ChristleZine

ГОРМОСТ

2007-06-13T04:26:00.000+03:00

That is, "GorMost". "Gor" for gorodskoj, adjectival form of gorod, meaning city, and "Most" for, well, most, meaning bridge. GorMost = City Bridge Service. John and I had risked leaving our heavy winter greys in Tallinn, but were surprised to be the only ones wearing bright, colourful -- and, purely by accident, both orange -- coats in Russia. That is, with the exception of the city maintenance crews. Each in turn, my Russian pals cheekily pointed out the amusing resemblance, likening the pair of us to the road repair service, the GorMost bridge crews and the mostly wizened, yet day-glo security-vested, street sweepers. Here I am posing with my workaday brethren on the bridge linking Vasilevsky and Petrogradsky Islands. (The pilons coordinate perfectly to boot!).

I'd forgotten how dirty things like bright orange coats can get, especially in gritty-grimy St. Petersburg. Every metropolitan foray adds to your wardrobe, whether soot, car exhaust (belched by any or all of the older makes of Moskvich, Lada, Kamaz, Zhiguli, Volga, etc.), cigarette scum, sticky public transport residue or an allover spritz of eau de fried meat. My city slicker was slick with city in no time, though there was no time to leech out the filth due to no substitute outerwear for the interim. And Russia was lousy with washing machines this time around.

Suffering From Periodical Cosmopolitanism

2007-06-12T22:01:00.000+03:00

In April-May, Russia's newspaper and print kiosks started selling the 13th anniversary issue of Russian Cosmo. The Cyrillic in the red balloon on the cover crows "Cosmo is 13 Years Old"! Apparently, covermodel "Tori Praver" is but 21 -- a year younger than I was when I purchased the inaugural issue of the mag's Russian incarnation in May 1994 -- thirteen, count 'em, thirteen years ago! I still have my 13-year-old copy (front cover: Cindy Crawford). Gasp. Thirteen years since I'd first stepped foot on the then-browbeaten soil of Ma Rus'. When I was a student at the Centre for Russian Language and Culture of St. Petersburg State University (at the Smol'nyj Institute), mes dormmates canadiennes and I were tickled to have witnessed that instance of print culture globalization, more specifically, the girly-magazination of the former Soviet U.

Some aspects have changed -- the 2007 cover speaks to realities facing "new" (think "monied", not necessarily "contemporary") Russian women. There's a section devoted to cars (women drivers, let alone car-owners, were pretty much unheard of in 1994), as well as a "Cosmo-Eksperiment" that dares readers to try and survive a spell without one's mobile, TV or Internet. Several sample squirts of free products are stashed between the pages, creams from Lancome, Garnier and Nivea ("Good-Bye, Cellulite," transliterated directly from English into Russian [Gud-Baj, Tsellulit]). The biggest change is in form, not format; page dimensions have shrunk to approximately 7" x 8", meaning the glossy's grown widthwise, stacking up nearly a full inch of Cosmopolitan (and local) content and requisite ads. In fact, the majority of the magazines marketed to women, home hobbyists, cooks and teens are now such physically-reduced specimens, mini-mags, both in Russia and across the Baltic countries. The new proportions make even Cosmo seem more "literary," sizing up more like an academic journal, despite the too-puckered lips, the touched-up pics and the tired sex tips. Easier to fit in one's glove-box or slide/hide under one's keyboard, in any case. Suggested retail price: 65 roubles.

Cover Features from 1994:
Sex or Chocolate: There's a time for everything!
Don't Let Jealousy Dominate Your Life
TEST: How well do you know each other?
They're 30 years old, independent and self-confident... Do they really need husbands?
Cosmopolitan in Russia! An internationally-renowned magazine - published in Russia for the first time!

Cover Features from 2007:
Sex-games for the bold and not-so bold
Cosmo-Experiment: One week sans Mobile Phone, TV and Internet
Free Spaces: Where to Go, Besides the Garage, to Meet a Real Man
A Woman's Education: Real Stories of Lesbian Love
Counting Costs: The Price of Your Job
New! "Gas Pump" Car Column, page 128

Shawn

2007-06-05T22:44:00.000+03:00

I made another montage, entitled "Shawn" and featuring same.
Electroacoustic composer-musician Shawn also hails from Canada (Edmonton), and has been living in Tallinn on and off for several years. He's been teaching sound at the Arts Academy and also at the Baltic Film & Media School -- it was he who tipped off John about the teaching position there.
So many thanks to Shawn for that tip, which led to this trip!

Head aega, Eestimaa

2007-06-04T00:00:00.000+03:00

We saved another trip to Kalma sauna for our last day in Tallinn. We opted for 90 minutes instead of our usual 60 -- we didn't want to rush, nor did we want to anxiously keep our eyes on the clock for the duration our final, celebratory skin-sloughage and salt-flushery (the one snarky reprimand we'd received for steaming 3 minutes overtime a couple of months earlier was fontrum enough). Back home, we tidied up and did the bulk of our packing. There wasn't much new stuff to bring home (not surprising, for such reluctant shoppers as we), though the oddball, oddshaped souvenirs (lamp, telephone, clocks, tin box, tin purse,) required some careful placement, as did the 4.7 (cumulative) litres of various boozes we'd selected to export from the Baltics.

Then it was off to Cafe Pushkin for a plate of their delicious salmon pel'meni and a final mayo-laden, boiled egg, prune, walnut and smoked chicken-filled "salad". We crossed over to Texas Honky-Tonk, an unfortunately-themed resto-bar (lexical proof I'm back in Quebec) in the Old Town, where we raised several pints and shared stories and many laughs with some students and staff from the Baltic Film & Media School. We took our leave at closing time, which the Honky Tonk invariably announces by playing the American national anthem. John, Shawn and I continued our last night's nostalgia tour by descending into Levist Valjas, a notoriously divey open-til-morning joint around the corner -- truly a dank, dripping dungeon of a bar. I botched my last attempt at ordering a "Tõmmu Hiid" in passable Estonian, John deviously nabbed a few more snaps of passed-out, head-on-table patrons, then we piled out into the late-night dusk just as the place was becoming completely overrun by revelers from bars that stay open later than they seem to do in Texas.

White nights season had definitely started to creep in -- though we were tired, we thought it appropriate to say "head aega" (good-bye) to the almost-bright night and to Estonia from the Stroomi Rand -- the stretch of beach not far from our digs on Ristiku street in Pelguranna. We headed back to the neighbourhood, cleared our fridge of whatever remained of beach-worthy reinforcements (beer and... cheese), and started off beachbound at about 3:30 -- the photos above are from about an hour later. Back home by 5-5:30, we caught a few mid-morning Zzzs, just enough to recharge for final prep and exit. Bags were packed, borscht slurped, cupboards emptied, garbage thrown, floors swept, fridge unplugged. Urmas, our friendly landlord, came by to collect the final communal payment, and we were off in a taxi towards the harbor, soon to board Viking Line's "Rosella" afternoon ferry to Helsinki.

This Little Piggie Went to Market

2007-05-22T14:50:00.000+03:00

It's been tough-going finding good throwaways and second-hand curiosities at the markets in Tallinn. Mind you, since the weather's shaped up, more stuff has appeared at the train station market. Fewer kiosks are locked, boarded up or unmanned. More of the sellers are skulking around, socializing (and sometimes boozing) in the environs of their collections, making it much easier to find out whether something's for sale, and how much things cost.

We dropped by this past weekend to pick up the most recent in John's line of broken watches. We'd returned it to the kiosk he'd bought it from since the hands weren't firmly threaded on the central pin. Any handshaking or wringing of same would force the hands to jump intervals of fives, tens or twenties of minutes at a time, whether future-bound or past, every fingerwag also a wager in time lost or time gained. The watch had been sold with a year's guarantee, this in the form of a tiny piece of paper with incomprehensible handwritten details. The guarantee was honoured, though our money was reimbursed for the meanwhile. The watch was to be sent to "the master" and we could pick it up after 2 Sundays had passed.

Alas, the watch was on the premises, but still broken. It hadn't been sent anywhere. "The master's sick," I was told. "For the past three weeks?" I asked, and filled John in on the goings-on. The seller overheard us and called out in English from the depths of his booth, "He is very old -- 80 years!" No other repair options were suggested. A single week remained until our departure from Tallinn -- unlikely that even the speediest of recoveries would allow enough time for master-ful repair and Sunday pick-up. The seller removed the watch-strap (which belonged to John... this had been bought at yet another wacky watch repair and clock kiosk, located in the steamy, mildew-stained lobby of Raua sauna, in downtown Tallinn) and kept the broken timepiece. John's given up on finding a new old watch in Estonia.

But all was not lost on this trip to the market. A longer than usual look into a toy'n'games kiosk yielded this most awesome name-brand rip-off compact, a must-have accessory from Christian Dior's lesser known and spelling-challenged haute couture of a cousin, "Charsten Deor". I googled the spoofed-up name on a whim and turned up a handful of Russian articles (Itar-Tass Ural, Federal Customs Service, Security Service) on a court case dealing with the seizure of counterfeited Christian Dior goods. Apparently, the Arbitration Court of Sverdlovsk Region ruled in favour of Ekaterinburg Customs on charges of illegal use of the Christian Dior trademark. The guilty party was fined in the amount of 30,000 roubles, and the counterfeit items -- mirrors in plastic frames, 7200 units -- were confiscated. I'm glad this one made it all the way here from Ekaterinburg. It's the first item I own that I know was supposed to have been officially confiscated -- a bargain at 19 EEK.

Meanwhile, over at Keskturg, Tallinn's Central Market, the outdoor stall section has been largely taken over by sellers of bedding plants and starter tomatoes, making for slim pickin's. In the midst of all the spring seedlings, one woman trading in household detritus did have something of note. Here's an artistic interpretation that features the fantastic find:

Stockholm Syndrome

2007-05-21T14:38:00.000+03:00

CRUISE PROVES CAPTIVATING
TALLINN, ESTONIA, April 16-18 /Baltic Cruise News/
Tallinn travellers finally on board with Tallink prescription, take two-day dose of ferry-cruising to Stockholm. (Full story, A12.)
Exclusive film footage available only on ChristleZine!

Stockholm Syndrome: Case History

2007-05-21T12:43:00.000+03:00

As I explained in a previous post, although there are daily departures and several ferry lines running routes from Tallinn to Helsinki and Stockholm and between the latter two, passage on these routes shall primarily be sold (and bloody-well enjoyed, dammit) in the form of a 2-day cruise. The passenger shall be financially punished should s/he endeavour to book one-way fares or attempt to build a triangular journey linking the 3 cities. Despite the price differential -- baffling, since we would potentially be travelling on the same ship with the same folks, just not calling it "cruising" (we'd've donned the cruisewear, if that would've helped) -- we decided to get one-way tickets on non-adjacent dates and spend the intervening days in Sweden's capital.

