment it only takes up about 2 hours of my day. It should start becoming more and more of my day soon though!

London is..........well it is beautiful in some parts. I thought that I was entirely over London and all its pollution, noise and crowded streets, but every time I get out of the areas by my house and by work I am pleasantly surprised. There may still be something left in this old city!

Although I am liking the city (at least a little bit) again, I will not be in it hardly at all until February. Last time I sent out an email, I had booked a flight to Egypt and that was my only definite plan. Last weekend, I was in Krakow, Poland, this weekend I will be visiting my friend Netta in Santander Spain, the following weekend I will be off to a combination of Helsinki, Finland and Tallinn, Estonia. The weekend after that, I will be in Stockholm, Sweden, followed by (hopefully) Montreux, Switzerland and then Amsterdam the next weekend. The weekend after that, my parents will be in town, the following weekend I will be with them in Belgium. The very next weekend, my friend Katie will be in London (well, just the Sunday), and the next weekend I will be dogsledding under the Northern Lights in far northern (Tromso) Norway. After that I have a weekend of classes, then I will be off to Egypt! It is amazing how cheap it is to get to places while you are out here, and I figure I might as well do it now while it is so easy!

Anyway, as my email is titled Greetings from Poland, I should probably talk about it some. This last weekend I went with 3 friends (a different travel group than normal) to Krakow, Poland. When our plane landed, it was blue skies, ruining my hopes for a snowy time in Poland. We casually walked off the plane and to the bus that took us to the airport (which took a total of about 10 seconds) and as soon as we got on, it turned into a blizzard outside!! This luckily kept happening all trip, although it did cause us a three hour delay on our
way out.....

Snowy Krakow

Krakow is a very nice medieval city, filled with lots of old architecture.

Proof: Very nice, medieval and old architecture

The most amazing part was Wawel Hill where the old castle and church lies. The castle was ok, it was only built a few hundred years ago and looked more like a mansion. We went into the church and it was by far one of the more amazing things I have seen. The best part was the trip up to the top of the bell tower. I felt like the Hunchback of Notre Dame as I climbed the rickety wooden staircase barely wide enough to fit me. There were even parts where I had to almost sit down to get through the staircase because the ceiling was so low! It really felt authentic, and all of us thoroughly enjoyed it.

Wawel in all its glory

After a few more blizzards, a lot more walking, lots of Pierogis, some Polish Vodka and stopping at a van that sold Kielbasa, we all went to bed, we had an early morning ahead of us.

Josh was not very excited for a vodka tasting...

Kielbasa from the back of a van only open from 2AM onward on an isolated street...sounds like perfection to me (and clearly half of Krakow!)

The next morning we went to Auschwitz. The thought of going there was almost terrifying, but we felt it was something we should see sometime in our lives to get a little better understanding of what it was like those 60 years ago. The tour focused much more on the buildings than what was done there or the people that were effected so you could almost forget just where you were. There were two main camps, the first was very small, had large bunks for sleeping, heating, it was actually almost nice. The second one was not nice. It was more what you have in mind when you think of Auschwitz and stretched as far as the eye could see. All the buildings were much smaller than in the first camp, and were not near as comfortable. The countryside surrounding it was all rolling green hills with small forests and towns dotting the way here and there. When we got there it was a clear sky and again, a massive blizzard came in, making the site that much more haunting. It did really make you wonder how one person could do so many bad things.

Gate

Horrible sleeping conditions

Well, now that I have ended this email on a depressing note, I am going to have to go. My apologies for not responding to all of your emails yet, I will hopefully be able to do it soon, maybe even tonight if I need a distraction from starting my 30 page paper that has arough draft due tomorrow.

I hope all is well, and miss you all,

Sean

***Note: There was A LOT more to this trip than in the aforementioned email, including a night in an apartment converted into a night club, hundreds of pictures with our favourite monument, Head (what's not to love about a statue of a giant head you can climb inside of?!):

Exhibit A (Night, side angle)

Exhibit B (Day, snow free). There are also Exhibits C through ZZ such as "Day, with snow" or "Night, front angle"

a store with hundreds of different vodkas to try:

Arguably the best store in the world since the samples were dirt cheap

and a tour of the Schindler Factory (of Schindler's List fame):

Look out for Liam Neeson!

Basically, for what was hands down one of the best trips, this original email did it NO justice.

Dorset - 23 Oct 2007

Hello Everyone,

It is crazy to believe that I have been living in London for almost 2 months now. All day I have been in the strangest mood I have ever known in my life being at the same time painfully reminiscent about the past and surprisingly content with my life at the moment. Things really are working out well here.

Brenscombe Camp

This last weekend we had a "team building retreat" with our internship program. It ended up being one of the best weekends so far. We went to a small camp in the middle of nowhere in the British countryside close to the town of Corfe.

