The Baltics: Eesti (Estonia)

Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.

--Henry James

I guess that famous Finnish wind really is a thing because by the time I'd boarded the ferry in Helsinki and we'd left the port behind, the clouds had cleared to reveal a perfectly blue sky. Although I spent most of the few hours it took to cross this odd little arm of the Baltic Sea (called the Gulf of Finland) inside, because when I ventured outside I found that although the clouds had abated the cold air had not. It was amplified by the wind, whether that created by the ferry's pretty brisk pace or natural currents I couldn't say.

Inside the main lounge area, from the upper floor, where you could look down upon a wide variety of European travelers and the calm waters ahead of us.

I settled down for most of the trip on the lower floor, where I was witness to this Finnish (I think) magician (I think), Taikuri Kari, who performed for about 30 minutes. It was... odd. Taking a look around the room, it kind of seemed like a lot of people wished that whatever he was doing was not happening. But then again, there were a ton of bored kids who seemed delighted. This picture was pretty early in his show and does not accurately reflect the high numbers of child turnout. By which I mean, the kids who walked over from where their family was sitting in the hopes of obtaining a balloon animal (I'd hazard to guess). All of this is guesswork of course, because the entire thing was done in Finnish. Or Estonian, maybe.

It was actually a lot more fascinating than it would have been if he'd performed in English because I spent the first half of the act wondering what exactly he was supposed to be (clown? magician? an over-dressed children's performer, like a Gallagher type?) and the second half wondering if he liked his job, if this was the life he'd envisioned for himself when he was younger.

Check out the man POINTEDLY reading a book whilst seated directly in front of Taikuri. Yes he was there before the performance began, but he made no effort to move for families who might've wanted to be close-by while the kids sat on the dancefloor and participated in... whatever ol' Kari was doing. I mean, I get it, but also... dat ice cold northern European blood, y'know?

Anyway, I've probably already shared FAR too much about this poor guy and his very quirky (I think?) act, and have exposed just how much time I spent pondering what exactly even is his life.

Let's move on, and look at some nice photos I took around the boat once I decided to get up and explore a little.

No eccentric business-casual Finnish clowns here, just a beautiful blue sea stretching out to greet an even bluer sky.

Some photos from the boat deck, where I did not linger because I had very legitimate concerns about being blown overboard.

There was a duty-free shop inside (what up, international ferries!) where I was able to buy some excellent beer, and then it was time to get my stuff as we were almost ready to put in at...

Tallinn! As you can see, this woman was very excited about our approach. Enough so that she chose to stand directly in front of that window, blocking any hope of taking this photo without her delightful silhouette. So. Here they are, in all their glory: Tallinn, and some woman!

Ingrid met me at the harbor, and after dropping my trusty Big Boy Blue (the backpack that has accompanied me since the summer of '14), it was time to do a little walkin', a little explorin'.

A secret garden!

One of the oldest continuously running pharmacies in Europe, Reapteek! This sign says established in 1422 but according to Wikipedia the pharmacy was on its third owner by then, so it's probably even older than that. Another fascinating tidbit from the wiki:

"In medieval times patients could buy mummy juice (powder made of oversea mummies mixed with liquid), burnt hedgehogs powder, burnt bees, bat powder, snakeskin potion and unicorn horn powder for treatments.

Also available were earthworms, swallow’s nests and like various herbs and spirits, distilled at the spot."

UNICORN HORN POWDER. What do you think it actually was? My money's on goat horn. Maybe with some talcum mixed in.

Some more shots from about town. To the left: Church of the Holy Spirit (13th century) an to the right, Raekoja Plats, essentially the town center.

One of the entrances to Church of the Holy Spirit which now houses a restaurant in at least part of its building. Apparently it's pretty good, if you go by how crowded it was!

More views about town.

Did you think the last post had too many churches? Boy oh boy are you gonna love this next part! At least these are just some photos as I was walking by, I didn't stop to explore very much. Up first: St. Nicholas' Church (13th century), seen first from the ground and then from atop the Toompea hill, where the 9th century Toompea Castle sits. The hulking figure in silhouette is one of several faceless, cloaked bronze monks situated outside the castle entrance, in the Danish King's Garden. They are as creepy as you are imagining.

Approaching Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, classic Russian Revival style church. One time I watched a Russian silent film about Alexander Nevsky. It was ground-breaking and sentimental and totally biased and epic and boring as hell and last approximately seventeen thousand hours. That's all I got. Oh, this church is pretty good too.