Thankfully, we'd noticed another Tallink ticket branch inside Stockmann's department store. We couldn't bear visiting the main Tallink branch in the Hotel Tallink for a third time. We'd already had 2 horrific episodes with the Silja cruise specialist there, and were certain we'd either be thrown in the galley or ordered to swab the decks all the way to Stockholm if we'd asked this salty sea-hag of a ticket scalper once more to price out the one-way fares for us.

Unfortunately, we didn't realize Stockmann's was in the midst of its price-chopping, bargain-shopping, "Crazy Days", so the place was a mad-house, jammed with giddy Estonian consumers (many of whom, like us, can't afford a damn thing at Stockmann's), pawing through bins of designer cosmetics and haute couture men's T's for the crazy, as advertised, deals. (Dollar-forty-nine day, Tuesday, this most definitely ain't.) We did our best to shuffle clear of the bright yellow fun-fur-fuzzied Casper-the-Grotesque mascot (our prices are so insane that I'm yellow, formless, and have neither pupils nor mouth, see above) and headed into Tallink with our chosen travel dates and our respective speech apparati puckered and ready to firmly enunce: no cruise, aitäh [thanks]. We got the tickets. (Asked just the once about the cruise option.)

Next task was to find accommodation in Stockholm. Affordable mid-April, mid-week and two-person rooms in Stockholm... very difficult to find, indeed. Impossible, in fact. A couple of days of vigorous e-mailing produced the following notices of rejection.

Hello Christine,
What it looks like now we are unfortunatelly fully booked on the 19 th and I can therefor not help you out with a room this date.
Have a contines good day!
Christine Front Desk
Vanadis Hotell & Bad

Hello!
Thank you for your e-mail. So sorry but we are fullybooked.
Kind Regards Christian
Hotel Tre små rum

Hello Chrstine!!
Our hostel open the 16 of june - 13 of august. You are welcome to visite our site www.ostrareal.com
Med vänliga hälsningar/ Best Regards
Östra Reals Vandrarhem

Sorry but we are fully booked that weekend
Best of regards/Med vänliga hälsningar
Achipelago Hostel

Dear Christine,
Thank you for your kind request! Unfortunately we are fully booked for the dates requested. Any other dates we are glad to help you!
Best regards Erika
RYGERFJORD HOTEL & HOSTEL

Hi,
We only have one freee bed in dormitory these dates.
With best regards,
Reception / 2kronor Hostel & Budget Hotel - Old Town|Stockholm

Hello, Thank you for your request! I’m sorry that I can’t reserve anything for you because we are fully booked.
Best regards,
Lotta Casranea Old Town Hostel

Sorry, no.
Kindest Regards,
Colonial Hotel

Hi John,
We only have beds on the 21st and 22nd in an eight bed dorm. To make a
booking please respond with your credit card number and expiry date.
Kindly, Matt

Dear Christine,
Thanks for your mail. We are unfortunately fully booked this period. Please feel free to getback to us should you need accommodation another time in Stockholm.
Best regards
Mats Sahlin
Checkin Apartments Stockholm

Dear Christine,
Thank you for your request. We can offer you accommodation between May 21 and June 9 and pretty much all dates after June 16.
Please log on to our website www.stockholmliving.com to get more information.
Sincerely Adrian La Torre

Time to anchors aweigh was a-dwindling. I hadn't had this much trouble finding a hotel room since Minsk, in 1994 (Svensk... Minsk... just a coinskidensk?) We looked over wistfuly at our hard-procured itinerary and boarding documents, then snatched 'em and flipped 'em to read the fine print on the return policy. Seemed simple enough. Since we'd purchased regular tickets at enormous, non-cruise fares, the tickets were 100% refundable up to 24 hours prior to boarding. Finally, they had us. We'd turn these in and treat ourselves to a m%tha-#$*'in cruise with the proceeds. We'd pay Tallink a fourth visit come sun-up.

Sun-up. We headed into the Tallink office, prepared for an easy exchange with the reasonable staff. Bushwhacked! The first words out of their mouths wipe the smiles from our faces, "We're sorry, but these tickets are non-refundable." We bark back, "Oh, we're sorry, but they are, please read where it says so, right here." Their second line infuritates us all the more. "We reserve the right to make changes to the pricing policy, and regardless of what it says on the tickets, because we do reserve this right, now these tickets are non-refundable." Fuming. And we reserve the right to get angry, and will do so, right now, as we demand to speak to a manager, and not leave the premises until we do so.

There were flustered page-flippings, pink cheek flushings (on all parties' parts) and calls were eventually put through. At one point, the C-word was mentioned, along the lines of "Cruises aren't refundable"... immediately drowned out by "But this wasn't a cruise!" If we'd learned anything in our 2-month battle to get these one-way tickets, it was the difference between a cruise and what we'd bought. Attempts were made to do a one-to-one exchange -- our one-way fares for a cruise. Not acceptable. After all, the one-ways are worth 3 times the cruise amount, are they not? The Tallinkers had to agree. Their cruise prices were unbeatable!

Many more Estonian words exchanged softly over the phone, and soon it was apologies all around. A refund to my credit card would be "impossible" and would "take many days". Instead, we were issued a two-day cruise Tallinn-to-Stockholm for two passengers in an inside cabin on an above-water deck and two complimentary drink coupons, and were then paid out exactly two times the cruise price in Estonian cash, enough to make up the difference we'd paid on the one-ways. We left the office red-cheeked, embarrassed to have had to play the role of the sputtering and awful N. Americans (who really must speak to your supervisor) and relieved the whole thing was over. Now we just had to shift into cruise-mode along with the rest of the proud Tallink Club Card holders, and get ready to see Stockholm in FastForward.

The Peterburi Express

2007-05-16T09:41:00.000+03:00

The Express bus to St. Petersburg departed uncomfortably early, at 6:00 a.m. Nevertheless, we opted for this route since "Express" meant shaving one hour off the trip as compared to all other departures. We packed up as well as we could the night before and set multiple alarms.

Another Soviet-era clock souvenir we picked up at the household junk market in Tallinn. ("I bet it rings like a bitch" said to have been uttered at time of purchase. And, I assure, you it does.)

Out the door a little after 5:00 a.m., we led our rolly-mini-suitcases through the morning fog down to the Telliskivi tram stop, in time to catch the first public transport of the day, and enjoy the scenic ride around the stone walls of still-sleeping medieval Tallinn en route to the Autobussijaam.

We were relieved to discover that this Eurolines bus was differently-configured than the ones we'd taken to and from Riga and Vilnius. There was actually leg-room enough for 2 people to sit comfortably side-by-side and face forward, instead of sitting diagonally, with 2 of a couple's 4 legs blocking the aisle. The bus was only half-full, though all passengers were jammed up into the anterior half, since everyone either opted or were advised to sit in their assigned seats. We left Tallinn and travelled down Narva mantee [for Edmontonians, Narva being to Calgary what mantee is to Trail], revisiting some now-familiar territory, as the road traverses the southernmost section of Lahemaa National Park.

In Narva, the essentially all-Russian town on the Estonian side of the border, we handed over our passports to the Estonian authorities and beeped our watches 60 minutes hence before the bus trundled over the bridge to Ivangorod, on the Russian side, where we had to unload all of our luggage and walk it through the visa-processing border shack ourselves. Notably, this procedure is not much different than what one faces at the U.S. border when travelling by Greyhound, except that the Russian border guards don't grill you with questions about drugs, weapons, produce or animal husbandry. Paying close bureaucratic attention to the required documents instead (including some or all of passport, visas, invitations, official stamps, migration cards, form listing the currencies and valuables you're taking into the country, health insurance policy) -- provided these are all in order -- you are thankfully ignored.

The road was far less worthy on the Russian side, perhaps not repaired since the days of Catherine II. The change in road conditions was accompanied by a switch at the helm, the Ivangorod-to-Petersburg pilot clearly an expert at navigating these 200 kms of so-called road, these 3 hours of rubble and craters. Any hope of making it safely to Peterburi rested on this one man, it was he who intimately knew these roads, these barely-passable stretches and trecherous crevasse-ravaged curves, who knew where best to drive in the shoulder, which sections could be passed only at snail-speed, when to swerve, what to avoid, how to roll with the bumps and bobs, how to careen and come out relatively clean. Only once when a Lada attempted to make a blind left turn directly in front of us did we risk losing complete control. An elderly woman passenger did eventually lose her breakfast, though, as a result of the relentless lurching and jerking.

We finally reached St. Petersburg -- and immediately became ensnared in a traffic jam for 45 minutes, though we were just blocks from the Baltijskij train station, our final destination. This made us late, thus rendering moot the "Express" status of our route. This introduction to the now vehicle-choked St. Petersburg was appropriate; there would be many more "probki" (literally, corks) to come.

Calming Interlude
Talk of traffic jams has the potential to set the heart a-racing and the blood a-boiling. So time-out for a little soothing bell-chiming and bobbling from this weeble-wobblin' Gator Gena (An acquisition from the flea market at Metro Udel'naya in St. Petersburg.)

Service Will Resume Shortly

2007-05-14T11:09:00.000+03:00

I apologize for the 3-week break in newsfeed (or snoozefeed, whichever applies). Just got back from an exciting, exhausting and long overdue visit to Mama Russia. For anyone following international news, the stoppage in the bloggage was in no way connected to riots in the streets of Tallinn (which there were, 2 days after our departure) and fallout thereafter, nor to any cutting of diplomatic or other ties between Estonia and Russia (not that these would affect us personally, though we wondered whether we might need to choose an alternate route back into Estonia), nor to attempts, by "pro-Kremlin" youth groups, to block the highway at the Russia-Estonia border (the youths were hauled away long before we made our way back over the bridge from Ivangorod (RUS) to Narva (EST)).

Being in Russia during this political flare-up with Estonia definitely provided a fascinating backdrop to our journey into Russia, not to mention our stay in Estonia more broadly. (More later about the Bronze Soldier monument and its removal from a square in central Tallinn just prior to Russian Victory Day celebrations.) For me, though, this is really a travel story of places and routines visited and revisited, others bypassed, of a language reclaimed (Y-PA!), of sharing one's past, of remarking ways in which places and people change and noticing how places and people remain remarkably the same, of disconnecting, misconnecting and reconnecting.

As the sign says, PEMOHT! You can spell it out without a Cyrillic keyboard, which is cool. Said aloud, it's actually re-mont, a most useful and frequently-encountered Russian word, which basically means [closed for] repairs; renovation; refurbishment. And so, christlezine, repair, renew and refurb! Due to the scheduling upset, some upcoming posts will, of necessity, be on a 3-or-so-week delay.

Edible Audible

2007-04-23T11:10:00.000+02:00

One is to nibble on at tea-time, the other is for making business.
Can you tell which is which?

