3 posts tagged “estonia”

Hey! I don't feel like writing a lot of narrative text, so look at these pretty pictures of Tallinn!

(Incidentally, do you have any idea how weird the weather has to be to get that light at 11 in the morning? It was just fantastic -- the sky overhead was completely cloudy, but the sky about 45 degrees off axis was totally blue, so the whole city was lit like a theatre set.)

Here are some bits from my journal.

You know what I love about Eastern Europe? I can do a silly Boris Badenov accent and not only does nobody bat an eyelash, they actually understand me better.

Best unintentional juxtaposition of the trip so far: At a cafe in the newer part of Tallinn, some nice slow electronica was playing in the background while the TV program changed from the news to some old Soviet-era stop motion animation. The combination of the music and the old, jerky film was perfect.

Three things I like about Estonia:

1. The official abbreviation for the currency, the Estonian Krone, is EEK. (!)
2. In a country of about a million, there are 33,000 people in organized choirs. This is the country that had the singing revolution. I'm not kidding.
3. The only thing wrong with the old town of Tallinn is that it's a bit overbearingly Hanseatic. You can't say that about too many places.
   

After a pleasant while in Helsinki (about which I'll write soon), I've reached Tallinn, Estonia.

 

The boat trip was relatively short and uneventful, except that the whole pitching-and-rolling thing took my stomach a bit by surprise. Alka-Seltzer to the rescue. And it helped when I realized that I was going to a country about which Bob Dylan had written a famous song!

I'm sure you remember it.

It starts like this.

Estonia: when you're trying to be so good.
Estonia: just a-like they said they would.
Estonia: when you're tryin' to go home.
Estonia: when you're there all alone.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get Estoned.