One more (lol not really), here is St. Mary's Cathedral looking quite nice in the late afternoon sun.

Finally we made our way up Toompea Hill to the castle, before wandering around it (we were too late to visit the museum inside) to get this pretty fantastic view of Tallinn's Old Town.

This is a pretty shit photo as far as taking in the vista goes but I had to put it here because I was more focused on capturing at least one of the many, many GIANT and brazen seagulls that were all over the castle grounds. Like, they were just strolling around, not afraid of anyone in the slightest. It made me uncomfortable; I'm not a fan of birds to begin with (their movements are too unpredictable, don't trust 'em) and there was something low-key malevolent about these suckers.

One more... Once upon a time, Blogger had this feature where if I loaded a bunch of photos like this that were obviously a panorama of the same place it would stitch together an actual panorama for me to use. It was a pretty cool feature but it seems they don't do it anymore, you have to go do it yourself on your Google photo whatever and who even has the time? Not this guy. It's January, I've got depressive napping to do!

The walls of Tallinn! They're all around the old town, because who doesn't love a good medieval walled city?

This slope had a whole back-story to it, having to do with certain classes (merchants vs. aristocracy) have access to certain parts of the city but herein lies one of the consequences to procrastinating for six months before writing a blog post: I do not remember the particulars. But at least you can enjoy the wild angle of this road? Imagine braving this thing on a horse-drawn wagon full of wares!

More old town, with the sun finally beginning to sink on my first afternoon there. Ingrid and I were ready for sustenance, and we ended up at an excellent Indian restaurant with a really good beer selection. Afterwards, we wandered a bit more.

Matryoshka doll store!

Two of the many towers that have been preserved on the wall. These two comprise what I believe to be Viru's gate. Below is another shot, by day.

Evening diners out and about.

Passing St. John's Church, which you can see a picture of in the Wiki link if you're so inclined-- I found it kind of uninspiring-- we came to this interesting cross marking the underground remains of a second entrance, Harju Gate. The sky was this strange bottle blue, as though someone was holding a wool blanket over the city and the sun was trying to peek through.

Big ass tower. This miiight be Kiek in de Kök, although I'm not sure the shape's quite right, but honestly I do not remember.

Manhole.

Yes, there was a Depeche Mode bar. No, sadly, we did not stop for a drink, I think mostly because I was fairly exhausted and not up for it. But not too exhausted to enjoy the silence. You know what I mean? 

Just a very interesting, helpfully illustrated menu we passed on our way back to Ingrid's place.

The next morning we were up at 'em, ready to visit the infamous secret KGB headquarters inside the "five star" Viru Hotel!

It actually demands a photo be taken. Who am I to refuse?

Some interesting photos of life working inside of Viru.

This tour guide seriously gave me life, her delivery was SO dry and droll and she was constantly making all these sarcastic promises about how the KGB is gone now and how the KGB never disappeared anyone and she was just fabulous. It is so interesting to hear someone who lived through this period in Estonian (or any soviet country's) history. Especially when they're really funny. Just look at her facial expressions!

Yeah, so this was all the gear they found in the hidden office on the top floor of Hotel Viru where the KGB swore they were not headquartered. Wikpedia explains it pretty well:

"During the Soviet era, the 23rd floor of the hotel housed a KGB radio centre, used to eavesdrop and spy on the hotel guests. 60 of the hotel rooms had concealed espionage devices, and even some of the tables in the restaurant had microphones. The KGB left the hotel in 1991, but the secret room was only found in 1994. The former radio centre is now a museum."

So when they found everything that the KGB had left behind in their haste to get the hell out of dodge, it was not hard to figure out what was what. And also, to be like WTF. And then make a museum out of it.

Good view though, on the sea and Old Town, to the left.

We had just enough time to check out another neighborhood, Kalamaja, with a huge green market and lots of wonderful old wooden houses which for some reason I don't have photos of, and then it was time to pick up our stuff and head to the bus station!

Now THAT's a bus!

Which thankfully is just there for decorative purposes, and not the one we were taking. We had a bit of a mix-up with bus times and the tickets we bought and there was definitely about an hour where Ingrid and I were just hanging out, wondering if we would be going on our weekend excursion. Thankfully, a bus came in with two empty seats (up front, too! Good view) and were on our way to Saaremaa Island!

Some fresh Estonian raspberries for the journey.