Saaremaa: The Movie

2007-04-22T06:31:00.000+02:00

Saaremaa: The Making-Of

2007-04-21T11:46:00.000+02:00

Chapter 1: The Even Lonelier Planet

Apparently, no one tours the Island of Saaremaa in early spring. Well, more precisely, and judging by the passengers on the Thursday afternoon express bus from Tallinn to Kuressaare, the region's capital city, no one tours Saaremaa in early spring except for the likes of us, plus a small group of Germans (birdwatchers, perhaps?). Kuressaare was indeed a small town, despite capital status -- we repeatedly ran into our Germans at the grocery store and at other town hotspots (i.e. walking across main street, outside tourist info, etc.). I'm guessing most Aprils are not so warm, so blue and so beautiful. From Virtsu, on the western coast of mainland Estonia, we boarded a ferry over to the small island of Muhu, drove through Muhu, then across a narrow dam over another body of water, the strait of Väike Väin. Once on Saaremaa, it's an hour or so drive to Kuressaare. We were the only guests at Hotell Repo (which I opted for partly because of the oddball name; not sure where the Germans were staying).

Even the great outdoors was ours exclusively. Transportationally abandoned to trudging the outskirts of Kuressaare on foot, we ran into a lone cyclist as we wandered along an oak trail at the edge of Kuressaare, barged in on a single spider on the bird observation tower, and just barely missed stepping on a snake on the straw bog meadow near the sea (Saaremaa, we later learned , is home to vipers). Two deer paused to check us out from behind a stand of leafless birches. Each historical division of the Saaremaa museum in the Kuressaare castle was locked by its grandmotherly guard immediately after we'd passed through (being rarities of the spring visitor variety, we must have unintentionally ruined the staff's routine of cutting out of work early). Even the castle drawbridge was locked by the time we reached it. The night guard kindly let us out (instead of throwing us to the famed castle lion's pit).

Chapter 2: The Peel 'n' Wheel

As we'd learned in Lahemaa a few weekends before, objects are much closer to one another on maps than they are in reality. To see more of the island, we'd definitely need some wheels, and something more than pedal-powered. Despite no tourists, Tourist Info was open. We were furnished with a flyer and steered over to "A-Rent" Auto. A-right next door to Repo, and A-lot more than a car rental service. The sign for A-Rent hung on one side of what looked like a residential house, while the sign for "Aspasia" 24 hour stripclub, boasting "piljard, sauna and privatshow", was on the other. We poked around in the backyard-carlot, but found no entry on the A-Rent side, so entered the stripclub. The bartendress got the owner, and his brother, and after some haggling, we reserved one of their crappiest available cars for the next day.

Aspasia was already (or still?) happening at 9:00 a.m. the next day, when we dropped by for auto-pickup. It was a small place; tiny, red-velveted stage with peeler-pole to the immediate right of the entrance, small bar-counter with space for 6 or so elbows, small backroom with orange-and-beige vinyl booth chairs. The morning show hadn't begun, though the revelry had: full beers, accompanying shots and a handful of wasted, but mellow, Estonian men, lined the bar. The bartender nodded knowingly when we approached her in connection with our vehicular arrangement. Soon after, Aspasia's proprietor emerged from the basement, looking like he'd just woken up. He was followed by a cozy couple just out of the sauna to join the party upstairs (unclear whether the toweled woman was patron or personnel).

John was invited out the side-door for a rundown of the 1991 Volkswagon Jetta's kinks and idiosyncracies (stalls during take-off, deceleration, reverse maneuvers and while turning unless the manual choke is out), while I went to the billiard room/erotic photo gallery with the head barmaid to read over the contract. Everything appeared to be in order, a pretty standard rental contract all around, despite a few translation goofs; we'd do our best to return the car in a timely manner, thus avoiding the "retardation" fee. Documents signed and rental fee paid in full, we stood around outside, waiting for the owner's brother to show up ("He has to walk one kilometer") with the car's insurance and registration. Meanwhile, the owner pointed out Saaremaa's main highlights on the map. He assured us there were 3: The Kuressaare Castle, the Kaali Meteor Crater (photo), and Aspasia!

The Yolk of Communism

2007-04-09T14:34:00.000+02:00

Easter weekend. Time to give our "Paskhalinka" Russian egg-decorating plastic-film wraps a whirl. We'd picked up two packs, both with traditional Russian motifs; one like "Palekh" lacquer boxes, the other patterned after "Gzhel" porcelain. Each had designs enough for 3 eggs, though we discovered that the label was made of the same material, and used it to make the above exemplar for instructional purposes. These are as follows: (1) cut the film along the perforated lines into separate sections; (2) hard-boil your eggs and let them cool; (3) stick an egg into the plastic ring of film; and (4) dip the ensemble into boiling water for 3-5 seconds. A brief demonstration for the hard-of-reading:

Prior to egg-dip, we had our doubts, but the space-age plastics and thermal technology, whether Soviet or post-, did not disappoint. Maybe the plastics engineers should be thinking extra-large, and I don't just mean free-range. What if more things in Mother Russia were shrink-wrapped, like Christo wrapped the Reichstag, or like Nescafe disguises scaffolded buildings like monolithic steaming coffee mugs? Why not give Red Square a homey, welcoming facelift by parboiling Lenin's mausoleum into a wrinkle-free plastic coating of Khokhloma? For an extra couple thousand grand, space tourists could blast off from Kazakhstan in trendy rocket-wraps of their own choosing.

ADMINISTRATIVE UPDATE...
Tales from Russia upcoming since travel authorization nearly obtained! Tourist visa invitations were ordered, tourist support was granted, invitations and related fees were paid for in full, confirmation voucher was faxed and picked up at Tallinn Central Post. Visa application forms (no. 95) were filled out. These, alongside voucher and photos were submitted, perused, authorized; invoice drawn up, processing fee disbursed. Potential refusal due to missing or unreadable stamp, unreliable support or unpredictable whim, thus far averted. Passport pick-up time set for one week hence; passports, in the meantime, on file awaiting visa-sticker insertion. Let's us all spit three times over our shoulders in unison, shall we?

The Skype's The Limit

2007-04-08T13:14:00.000+02:00

Calling all phone fanatics. All you constant callers, telephone talkers, cell phone stalkers, dingle devotees, ring-a-lingers, ring-a-ding-dinglers, drink-and-dialers, 1-800-numbed-ers, toll-freebees, can-I-put-you-on-holders, call-waiter-traitors, clicksters, no-longer-in-servists, long-message-leavers, star-sixty-niners, call-when-I-drivers, I'm-on-my-way'ers, better-let-ya-go'ers, the ring-tone-deaf, those with voicemail-hangups or let-the-machine-pick-up hiccups.

It's one thing to have your landlines, your podberries, your assorted cellularia and your global roaming and such, but have you ever imagined you could speak out loud, in the general direction of your laptop, and a voice would come back at you in response? And what's more, this voice belongs to someone with whom you actually intended to talk. It might seem ridiculous to talk through your computer hardware when there's usually another device lying around that's wholly dedicated to this very process. Since arriving here in Flower Town, however, we have been without such a device. No phone apparatus here, and not sure whether things would be hooked up if we acquired one.

So we've recently given Skype a test-run. If you don't already know, this is a free, downloadable software (developed in Estonia, by the way) that lets you call anybody, anywhere, and talk to them through your computer, for free if they're a member, and for pennies if they're not. If your computer has a built-in mike, you're good to go (better for the speaker to wear headphones).

"This is Our First Call" wrestles with the often difficult transition from old technology to new; here, Skype taking on Telephone. Note that this vid might not be appropriate for the young ones due to brief "language" (would have been beeped if I knew more about manipulating the audio). Please also keep in mind that this offering belongs to the realm of the arts and the entertainments and in no way should be seen to represent John's true character. The music is by the Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir -- I hope they don't mind.

April Fools, Part II

2007-04-07T19:31:00.000+02:00

The next morning, we shared the breakfast table with the Gasthof's cleaning lady. Middle-aged and seemingly stern, her T-shirt was bold and capricious in contrast; it depicted 2 aliens in a cartoon frame captioned by "Come Play With Me For Out-Of-This-World Sex." We retrieved our bikes from underneath the Gasthof's lobby stairs, took one last look at the manor house and set off for a day in Lahemaa.

The problem now was how to enjoy a day of riding in the park -- we'd finally reached it -- and cross back over the distance we'd covered plus what we'd ride that day -- all by 11:30-ish next morning (the bikes were to be returned at around that time and, more importantly, John had to teach at noon-thirty). We called City Bike to see if they were running any park tours that day -- maybe they could pick us up? No, there were no customers, so no tours, and no ride. A special trip would cost us $80. They suggested we try finding our way back by bus. Given our luck with Baltic bus service, we doubted having much luck getting us, never mind the bikes, back to Tallinn that way. We decided to remain optimistic and enjoy the day despite having no exit strategy.

I've already described how not-far we got that morning due to poorly-marked trails and run-ins with angry guard dogs (if you missed it, it's described about mid-way through this post). We decided to ditch the backwoods route, got back on the road out of Kolga, and rode to Vosu, where we'd arranged to stay, but didn't, the previous night. The Lonely Planet described this as a "resort town". The desolate shell of the boarded-up Merehotell, the abandoned cafes and unkempt beach-side buildings indicated otherwise. Granted, it was still early in the season, but, at first glance, there didn't appear to be much in the way of tourism and related industry. Beach parking was in abundance, however; Vosu is more likely a favourite day-trippers' destination.

We found Vosu's only open cafe, had a hearty Estonian lunch, then dropped in at the Rannaliiv guesthouse for info. The proprietor was very helpful despite being stood up the night before. She said there'd be a bus at 18:53 that evening; if empty, as it usually was, it might allow the bikes. We told her we'd give that a try, and to expect us for the night if that didn't work out. We got back on the bikes, headed through neighbouring Kasmu, and enjoyed some sun-dappled pedalling through the erratic boulders to the peninsula's point.

We turned back and took in the peninsula's other corner; in summer, you can walk the rocks out to Saartneem, the island in the distance.

In commemoration of our journey into nature, a still-photo animation; I call it "Portrait of John in 3 Acts":

We headed back to Vosu town centre and bus-stop with plenty of time to fret and stress about what size of bus might pull up, and speculate just how annoyed a bus driver might be when faced with dumb-bell foreigners who hoped to load their bicycles onto the bus. We didn't know what to expect when a mid-sized passenger bus pulled up; the bus driver said "no" when we pointed to the bikes and asked if the bus went to Tallinn -- were these refusals, grunts or other? He then started nodding, jumped out and opened the back-hatch -- there was room for one of the bikes. We took the front wheel off the other one, and loaded it into the aisle. We paid 15 EEKs each to board (about $1.50). We were on a bus, and we saw that it was good. But something wasn't quite right -- the Lonely Planet said buses from Vosu to Tallinn would run about 55 EEK.

