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

1 comments:

S.Zed said...: i really wish we went to estonia that one day; December 8, 2008 at 10:57 AM

Life in the C.O.W.

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

1 comments:

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