Our view as we approached the island.

The text, transcribed:

This ferry has been named after Piret, the beloved wife of the hero Saaremaa, Tõll the Great. Piret really managed everything. She took care of their home and food, plowed and sowed the fields and made hay. Each day, Piret cooked a large pot of cabbage soup and baked a full oven of rye bread for Tõll. She even helped her husband with construction. When Tõll started to build a sauna, Piret assumed it as her task to gather huge stones for the fireplace. Alas, it so happened that one of the boulders fell out of Piret's apron, against her toe and then into the ground. This boulder can still be seen by the manor house! The stone, however, hurt the resilient yet delicate Piret so much that she burst into tears and cried, until the tears formed a swamp, known until this day under the name of Naestesoo, Women's Swamp.

Oh... kay then. I was with you, kind of, until "resilient yet delicate."

We were fairly ravenous by the time we got to the main town on the island, Kuressaare (also sometimes known by its historic German name, Arensburg). So we basically plopped ourselves down at the first restaurant we reached that had good smells coming from it, and began ordering. We had a starter of pickles and honey and it was a surprisingly delicious combination. Highly recommend. 

I don't completely remember what this was. Steak, maybe? And potatoes? That sounds about right..

Then we grabbed a taxi and headed out to the homestay where we were sleeping for the night, outside of town and kind of just off in the wilderness! It was really pretty out there, and the couple who runs the place lives in this traditional thatched roof cottage. The only thing was...

They gave our cabin away, for some reason, so we were placed in a "guest bedroom" in their house, but like COME ON GUYS THIS IS OBVIOUSLY A STORAGE ROOM.

It was hilarious and I couldn't even be that mad because it housed such a weirdly fascinating combination of junk.

Oh hey cool.

Their really cool living room/kitchen.

We walked around the surrounding grounds for a while, had a couple glasses of berry wine with them (while the husband shared his support for trump, yikes) and then were joined by another couple. We chatted for a while longer before retiring to crash.

I think I had to go to the bathroom at some point around midnight so I crept out of the house towards the (actually very nice) outhouse. This was the sky! My phone was perhaps not the best conduit to capture the incredible midnight sun, but it's what I had on hand.

Like I said, I never got over this. 

Midnight.

The outhouse, by morning.

A retired boat.

The sauna, de rigueur for Scandinavians and Russians and apparently Baltic countries as well.

We headed back into Kuressaare for the afternoon. First stop, the windmill:

Replete with horrifying misshapen and off-putting mannequins.

Approaching the moat, and Kuressaare Castle. (That's where Ingrid is picture at the top of this post.) The castle is cool, it's pretty standard medieval castle/fortress 

Looking at the moat from the other side, atop the walls that run around the castle.

I got moves.

After climbing around on the grass-covered walls surrounding the fortress we moved on to the small park that lay on the coast on the other side; it had a small market with all sorts of fun foods and alcohol being sold. I found a Georgian! And felt compelled to chat for a while, then of course I had to buy some Georgian wine. Ingrid was very nice and humored me.

Fruits?

Georgian wine, and relaxing on a wide lawn near the water.

But we could not while away the entire afternoon in this fashion, for it was time to meet up with Ingrid's friend and former co-worker, Lara. She'd invited Ingrid (and I was lucky enough to snag an invite as well) to her family's house on the island for a couple nights. We arrived while Lara was deep in preparation for her mother's birthday dinner so, assured that there was not much for us to do yet, we took a walk down to the waters on this different side of the island.

It was lovely. We returned, and did our best to be helpful while Lara, her mom and grandmother prepared an incredible dinner for her family and us!

I can't really describe everything except to say that the toast with freshly-picked mushrooms and caramelized onions in the bottom left picture was probably my favorite. And the dessert, of course. But really, everything was so, so good.

Setting the scene. That barbecue was also crazy good.

And, Lara's family dog! I don't remember his name but I do remember how woefully he waited for something, anything to fall from the table for him.

Ingrid making fast friends with the family cat!

My camera died for the first time somewhere on our second day on Saaremaa, and I found that I was enjoying just relaxing too much to take many pictures. But we had a very fun second day, then headed back on the third afternoon. Here's one last shot looking back at the island from the ferry!

This peaceful was all well and good but there was much more journey to go! Ingrid and I went back to her place to crash, do some laundry, and regroup because the next morning we were heading to Riga, Latvia!