The bus headed right back to the peninsula, and filled up completely in Kasmu. We reached a place called Vihasoo, and the bus pulled over and parked. Everyone piled off. Were we to get off, too? A young girl stepped up to assist in English, informing us that we'd also have to disembus. She instructed us to ride 2-3 kms to "Kotka," where we'd catch a bigger bus to Tallinn from the gas station bus-stop. One should be passing by at around 8 o'clock. Or we could ride 12 kms to "Loksa" and catch a bus there, either way.

The other passengers huddled by the highway. Clockwork: their mini-bus connection to Tallinn pulled up moments later. They were off to the capital, and we mounted our bikes, off to Kotka, wondering how likely it was that this next, supposedly "larger" bus, would be willing to take us on. Wondering whether we'd spend the night snuggling up to an erratic boulder. Wondering whether there were any "M's" in Kotka.

7:45, Kotka gas station. Checked in with the ladies at the gas station kiosk (this road-stop-'n'-shop doing far more trade in 0.5 L cans of Gin Long Drink than petrol). Sure enough, the bus would be by shortly. Good thing, too, since the sun was on its way out. The 7:55 was a city bus, with long-distance fares. Electronic doors in the front, middle and back. The driver saw the bikes and open sesame'd the middle doors, entrance graciously granted to our bulky, two-wheeled charges. We shared the standing space with a perambulator, balancing our bikes and blocking the middle exit for the entire trp, happy to be heading back towards the cityscape.

Though we'd left just before noon the day prior, it felt like we'd been gone a week. Heading into the Estonian countryside was a bit like passing through some kind of Einsteinian time-space wormhole. Though distances are rather small -- especially when compared to Canadian ones -- no roads are absolutely straight, and there's a tendency for point-A not to meet point-B. The sense is that you've covered an enormous amount of territory and come across a vast number of things and sights. In Vosu and Kasmu, we really did feel like we were on another planet -- maybe that just comes with the pine-fresh air, maybe the spray from the Gulf of Finland, maybe we were under the spell of forest sprites. Despite the twists and turns, this was a magical day and a half.

April Fools, Part I

2007-04-06T00:09:00.000+02:00

Night of March 30. We'd spent a tremendously pleasant day walking along the beach to the Pirita suburb and through the forest to the Tallinn TV Tower, a route we noticed also doubled as a bike-path. We decided we should be taking advantage of the unusually fantastic weather, get some bikes ourselves and get back on that path. From the map in our Lonely Planet guide, it would appear that Lahemaa National Park was only 35 kms from where we'd just been at the TV Tower, itself only a 6 or 7 km hop-skip-jump from Tallinn. Impetuously, we made a late-night reservation at a guesthouse in "Vosu" (selected basically at random, though this was one of the bigger towns) in the national park for the following night, and set the alarm clock for Saturday morning. (We'd already hit the hay; this lazy in-bed Internetting a happy by-product of Estonia's heavy Wi-Fi dependence.)

Saturday morning, we scarfed some biking-worthy grub at an Old Town bakery-cafe (John: breakfast pizza with pickles, bacon and pineapple; Christine: weiner, smashed spuds and cabbage salad), then headed to City Bike, a bike rental co. and tour agency operating out of a hostel in the Old Town, and picked ourseves up 2 velos to go and a map of the national park. We also borrowed a map that supposedly pointed the bike-route way out of Tallinn, to something called "Koogi Crossing", which we assumed was somewhere near, if not itself, the gateway to the park. We were wrong.

We were through Pirita and past the TV Tower in no time at all. Here's one of the sights not too far outside of Tallinn; go-karting, anyone?

We continued to follow the bike-path signs, though they seemed to conflict with the map to Koogi Crossing. Every turn we took seemed to be leading us a few degrees away from the direction in which we felt instinctively we should be heading. From what the signs said, we were always equidistant from a handful of towns, never actually reaching any of them, just skirting every pinpoint in the region, every recognizable map-marker.

We were, however, making our way -- slowly and counter-intuitively -- to the Koogi Crossing, no part of the route following a point-A-to-point-B kind of logic. The weather was indeed beautiful, though we battled a constant and strong headwind, and our faces were stinging with the grit turned up from the fields. The bike-path also had you darting dangerously across the Tallinn-Narva highway at several points.

Koogi Crossing. This turned out to be some kind of rest-stop gas station, but there was a giant map of the region. Instead of seeing evidence of the national park on the giant map, we learned that there was a chunk of territory that none of our maps accounted for -- the zone between the park itself and the Tallinn outskirts map. This part seemed do-able, though we'd yet to actually see where the boundary of the national park lay. When would our park map become relevant? We were eager to get to the green space.

Kuui. Apparently 4 kms from the Koogi Crossing (by one map), apparently on the edge of the national park (by another map). Definitely in the "InterZone". There was nothing there, at least on the bike-path, highway part. Ok, a rusty post office box and another gas station. We bought some nachos and water, scarfed those down while local yahoos in loud cars squealed up violently to buy vodka reinforcements and plastic jugs of strong beer, then screech off off to get back to the fishing hole, or whatever parking lot party they'd just been at.

Kahala. Kahala kauplus. This "town", this "centre" marked on the map turned out to amount to about one house, one pig-barn, this one tiny shop (closing momentarily, it was a Saturday afternoon), in the midst of fields, swamps, forests, a couple of huts here and there, big expanses of nothingness. No signs for national park that we could see, though Kahala did, finally, appear on our park map. I started question my dependence on typographic convention with respect to map-reading. What I mean is this: I'd see a "town" on the map -- and judge it so based on the point-size of the font it was written in. So the word "Kahala", for instance, was rather big, Helvetica, bold, italic, somewhere around 28-point. When we saw that it was really nothing -- town-wise -- we started to get nervous, about font-sizes to come and the likelihood that we might find somewhere other than a stand of trees to sleep in that night. Recall that we'd made arrangements to stay at a place which now looked ridiculously far on the map -- we'd discovered the unmarked Inter-Zone in our travel route, and it was getting later in the day...

A fork in the road. Signs. 2 kms to Kolga. 15 to Loksa, more to Vosu. A closer look at the map. There was indeed a diamond symbol in Kolga with an "M" in it. "M" marks .... (a look to the legend) ... accomodation?! Surprise. Well, if there's one "M" in a town of about the same font-size as "Kahala", in which there was absolutely nothing save a couple of water-tanks, someone's boarded-up dacha and a manure-pile, should we really turn off this road and see what this "M" has to offer? [NB: this is the 2007 inaugural ride for these cyclists, already been quite a lengthy one, and our veloistes are sans their cushiony bicycle shorts.]

Cranky moods decide a closer "M" is better than a further one. We traverse the 2 kms to Kolga. The town is a tiny one -- consisting of about a road or two, basically a small grouping of rather squat apartment blocks. Then there's a strange stone arched passageway at the end of the street. We ride through it. There's an unbelievably beautiful ruin of a manor house to the right of us, gardens to the left, out-buildings and stables lining the periphery.

We ride our bikes up to the stables. We can't believe what we've stumbled upon. Sore-arsed, wind-whipped, dusty, dirty and hungry, we're astounded to learn that the renovated stables are a Gasthof. The woman at the front desk is more than happy to pour us a cold Saku from the fridge (guesthouse lobby doubles as guesthouse "baar") as we fill out our registration card, adding that the first floor of the manor houses a restaurant. Kolga: truly an oasis. We got a room and a shower, then walked over to have a look at the grounds behind the manor house. A bunch of local teenage girls and guys were hanging out, smoking and doing bike-tricks; same teen activities worldwide, only the backdrop changes -- these wheelies and smoke-rings practiced amongst historic, crumble-down ruins. For centuries, the manor house belonged to the Stenbock Family of Sweden; ownership since independence has been returned to Finnish relatives of the Stenbocks). We headed inside for a first-class meal in the restaurant, where we are the only customers. Salad with chicken and corn, elk-meat blinys with mushroom sauce, dumplings with candied fruit, clear soup with salmon and baked ice cream.

Exhausted from the day's meanderings, we drift off to Jim Carrey in "Liar, Liar" on Estonian TV... What would tomorrow bring?

Post No Bombs

2007-04-04T15:49:00.000+02:00

John's post on the Soviet missile base we visited in Lithuania is ready for launch! Follow link for captivating story and photos! 10...9...8...7...6...5...

Putting the "Hes" in Hesburger

2007-04-04T13:06:00.000+02:00

J and I figured we'd better try out some local "American-style" fast food at least once during our stay in Estonia. Technically, that would mean "Nehatu", an Estonian chain, but I'd already sampled their fare years before, when it had a 24-hour outlet in the parking lot next to the Viru Hotel (the lot's since been converted into a giant shopping mall).

Had not, however, tried the now-ubiquitous "Hesburger". This burger empire originates in Turku, Finland, and apparently bought up the previously-ubiquitous Carrol's chain, converting all those restaurants into Hesburger joints.

We decided April Fools' Day would be the best date to set aside for fast-food boogers and fries, nearly exactly midway through our stint abroad, and symbolic to boot; only a fool would bother eating frites outside of Quebec, that haven of heavenly earth apples, and the Estonian homemade meat patty, the "kodukotlet", with black bread on the side, far exceeds what any northern European teenager can manage with frozen beef and dry white buns (whether shivering under Hesburger employee polyester slacks, or toasting on the grill).

On April 1, however, we were stuck in Lahemaa National Park, trying to find a bike path --tangible, existing in reality and resembling anything, anything at all-- as depicted on our map. Total disaster, as we headed around in cartoon-like circles, a million different paths, all different kinds, sandy, mossy, gravel, mud, pavement, none of them the right one, all leading to ones we'd taken before.

We finally got on a hiking trail which was gorgeous, and thought we'd just ride it instead (soft pine-needle rug, basically). Beautiful surroundings notwithstanding, we were heading the wrong way once again, soon to be chased down in 2 different places by vicious, and I mean vicious, dogs. We'd unfortunately ridden the back-end in to some private territory (we saw signs to that effect on our heart-pounding and breathless retreat). The first dog barked maniacally from the other side of a little stream. We figured we were safe, since our "path" was on the other side of the water... that is, until we noticed that the dog had full and convenient access to some 2X4s serving as a wooden plank-bridge over the stream, and started running for us. Thankfully, the dog's owners came out of their house and called the dog back just as he reached our side. A short while later, we ran into another canine security guard. I was chicken and held back... J was more optimistic, suggesting he was just "checking us out". Then he came a-running. We were pretty close to getting chewed up like a couple of um, Hesburgers. More about the bike trip later.

Hesburgers would therefore have to wait until the April Fools made it out of the forest and back to Tallinn -- though not too long. Stayed up far too late the night of April 2, discovering and celebrating the wonderful ins and outs of Skype technology, waking up a touch bleary-eyed and stomachs-a-growlin'. And so this, the third day of April, of this year, the two-thousand and seventh, was officially declared Hesburger Day.

