Un nouveau monde, et j'y corresponds: Tallinn, Estonia.

Tallinn, Estonia.

My flight was fine, really. Row to myself and a view of snowy Tallinn as we landed. The actual airport was really cool and modern. I was waiting for the bus to take me to the city when a man came up and spoke to me in Estonian. No idea what he actually wanted, I just kept shaking my head. I was really confused/lost for a while trying to make it to the hostel. All my getting lost makes me sound like I’m just terrible with orienting myself and directions, but I swear, I’m a real directional genius 97% of the time! Anyway, I ended up stopping in some pub type thing to ask for directions. I eventually did make it, but the actual environment had me feeling a bit uncomfortable: a seedy hidden staircase and an entryway sans lights. Inside, I met the guy who (I think) owns/runs the hostel. He’s seriously so nice. He spent about 10 minutes highlighting points of interest on the map and telling me stories about Tallinn. I went out into the city with some Italian who was really annoying. It was terribly cold out and when I made it back to the hostel to warm up, I took a nap. On waking up, I decided I would freeze if I went outside in the dark and spent the evening watching movies and reading my book. I watched several of them and now can’t remember which ones…

Today, I slept far, far too late and went to a suburb to see Kadriorg Palace, a palace that Peter the Great built for his wife. It was being restored and had lots of scaffolding in the front, but the snowed over park around it was nice as well. I exited to the big mermaid/angel statue/memorial and walked just along the shoreline to come back to the old town. I browsed some tourist shops, made extensive attempts to find a big flag, but it has in fact been unsuccessful… L

I’ve been hanging around the hostel for the rest of the evening, watching movies (A Beautiful Mind, 500 Days of Summer, X-Men Origins: Wolverine) and chatting with the hostel owner man. Now writing this up. Some guy just said he’s from Dublin and when I inquired further, it turned out he’s from the same place at James! Weird coincidence. Oh man, just remembered that I have a Kinder Bueno bar in my bag. Time to eat it! Then I’ll try and snag the shared laptop so I can write down directions to my hostel in Helsinki and look up ferry times to actually get there.

Overall, Tallinn has been nice; a bit more relaxing 2 days after more of a go-go-go time in Stockholm. The cold is also holding me off from being busy, but Tallinn is quite small regardless. Oh. And apparently most of Europe is quite shut down due to snow. Here’s to hoping that by Friday, everything will be okay and my flight to Manchester from Helsinki will be on.