Middle. Of. Nowhere

There were many various activities that we had to do including random puzzles, orienteering, rock climbing and a giant ropes course. The orienteering was amazing because we got to wander the British countryside and ended up in an area that was like something straight out of the Sound of Music. The views around the area were simply amazing.

Maybe I should have showered after a day of orienteering....

When we did the rock climbing we had to tie all the ropes correct and went climbing and abseiling (rappelling) up and down some cliffs overlooking the ocean. I was the only one that was jumping away from the wall during the rappelling instead of just slowly climbing down. The guide jokingly yelled down that it was "sexy"!

Climbing at Dancing Ledge

On the last day we had the ropes course, which was a lot more challenging than I expected. The hardest and most rewarding part was a challenge called Jacobs Ladder. This was a 35 foot ladder that was handing from a beam up above. The rungs started out a foot or two apart but by the top they were at least 7-8 feet. We had to get the entire team up to the very top of the ladder while still maintaining our balance, it was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do! Another activity was one that involved us shimmying up a 20 foot pole, standing on top of it and jumping to a trapeze that was hanging 5 feet away. Being somewhat afraid of heights I never thought I would be able to do either of these!

The ladder that almost spelled the death of me....and Randy....and Amber

I have posted a few pictures from this last weekend, however because I had no memory card with me, I could only take 6. I had a lot of people ask where I posted pictures, there are some on facebook but a lot also on my webshots account here: http://community.webshots.com/user/sean47000

Well thats about it for now. I hope that everyone is still well and will talk to you soon!

Cheers!

Sean

Don't Speak French - 14 Oct 2007

Bonjour à tout!

Hello everyone, I just got back from 27 hours in France, it was amazing! For a total of 30 pounds ($60ish) we were able to fly all the way from London to the town of Carcassonne in Southern France and back (gotta love that Ryanair!). We stayed in a house that was owned by a really nice older couple, Richard and Meei. He was British and she was from somewhere in Asia. When we got in they just wanted to talk for an hour! You really meet the nicest people when you travel.

Kyle, clearly unimpressed with the lodging!

Carcassonne is a small French town that is dominated by a massive medieval fortress. We sadly did not get the time to find anything out about it but it was beautiful. We spent the first day wandering lazily around the twisted network of cobblestone streets and feasting on wine, cheese and fresh baked french bread in our picnic at the foot of the castle! Afterwords we ate dinner in a fully lit tree-covered plaza.

Star-crossed lovers at our picnic

Sometimes it's just better not to ask...

La Citte at Night

Today we had breakfast at the house and got to meet the other people that were staying there (who strangely enough also happened to be a nice older British man with a wife from somewhere in Asia!). We had lunch on a sidewalk cafe that was so small we had to move everytime a car needed to come through! We got to have amazing crepes and we all even ordered entirely in French (Je voudre le crepe au formage si vous plet! sp?). My French was horrible as I have never learned it and I even said "Merci Senor" to somebody, but it was still a ton of fun.

We took LOTS of modeling pictures

The now infamous cafe

At one point we went to go buy chocolates. They charged you a certain amount for every 100kg, but gave you no way to weigh them. When I went to the register and the lady told me almost $40 my jaw dropped in shock but she would not let me put any back.... I guess you have to make a few mistakes when you travel, right? Luckily it is easily some of the best chocolate I have ever had, I dunno if it is 40 dollars good though! We all had a similar problem, 2 people ended up buying almost $30 worth of cookies! After saying goodbye to the city (and sneaking into a vineyard to get some amazing pictures) we made it back to the airport.

Chocolatier con-artists

Vineyard "Tour"

My friend Kyle went to go pick up his ticket and they said they did not have his reservation. After they looked into it more they said he actually booked the flight going home for the day before (25 minutes after we had landed). Because of this he had to buy a new ticket to get home. With Ryanair being one of the cheapest discount airline in Europe we figured he would have to pay $140 at the very most but his new ticket just to get back to London ended up being almost $400 (almost double what the other five of us payed combined for roundtrip tickets)!

Exhausted after his "fun-tax"

Despite the few monetary faux pas the trip ended up being the best weekend so far and just what I needed after a long week at the office. I will put up pictures of the weekend sometime this week on webshots and facebook but I can't now because I was blocked from the internet here for using Itunes to LEGALLY download music (so dumb). Hope everything is well and look forward to hearing from you!

Au revoir!

Sean

Life in the C.O.W.

3 for the Price of 1 (in 20 pages.......) - 25 Nov 2007

Dzien dobry od Polska! - 15 Nov 2007

Dorset - 23 Oct 2007

Don't Speak French - 14 Oct 2007

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