Exciting New Products

2007-04-03T08:09:00.000+02:00

Exciting New Product no. 1: Safety Reflectors

On our first morning in Tallinn, we ate our breakfast herring and boiled eggs facing the street in the hotel restaurant. Early enough, Friday a.m., people rushing to work. A number of these had small discs hanging from their clothing, from their lapels, some swinging from bags and purses. Could the fad of not removing price-tags from expensive or "hot" threads have spread beyond the Tallinn hip-hop community to these fast-paced corporate folk, these secretaries, travel agents, IT specialists? We couldn't have guessed then that the Estonian Road Administration, and its enforcement of a mandatory reflector-wearing policy for pedestrians during dark hours of dark days in dark seasons and in poorly-lit areas, was behind it all. Drivers don't have too much respect for pedestrians, despite their number, so it's not a bad idea. Considering the stats on rundown pedestrians, it's a very good idea. From Baltics City Paper Tidbit Facts, "Without a reflector, a driver can see you at about 30 meters; add a reflector, you’re visible at 130."

Hence, the discs. But it must have been hard to get a nation of fashion-conscious consumers to integrate the traffic safety device with a given season's look. Thank goodness "alterpreneuring" companies like "Good Mood" were there to start designing pedestrian-friendly haute couture and/or corporate-sponsored reflectors (all government-approved); high-style encouragement for the obligatory safety accessory.

At the same time, Tarbitjatekaiseamet, the Estonian Consumer Protection Board, warns that "consumers must pay attention to the fact that products only resembling reflectors are not reflectors, they don't replace reflectors and do not protect the user," cautioning buyers and sellers alike that "instead of buying a reflector a person may buy accidentally a glimmering toy or a keychain."

Well, keeping the sober words of the Tarbitjatekaiseamet in mind, we did our best to stay focused on reflectors and shield our eyes from unsuitably dazzling doodads, in the end foiling the crooked motives of keychain-peddling charlatans. We spotted the above, completely legitimate reflex-reflector, through a kiosk vitrine in Tartu, and picked up 2. By total fluke, ours are indeed "Good Mood" reflectors, of the corporate subtype, ours bearing the name and logo of the national postal service, "Eesti Post".

"Introduction to Use" informs thusly: "Attach reflector knee-height on the right side of your body. The reflector must hang freely and be seen from back and front. If the reflector is badly rubbed or damaged other ways, it should be changed to a new one. Reflector must be used in the dark also in built-up areas."

And further inscribed is the state and scientific benediction: "Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Department of Physics (FIOH), Topeliukenkatu 41 a A, FIN=00250 Helsinki, Finland, notified body no. 0403, has EC type examined this product according to Directive 89/686/EEC".

Exciting New Product no. 2: Good Morning!

Single-portion hangover remedy in a jar, now we're talking.
IN EMERGENCY, BREAK GLASS!!!

If that doesn't work, you can always reach for a Baltika #3, the quintessential Breakfast Beer. Or, depending on day's activities, start in right away on the heavier stuff -- after all, your pickle-chaser is all ready to go.

Exciting New Product nos. 3, 4: Maxi-Sticks and Meiran Sinappi

The CoMarket has a new product! These are no regular pretzels. These doozies, at 27 cm, come in 4 flavours (garlic, onion, sesame and pepper). We've tried garlic and onion. I actually found the junkyard website of the Slovakian producer, Zael, S.R.O. From what I can gather, these are the company HQs in a town called Lučenská. Keep it up, gang! Next year's M-Sticks should challenge EU pretzel-length standards by adding at least a couple of cms (for details, see Article II(g) of EEC Pretzel Directive 45/70-56).

And what is a pretzel without its mootarde? Here's our favourite new condiment. A sweeter, snappier "sinappi" that lends itself particularly well to pretzel-dipping. Giant squeezy bottle encourages the artful composition of burnt umbrish soft-serve mustard mounds and decorative flourishes in dipping bowl. (For best results, apply gentle even pressure with steady, ideally sober, hand.)

Teletorn

2007-03-31T01:50:00.001+02:00

Musical Interlude, Eesti moodi

2007-03-25T08:00:00.001+02:00

If singing constitutes a fundamental part of Estonian national consciousness and was key in inspiring and fuelling political change, where does singing and music currently fit in in Estonian culture overall? If singing folk songs could uphold a revolution, then what might come of tranformations to traditional Estonian song and future manifestations of the Estonian national voice?

As a starter, sample these tunes by Mighty Windish musical group Collage. Active in the '70's, I was told that the group is once again in vogue (their music was being played on several separate visits to the same cafe). Apparently, these groovy ditties are 1970's reworkings of traditional folk songs.

To hear more, we checked out the celebrated Estonian Men's Choir last week at the Estonia Kontserdisaal (Concert Hall). The pieces -- in Norweigan, French and Latin -- were wonderful, complex and varied, some jolly, others haunting, many uplifting. We were so impressed, we snuck a vid. By the way, the choir is being led by Carl Hogset, from Norway.

Next day, we were in Tartu, in a guesthouse... with TV! A couple of full circuits through the satellite offerings churned up fantastic news, especially for the realiTV-starved. Eesti Otsib Superstaari was airing that night! We caught the last half hour or so, enough to wonder how the contestants were faring with the stoney-faced judges and grab a video sample to take home.

Estonians are clearly nuts for the show. The videos posted by Estonia's TV3 on YouTube have thousands of hits. Even my uploaded video, thrice removed -- with crap-quality intermittent picture and feedback buzz -- has already amassed over 800 YouTube views. It's one thing to re-folkify and classicize the Estonian national voice, but what will become of it once it done been American Idolized? Will the nation see its "superstaar" as a symbol of the Estonian musical character, as constituting its choral core, charged with the vocal maintainance of Estonia's political and cultural future? Not likely. As with the other "Idol" franchises worldwide, this "Singing Revolution" is more about local participation in global pop culture phenomena. More to the point, with a population of just 1.4 million (fewer than live on the Island of Montreal), Estonian young folk are tuning in to "Eesti otsib superstaari" to see themselves, and their friends and neighbours, on TV, doing the Jon Bon Jovi and Christina Aguilera impressions that, until then, they'd only been ballsy enough to perform in sauna anterooms on pitch-black polar evenings into vodka bottle mics. No one is heading to Hollywood with this yellow ticket. Try-outs have been held in 4 Estonian towns, Tallinn being one of them. Assuming that's where the rest of the show will unfold, for some finalists, the yellow ticket probably means bus fare down to the TV3 studio. On the episode I saw, the numbers on the contestants' pinnies were barely into the hundreds, and shots from "on deck" revealed near-empty rooms. No mallfuls of queued-up, pumped up teens, no stadiumfuls of hopefuls: statistically impossible. There is also a noticeable lack of typical post-Simon behaviour. No slamming doors, no vicious outbursts needing bleeping out, no howling, tear-streaked faces, no trembling huddles of the nauseous and the nervously broken down, no appeals to talk to the hand; such behaviours do not meld well with the Estonians' stoic, outwardly emotionless demeanor. In this sense, then, a distinct national character is emerging in Estonia's superstaar search. Who knows, maybe they'll pull some technological firsts for "Idol" as well -- after all, Estonia is the first nation in the world to have Internet voting in national elections. If I could only understand what was being said ...

Sagrada Familia: Brought to you en siete (7) idiomas!

2007-03-21T10:43:00.000+02:00

And thoughts turned back to Barcelona ....
Y los pensamientos dieron vuelta de nuevo a Barcelona...
Et les pensées ont tourné de nouveau à Barcelone...
Und Gedanken drehten sich zurück zu Barcelona...
En gedachten die terug naar Barcelona worden gedraaid...
Ed i pensieri hanno girato di nuovo a Barcellona...

The Sagrada Familia construction site in Barcelona offers you beautiful views of the best Europe has to offer in contemporary scaffolding, safety barriers, harmonic machine noise and masterpieces-in-progress for the union-approved capital renovation and maintenance rate of 8 Euros. In the basement museum, visitors are invited to learn more about the long history and slow implementation of the building's construction, figure out what parts of the building were in fact constructed while lunartist Gaudi was alive, watch real-live restoration-engineers craft plaster models of building parts that don't now -- and may never -- exist, and learn about how to make donations to ensure construction in perpetuity.

Also in the basement, the attraction features a non-functioning, wall-mounted and coin-operated sound guide, precursor to the contemporary, and now conveniently mobile, audio guide. If working, the "Guia Turistica Sonora" might have provided visitors insight into one of the exhibits located closest to the apparatus in one of 7 European languages.

* Demostración: cómo funcionar el aparato turístico / Démonstration : comment se fonctionne l'appareil touristique / Demonstration: wie man den touristischen Apparat laufen läßt / Demonstration: how to operate the touristic apparatus / Demonstratie: hoe te om de toeristische apparaten in werking te stellen / Dimostrazione: come fare funzionare l'apparecchio turistico.

*Nuestras apologías, versión catalana inasequible en este tiempo

Really, I wonder if this machine ever worked. What did it say? How long was the message? Did it previously accept pesetas, and was it updated in 2002 to accept Euro coins? (It doesn't look post-2002 to me.) What length of message, or informational nugget, constitutes "good value" for pocket change? Were the original messages recorded by native speakers of each of the 7 languages, or read out syllable by frightening robotic syllable by grating mid-'80s computer voices? What, if any, language was considered for insertion into the empty 8th slot? Is the apparatus temporarily out of order because its clunky recordings are soon to be updated with state-o'-the-art machine translation software?

In celebration of the new translation tech, as well as the semantic and pragmatic impediments that will forever plague it, and with a respectful tip-o'-the-hat to oddball playback devices and "translation" machines of past and present, I hereby add a translation feature to this page. The Babelfish buttons translate the page immediately, though only into one of those 8. The other flags lead to Google Translation, which offers more tongue-swapping combos (including English to Russian), but needs the URL to be pasted in.

Snug as a bug...

2007-03-20T21:09:00.001+02:00

...in a rug. That is, as well-placed as any type of microscopic listening device woven securely and indiscernibly into the decorative fibres of a floor-covering, whether or not it is being employed as a wall ornament.

As promised, here's the other ЛЕНИН carpet that was on display at Grutas Park. Consider yourself surveilled.

All-Season Ducks

2007-03-19T12:20:00.000+02:00

Mallards are all-season birds in Tallinn. Throughout the winter, they hunker down on the snow in great, silent huddles, sometimes nesting over steaming manholes. These hardy quackers made it through the ice and cold -- here they are after the thaw, scrambling for treats near a bus stop on Sopruse pst.

Siauliai, Lietuva

2007-03-17T14:24:00.001+02:00

We weren't the only ones heading to Siauliai (pronounced "Show-lay"..., "ow" as in "ouch"). Fortunately, we'd followed the otherwise spotty advice provided at the info-booth and bought tickets inside the station. Seat number assignments do mean something in the Baltics (even -- or especially -- on buses and in cinemas), which can be handy when things start getting tight. J wasted no time shooing an interloping duo out of our seats -- nos. 41 and 42, the back of the bus -- a great perch from which to follow the unwieldy and complex Rubic's-cubic seat-swapping game that ensued. The bus was nearly full, but passengers continued to board. It seems those who'd bought tickets from the driver had no official seat assignments, and were banished elsewhere once rightful claimants appeared. From a mathematical standpoint, one and only one resolution to the Siauliai shuffle was possible; it revealed itself when the 6 or 7 seatless travellers finally admitted defeat -- after a ridiculous, lengthy, yet forever optimistic, display of squeezing in and out, stowing and restowing of luggage, bumping, knocking and elbowing -- to stand in the aisle for the duration of the ride.

Why Siauliai? Well, we'd arranged to have a tour the following day of a decommissioned Soviet missile base located in Zemaitija National Park. The park was only a couple hours' drive from Sialiai, but not serviced by public transport, so we had no way of getting there. We'd looked into renting a car, but the major rental agencies only operated out of Vilnius and the coastal cities. We figured even if we didn't make it to the park, Siauliai was a convenient midway point on the upcoming return trip to Tallinn via Riga. We raced to Tourist Info before they shut down for the day, hoping they'd be able to call a local car rental agency on our behalf. In the end, they helped us strike a deal with a taxi company; a car with driver would take us to the base and back the following afternoon. We made it to the base, and back. Our driver twisted the agreement, however, demanding extra money in the end. And this, after accompanying us on the tour itself -- he'd never been there, and clearly quite enjoyed himself. I got to (had to) have my first argument in Russian since this trip began. I surrendered, exasperated and sputtering.

Here's a sneak peek at the entranceway to the missile base -- J is going to post about the base itself. That's Ausra, our tour guide, clinging cautiously to concrete while descending the narrow, snow-covered steps. The Russian graffitti above the door reads "Wipe Your Feet". Chomping at the bit is grumpy-driver man, eager to take advantage of the complementary tour.

We spent nearly all day with Mr. Grumpy, in fact. We'd ordered a taxi that a.m. to go to the Hill of Crosses, another Siauliai attraction, and he'd shown up for that. A Yahoo! video documents the weird walk-up-and-over the hill and features a great voice-over brief (by webmaster of "thelithuanians.com") compiled from the hill's Wikipedian entry and other sources. Whatever your take on pilgrimage and cross-planting, a giant pile of anything gathered over time is always eerie and interesting. The traditional Lithuanian carved crosses were particularly nice, as were the home-made ones (out of pipe, fencing, floorboard mouldings, pencils).

We rounded out our day of tourism with a visit to the Siauliai Bicycle Museum. "Vairas," located in Siauliai, was a major bicycle and engine factory in the Soviet time. It's since been privatized but continues to make bikes ("The Panther"). The museum had a lot of groovy exemplars from various bicycle manufacturers across the USSR and Europe. Sigh, makes a gal sorely miss her Écovélo, 'specially since the Tallinn snow's all melted.

The spiritual pilgrimage to the hill of crosses obviously didn't leave our cranky driver in a very beneficent mood. Though the super-friendly gals at Tourist Info arranged the car and told us it would be 35 Litas ("Don't pay until you get back..."), he informed us that that was the "old" price. Whatever. He was the one sputtering this time, as he fought to explain this in very patchy English. We ignored his artful pleas, rightfully kept our cash and jumped out of the car.

When the same guy wandered into the hostel later that day, it had to be to pick us up for the missile base trip. Without thinking, I blurted out -- in Russian -- "It's us -- again."
"A-ha, you speak Russian." Despite having found a common language, he welcomed no chit-chat, saving his words instead for the second (by now, inevitable) price feud of the day.

We had a blast in Siauliai despite having to act like real tourists in order to get to these hard-to-access places. It was smaller and far less ostentatious than some of the other cities we'd visited. We had a chuckle at this shoe store's display; it opens onto the city's main walking and shopping promenade.

We stayed at Siauliai Kolegijos Jaunimo Navynes Namai -- a former college, very nicely renovated and serving as a "youth" hostel. The staff was cranky here, too, though warmed up substantially, giving us student discounts on the already dirt-cheap per-bed charge.

By the end of our 2-day stay, we had sampled some delicious snacks and sipped a variety of tasty local "trauktine" (bitters) at a handful of places around town. We were even welcomed like regulars at the nearby theatre cafe where we'd returned 3 times for snacks, beer and breakfast. I particularly enjoyed watching the giant projection of Cher's "Believe" concert DVD through dinner at "Arkos" on March 9. On this day-after-women's-day, we were surrounded by staff parties, bouquets and store-bought cakes. No one was holding back on vodka or congratulatory toasts.

We made another bus blunder the morning of our departure from Lithuania. We hadn't bothered checking bus times to Riga, assuming idiotically that one would be revving up to go just as we wandered over to the station, putting us in Riga at exactly the right time to transfer to the Riga-Tallinn express. But there would be no bus to Riga for another hour. And, despite the mere 128 kms that needed covering, it would purportedly take 3.25 hours to get there! The bus belched out of Siauliai and limped down the crippled road to Riga. There were 5 of us heading out this Sunday morning on a full-sized coach, and 2 got off at the first stop. (We were nearly 6, but the driver barred entrance to a puffy-faced, black-eyed, bloodied and reeking drunk -- standing vertical only because propped up and tended to by a companion.) We reckoned our tickets didn't even cover the cost of gas. We pulled into Riga earlier than forecasted -- at exactly noon -- and, miraculously, just as the Riga-Tallinn bus was pulling out. We flagged it down and were able to assemble the fare from our various currencies. We were back in Tallinn at dinnertime.

Kaunas, Lietuva

2007-03-14T11:50:00.000+02:00

We got to Kaunas -- eventually. When we hit the bus station in Druskininkai, we were the only travellers there. The WC concierge had yet to set up shop (though scurried over before we could sneak in for a free pee). I endeavoured to buy bus tickets at the booth -- the woman asked where we were going. "Now?" she inquired, stunned to hear we were off to Kaunus on the 9:35. Seems we had selected the milkiest of runs. We were instructed to buy our tickets from the driver (he seemed unsure of the price "all-the-way-to-Kaunus"?) and were the only ones to board. I asked the driver how long it would take to get there. (Distance from Druskininkai to Kaunas: 126 km)

--How long until we arrive?
--One.
--Is that all? Just one?
--No! One!
--Really? One?
--No! After three -- I mean, at one!

It finally clicked. "One" as in "one o'clock", not meaning the trip would take an hour. This was the only option available, so we settled in for the ride and the country-style views. Our mid-size bus bucked and bobbed through a zillion tiny hamlets with wooden houses, carved totems and busy markets and some more sizeable towns arranged around grey, yet grandiose, squares and wide avenues interminably lined with dingy Soviet-era apartment blocks. Road signs heralding places called Leipalingis, Veisiejai, Lazdiju, Balbieriskis and Prienu trickled past as the bus trundled on, taking on passengers and usually dropping them off just a few stops down the road. The city of Alytus was our mid-point; we spent 5 minutes here, at platform 5, before resuming the journey to Kaunus.

Kaunas, Lithuania's second-largest city, was an interesting town -- grittier, dingier, seemingly more volatile than Vilnius, apparently its much-detested rival. Like a Vilnius that didn't get invited to the prom. We checked in to "Kauno arkivyskupijos Svečių namai", Guesthouse of Kaunas Archdiocese, then spent the evening checking out a handful of Kaunas cafes and nightspots. The city was hopping. It was March 8th -- Women's Day -- after all. Restaurant vases poised themselves for incoming tulips amid the 'pop' of champagne corks from darkened alleyways. We dropped into Miestos Sodas for beer and cheesy easy-listening piano accompaniment, had a snack at a restaurant called 55° -- that made its own "moonshine", and capped the night off at B.O. (standing for Blue Orange), where we enjoyed observing the inability of young Kaunas bo-hos to sit still. After darting back and forth, pacing, entering and exiting, stumbling over here and wobbling back over there, a sizeable bunch eventually became sufficiently inebriated to gather at one of the back barrooms to engage in a raucous group sing-along. Our holier than thou accommodation provided suitable respite after being privy to the March 8th debauch.

Back to the bus station, and on to Siauliai...

Druskininkai, Lietuva

2007-03-13T19:12:00.000+02:00

The bus was headed for Druskininkai, Lithuania -- near the southern border with Belarus, but we got off here, at the town of Grutas, and walked the few kilometers to Gruta Parkas, also referred to as "Stalinworld." It's a Soviet sculpture and theme park, built on a private estate (the owner of the museum used to be the manager of a kolkhoz, then made his fortune in the mushroom business). The park obtained a bunch of the statues (Stalin, Lenin, Lithuanian party leaders and heroes, etc.) and monuments taken down at the end of the Soviet regime. Though the park in no way intends to diminish the worst of Soviet history -- in fact, serves as an important reminder -- it takes a lighthearted approach to remembrance and a critical one to nostalgia by recreating an atmosphere that celebrates all-things-Soviet in the extreme. The staff wear red scarves as did the Young Pioneers, crackling speakers attached to rickety guard towers provide an ever-present soundtrack, playing old-time marches and rollicking Soviet ditties. They've even duplicated the old Soviet pricing regime, right down to charging an extra 5 Litas for photographing privileges (at the ticket booth, J was sternly instructed to pin his permission slip to his coat (pin provided)).

The sculptures are installed along a walking path that winds its way through a crisp pine forest, the route interrupted every so often by cabins housing Soviet-style installations (a library, party meeting room, "voting" station) with commentary and displaying socialist realist art and other period knick-knacks.

The exhibition route leads you unswervingly to the park cafe and souvenir shop. We skipped the "Nostalgia Menu" (which offers things like the "Farewell, My Youth" meat-cutlet plate and other classics), opting instead for contemporary Lithuanian fare. I'd been noticing the word "boletus" a lot since having arrived in Lithuania, and wondered whether it was a bad translation of something otherwise familiar. Surprise, it's a type of mushroom! Though considering Grutas Park's owner's prior business expertise, it was no surprise that the mushroom soup at Gruto Parkas was top-notch. Unfortunately, we had to bolt our boletus, since buses from Grutas to Druskininkai were few and we didn't want to miss the 4:22. We headed back to the stop with time to spare, and waited.

And waited some more.

There would be no 4:22. We changed strategies and sidled up alongside a couple of women who appeared from somewhere in the tiny Grutas settlement to stand firmly on a square of unmarked pavement. A minibus passed by a short while later, but it was already full to its minibussi brim and by now our regiment had grown to at least 5 people. We awkwardly squeezed into the aisle and hoped we were actually heading the 7 kms to town (though we started out in another direction). I tried to glean from some of the other passengers just where we should disembark, but the Russian-speaking ones turned out to be visitors as well ("Мы сами не местные"). One of them eventually asked where exactly we needed to go -- I sheepishly translated "Love Island" into Russian. He replied, snickering, something to the effect of "There's even one of those here, is there?"

We were trying to make our way to "Love Island". We'd booked a nice-looking and surprisingly cheap room at this guesthouse, "located on the scarp of famous Lithuanian river — Nemunas, near the «Love» island". Druskininkai is a small town (pop. about 27,000), so should be easy to find. We followed the map I'd scribbled down from the "where to find us" info online, which led us into a newish, dacha-style suburb with large homes, barking dogs, few finished roads, a rapidly setting sun, and no mobile phone signal. Realizing we'd gone too far (we'd stupidly followed the only paved road), we retraced our steps and stopped to watch a couple of cars try to unstick themselves from a swampy mud-hole. One of the spectators seemed approachable -- I asked whether there was a "hotel" back there somewhere, in the dark and beyond the mud.

"Yes, there is a hotel! Come along, I'll show you. Though you should never try to get there this way, through these mudflats. As you can see, too muddy! But please, follow me, I'll take you there, through this mud, just, please assure me you won't come this way next time -- what with all this mud! Come along, it's just over here, you can see it there, just on the other side of this mud." (This all exclaimed via excited Lithuanian-Russian-German lexical mash-up.) It was quite hilarious. Indeed, just past all the mud, in the middle of a field, was the "Love Island" guesthouse. It was a very nice place, just impossible to access in Druskininkai's squishy soft-earth season.

Actually, the town's raison d'etre is all things "sanatorium". It's a much-visited (by Polish pensioners) health resort and is therefore famous for its therapeutic mud and mud procedures, not to mention its "7 unique spurting mineral springs". It seems the contemporary spa is gradually replacing the sanatorium, however, meaning things like '4-hands relaxation and aromatherapy massage with choice of fruit smoothie' is quickly moving up the popularity scale while 'rectal mud tampon' drops out of sight and into the therapeutic procedural history book. Reflecting this recent trend is the town's newest highlight -- Vandens Parkas -- a massive aquapark, one third of which is dedicated to an enormous baths/bathhouse complex offering several fanciful steaming options representing various national traditions. The Hamam baths even have a "dancing ground... on which the belly dancers appear according to your request." We jealously watched the introductory video in the Parkas luxurious lobby, but sadly didn't have time to visit (nor the requisite bathing suits).

The fellow who showed us the way to "Love Island" had pointed out the better way to get to town -- 50 metres thataway along the building in the opposite direction, then turn 90 degrees and follow the mud-road, but walk next to it on the high grasses through the brush and brambles, and you'll eventually come to a paved road. We managed it despite the undeveloped-subdivision rural darkness. We were lucky it was a moonlit night or we'd never have made it to, or back from, town for/with provisions. Here's what the mud-field looked like the next morning (some flattening and redistibution had been done early that a.m. by (noisy) bulldozer, and there'd been a bit of hardening overnight). Never did see the river, so not sure whether we actually were on a "scarp".

Our Druskininkai-nian exodus begins at the bus station. And we're off ... to a slow start and even slower road -- towards Lithuania's second-largest city, Kaunus.

Vilniaus, Lietuva

2007-03-11T18:08:00.000+02:00

Alas, no time to take full blog-stock (and barrel) of Barcelona. It was still "spring break" so we decided to hit the road once again and right away -- enough time to change our shoes and pack our dirty clothes for washing upon arrival at destination-as-yet-unknown. After several unsuccessful attempts to buy tickets to Stockholm on the myriad ferry lines that transport happy Scandinavians from coastal capital to coastal capital in cruise-glam luxury surrounded by duty-free booze, we decided we'd best stay on land and in the Baltics.

As an aside... it's not difficult to ferry to Stockholm -- s'long's you do choose the "cruise" variant and, unless you want to travel "lux", you should be prepared to bunk with strangers in gender-specific cabins. The cruise variant has you travelling overnight, spending a mere 6-7 hours in Stockholm, then night-boating it back to Tallinn. Even though these cruises depart daily from Tallinn, you're not invited to divide up cruises into one-way fares in order to spend time in Sweden. One-way options seem to be available, but information about these is kept under wraps, the complex algorithms used to arrive at prices for the many cabin/berth configurations and fractions thereof (e.g. things like "Q2, A4, B2/4" to the power of many n's) aren't explained, nor is the sum of any of these equations bookable online (instructions unavailable in either English or Russian). Despite all this, a company service representative will be happy to frustrate you and also answer a portion of your questions in person or by lengthy email correspondence.

So we hopped on a bus, this one to Vilnius, capital of Lithuania. It was soon apparent that the Lithuanians are fond of making their venues into "attractions", thus, designing them according to unusual themes and surprising motifs. In terms of interior decor, every surface is considered, nothing left unadorned, every opportunity for audacity, sometimes gaudiness, certainly extremity, always fun, is welcomed and exploited. This regiment of table-heaving gnomes and expanse of astro-turfed wall at cafe Gras'as faces the street, though the bulk of the venue is downstairs in a labyrinth of carpeted and chandeliered caves.

We took a trip by city bus to Vilnius's outer burbs to visit "Kukuruzininkas", a cafe-bar built around an airplane theme, if not an actual airplane. Full cockpit and propeller on display, the rest is made up of airplane seats, an interior shell, airplane parts, pictures and manuals. Here I am getting ready for take-off, and again, settling into the in-flight program after the flight crew passed by with its cabin service.

We'd been warned that service was be horrible in Lithuania, but we didn't experience that at all. We did notice that a few places (ironically, not the airplane restaurant) had buttons/doorbells at your table that said "Please Press For Service". The most ridiculously over-the-top place we visited was "Cili Kaimas", a massive three-storey food-and-beverage-plex with a gigantic tree growing up from its subterranean depths, a live rooster cock-a-doodling at the entrance, an open fish pond and snake aquarium. Click here and choose "Kaimas" for an unfortunately unrepresentative peek at the restaurant's interior and a peruse what's on offer for tapas in the Lithuanian style (liberal use of smoked pork ears). The menu was the size of a medieval manuscript and had full-page glossy ads for featured wines. Dishes were referred to by such brain-teasing riddles as "Nude Maids in Sweet-Flags," "Strong For A Long Time" and "So That Evening Does Not Prolong".

The most famous Lithuanian dish is "cepelinai" -- literally, zeppelins -- after which they're named. Think gummy potato paste football filled with a chunk of meat or curd -- and you've got it. Not that "dirigible", really, especially since they're additionally weighed down with sour cream and cracklings sauce. We tried them the once.

Let it be known that we did more than eat and drink on our trip to Lithuania. After 2 days in Vilnius, we boarded another bus. Destination: Gruto Parkas.

Tapas on the Mapas

2007-03-03T14:55:00.000+02:00

The tapas. We set out in search of bits and bites, mouthfuls and morcels soon after arrival. We had some trouble ordering at first (where to begin -- carnes, fish, seafood, salads, tortillas, brochettes, grilled veggies?), but hit our stride after a few days and after nabbing some choice perches at the bar counters, ordering a few things from the displays, then pointing to creations that the patrons next to us were getting, but we weren't seeing either displayed or on the menu.

Notable highlights were anything with "bacalao" (cod), like pimientos del piquillo rellenos de bacalao, (red peppers stuffed with cod paste), pimientos de padrón, (small green peppers, fried and sea-salted), sepiones a la plancha (grilled cuttlefish), boquerones en vinagre (sardine fillets in vinegar) and pulpo a la gallega (Galician octopus).

We also finally mastered the "menu del dia" -- the lunch special -- consisting of una primera, un segundo, pan, bebida y postre. Choice of firsts, seconds, bread, drink and dessert. We were astonished to learn (and the waiter amused to hear us inquire) that we could choose any drink at all -- he graciously listed them all -- we could even have champaña, if we so desired! (Keep in mind, this was no 4-star joint -- just a local lunch spot, complete with key-at-the-counter for the ladies' loo.) The standout here was the 1st course combo plate of jamon (ham) and pineapple -- a decisive victory over the dough-delivered Hawaiian version.

On our last night in Barcelona, we returned to the Gracia district for more grub. We'd decided to check out "Sureny," claimed (as per TimeOut Barcelona) to be a hidden gastronomical gem, and happened to be just 2 doors down from the "llar de foc" that we'd enjoyed so much on the lazy Sunday previous. Suspicious of any gourmet pretentions, we approached the restaurant with cautious optimism and a wadful of Euros. The meal started out on a strange and surprising note with cod cream and red pepper puree, topped with a slick of soft blood sausage (the concoction served in a wine glass!). A rich treat to be sure. Highlights from the next several hours of culinary oohs and ahhs included...

...banana tubes filled with red curry foam and tiger prawns ...

... deer sirloin with tangerine sauce...

...and, lastly, scallop tartare with shitake mushrooms and strawberry vinaigrette.

We were too stunned by the first round of ordering to get photos -- we enjoyed the tuna with ginger and lime, the suckling pig and the green peppers al Padron just as much -- and remember them well. Each dish was better and even more artfully arranged than the last and we left feeling like we had been treated to something truly special.

We thought it an appropriate homage to the Plateau to duck into nearby "Elsa Bar" for farewell-to-Barcelona cocktails. This Else's was run by Elsa, from Cuba, who'd been a known stage singer in Havana, as advertised by the posters and assorted nostalgia decorating the bar. Now in Barcelona, Elsa'd moved from mixing show tune line-ups to mixing mean mojitos. The process was lovingly long and elaborate; we thought it should be documented, and Elsa kindly obliged. Here's the how-to:

Souvenir #3

2007-03-03T13:58:00.000+02:00

Oddball souvenir prospects in tourist-saturated Spain looked dim -- a search for a flea market in Riga had turned up nothing (food markets, no fleas) -- and similar assumptions had to be made about fancy-pants, art nouveau Barcelona. A closer look at an old travel guide on Day 6, however, talked of a big junk-and-all market (Els Encants Veils) near Plaça de les Glories Catalanes. It was a mix of everything -- old crap -- bottles, dishes, dusty, crusty books strewn on blankets, mountains of porn (DVD and VHS, too), paintings, mountains of clothes, purses, socks, undies and bras, bangles and baubles, furniture, cameras, coins, tools and machinery. I spotted a tiny, perfectly rectangular flask that looked cracked on its edge -- the seller wouldn't budge from 6 € even though J pointed out the likelihood of it leaking. We passed. J spotted a great old Spanish watch -- no lower than 30 €, though the piece was very banged up, would need some repairs, a new crystal, etc. I finally came across a viewfinder in the guise of a TV that showed scenes of something/somewhere called "Sto. Esperanza Calasparra" (apparently, these are photos of a 'sanctuario' in Calasparra, a town in 'Murcia', an autonomous region in Spain). Though we'd been nowhere near Murcia, the viewfinder pics were reminiscent of what we'd seen of the Monastery at Montserrat a few days before.

As often happens at flea markets -- the seller isn't minding his/her stall when you're stoked for haggling. We returned to the stall 3 times -- and finally got a price from an operator one stall over. 6 €. We had to walk off scowling, grumbling, spitting and flailing to get this scratched-up plastic kid's toy down to 2 €. But it's a beaut all the same. (In fact, I think this photo of the Senora de la Esperanza through the peephole gives off quite a holy aura when digitally reproduced -- perhaps some kind of divine image -- maybe this post should become prayer-per-view/pay-per view.)

Calçots

2007-03-02T23:48:00.000+02:00

We spent the first couple of days, agape and agog, marvelling at the grandness and enormity of everything in the Eixemple (Modernista) district. Compared to manageable Tallinn, everything was now on scale gigantico. We were wiped by Sunday, and decided to take a breather in the Gracia district and have a wander through Gaudi's Park Guell -- touted as providing natural respite if suffering from art-and-architecture overload and accompanying neck strain and eye blur. Gracia was hopping this Sunday morning -- literally -- we happened upon this swinging scene around lunchtime in Plaça de la Virreina.

Stomachs were grumbling, so we dropped in at restaurante "La llar de Foc". We'd watched a steady stream of slow-stepping neighbourhood oldsters enter the place as we stood outside for too long, perusing the mostly indecipherable menu (in Catalan) and deciding whether or not to head in. Thank goodness we did! A sign on the door promised "Hay calçots" (We have calçots) -- though the hand-drawn diagram wasn't enough for us to make a culinary ID.

Nevertheless, our spectacular waiter made sure we ordered them, and made us promise not to start munching until he'd demonstrated how they should be eaten. These turned out to be grilled leeks with romesco dipping sauce -- the charcoaled outer leek layer slides right off -- and were absolutely delicious. We also ate red peppers stuffed with cod paste -- served in a cheesy cream sauce -- Catalan torrades (toasts), rubbed with garlic and fresh tomato, rabbit, ribs with rosemary and a bottle of red. The place was packed and buzzing and the calçots were being slurped up on all sides as we left to walk off the kkals in Park Guell.

A few short blocks down, we were lured by smoke and smells of sizzling meats and crackling veg, and heard the chit-chatterings and rustling-and-bustlings-about of a sizeable group of folk. We rounded the corner to find... a neighbourhood outdoor calçot feast! These leeks must be a seasonal Catalunyan delicacy.

Surprisingly Close Yet Different

2007-02-25T12:46:00.000+02:00

As I mentioned in the Riga post, some of us have to skedaddle on out of (t)here (Estonia) for some days to maintain our visitor status. J and I originally considered some northern locales -- thinking it appropriate to see just how far north we could get -- see the aurora borealis up close, pat a reindeer, get pulled around by sled-dogs, roll around in snow after hanging out in sauna tipis, the usual stuff.

We corresponded with some guest houses in Rovaniemi and some reindeer farms further north in Lapland. Things started looking more complex than expected -- we were sans vehicle -- how would we get to the farm from Rovaniemi? Could we duly diss Santa's Village and not be banned from the guesthouse breakfast nook? Would we have to drill our own ice fishing holes?

Further research soon revealed that the majority of attractions in northern Finland involved the snowmobile and, as Tallinn got chillier -- our teeth chattering and our longjohns chafing underneath our workaday (non-Gortex) winter fashions -- we started doubting the sturdiness of our apparel, should it be faced with Arctic Circle mid-day excursions (however brief) and northern-lit nights. Why were we heading north into even colder climes? After all, Tallinn is poised on the edge of the EU -- all the Union'ers flying in for mini-breaks to EST, why couldn't we do the same?

Ah, Barcelona. One of a handful of Estonian Air's regular destinations. We decided to take advantage of the relatively short distances and low cost of EU air travel, and booked passage. I tried to let myself ponder only briefly the company slogan, curious as to what exactly the marketing agency had in mind when they settled on "Surprisingly Close Yet Different" for Estonian Air's phrasal stand-in. I certainly hoped the intention was to talk up the country -- emphasizing for European travellers Estonia's location and uniqueness -- and not describing the airline proper.

-Watch out, Captain! Estonian Air is surprisingly close!

-Hm, Estonian Air, you say? How does it compare to other airlines?
-Well, Sir, it's surprisingly close, you know, similar. Yet...
-Yes?
-Yet.. it is, you know, just, well, different.

Corporate identity aside, the flight was fine -- though it was late leaving due to poor weather over... Copenhagen. We lunched on herring and boiled egg salads while waiting for the on-screen departures info to read something other than "Indefinite Delay". It never did, but we were eventually called to board.

Barcelona temperatures were surprisingly close, numerically speaking, to those we'd been enduring in Tallinn -- though we enjoyed the dramatic jump from minuses to plusses (plus-side and plus-size temperatures here gauged on this enormous neon Barcelonian thermometer).

In a quasi-(50~50)-related note, we were slightly disappointed that heading to Spain meant missing the much-advertised Lordi show, to be held in Tallinn on Feb 24. We'd been admiring the posters since we'd arrived -- these "Killers of 2006 EuroVision" (who, in fact, hail from Rovaniemi) promised a fire show at Tallinn's "Saku Suurhall" (think "Rexall Place", but in Estonian, and sponsored by beer instead of pharmacies). If Tallinn's music scene (well, besides the baroque) is to be measured by the postering, this might be the only rock show we'd be treated to during our stay. (Ozzy's not here until June.) We were tickled to see Lordi posters on our first walk-about in Barcelona (Tallinn--Barcelona clearly a popular route).... but were foiled again! Lordi was slated to play March 1, the day we were due to depart.

Surprisingly close, indeed.

[!?!..enjoy...!?!]

Rigas Cirks

2007-02-21T11:31:00.000+02:00

Riga has a permanent circus -- we filed in just before lunchtime behind the kiddies and their babushkas and dyedushkas for some fine, old school, old world, circus entertainment. Before the show, there were pony rides under the big top, the rush to get unbundled at the coat-check, long lines for cotton candy, popcorn and glow-in-the-dark wands, posing for photos with clowns, monkeys, pigs. Highlights of the show included Sasha the clown and his catatonic, sleeping, snoring Scottie dog, Miss Valentina and her performing poodles, Miss Lebedeva and her flying doves, Cossack horse-riders, Chinese plate-twirling, boomerangs and high-flying acrobatics, beach-ball kicking baboons, Mr. Safari, the fire-swallower, goats jumping through rings of fire -- two hours of whimsical wackiness.

Riga, Part II (b)

2007-02-20T21:20:00.000+02:00

We found a great bar on Saturday night. It was called "Gauja" (we looked it up later, and it turns out to be both a national park and the name of a 1961 Latvian-made transistor radio). The place was the size of someone's living room, and was done up just like a Soviet-era, um, living room. The interior design was quite excellent, and the place was very lively -- patrons jumped in and out to the street for smokes, a dog and his walker stopped in for some scratches, the bar-counter doubled as a pillow/face-rest for a weary drinker, there was raucous group singing. Here are some short videos of the place (pardon the sound -- this is the first time loading up vids -- not sure why the voices are out of sync).

"What is the man at the bar doing?"
"Napping."

Gauja looked to be shutting down, so we ambled down the street to "Saksofons," which promised live music. It delivered on the live part, the music (Beatles) was a touch sour (frighteningly out of tune). This might have been a fan who'd asked to sing along with the band for a couple of late-night numbers. I have seen no bartendress as surly and scowly. Things were silly, as they tend to be when things are shutting down for the night. A 5-star Latvian evening.

Riga, Part II (a)

2007-02-20T14:20:00.000+02:00

Riga after an elevator ride up a church spire.

I was hoping to find Souvenir #3 in Riga's massive market. The zeppelin hangars in the above photo are part of the market (there are 2 more hangars linked to those two and one that stands alone, a series of other buildings, and between and surrounding all these are rows and alleyways jammed with stalls and kiosks). Everyone in town was there that day selling something, but nothing of the antique variety. The hangars are full of foodstuffs -- organized loosely according to fish, produce, meats, milk products, sweets and breads -- while the outdoor sellers deal largely with clothing, shoes, insoles, socks, hats, artificial flowers, housewares, cosmetics and bags.

We had a true Latvian lunch at Staburags -- pork and more pork (smoked, roast), something called "grey beans with bacon" (recipe for this and other Latvian faves), Grandma's potatoes. Latvia is really into gambling and chain restaurants. Staburags was part of the "Lido" group of restaurants and bistros -- a handful of these were Latvian-style country buffets. Another chain was Cili pica -- a (pretty mediocre) pizza-in-many-styles restaurant. It's also popular to serve yourself -- there was "Blinoff," a Russian pancake place, where the various blinchikis, syrniki, salatiki and soups were all ready-made. Same thing with "Pelmeni XL," which offered up self-serve vats of already-boiled pelmeni (Russian-style dumplings) and toppings (horseradish, ketchup, parsley, sour cream, mayonnaise) -- fill your bowl and pay by the gram.

We took in one of the shows at the Saxophonia festival -- this one held in the ornate Grand Hall of the Small Guild. Saxophonist Mario Marzi and accordionist Simone Zanchini (Italy) put on a mindblowing show.

Riga, Part I

2007-02-19T14:57:00.000+02:00

Canadians don't need visas to enter Estonia, but vagabonds who haven't been granted work permits are only allowed to lounge about the country for 90 days within a 6-month period. To avoid wearing out my 90-day welcome long before my departure date, the idea is to excurse to neighbouring countries on weekends and on J's lengthy teaching breaks, thus avoiding what's purportedly a hefty fine for days-over-the-limit and benefiting from Estonia's proximity to destinations relatively unfamiliar.

We left Thursday, lunchtime, on Sidetrip no. 1, boarding a Eurolines bus heading for Riga, Latvia. Hotels were pricey, Riga being the next bright star on the European mini-break route, easily accessible by EasyJet, Europe's budget airline. Prices listed in last year's Lonely Planet were already a third higher or more. Some poking around churned up Central-Hostel, a great find for a great price in a great neighbourhood -- away from the touristy trappings of Riga's old town.

The currency in Latvia is the Lat (LVL). Since one of these is equal to around $2.20 CAD, and the smallest bill is a fiver (11 bucks worth), change and cents are important here. Here's J at the Central-Hostel, working out LVL to CAD to Euro to EEK currency conversions with his inner-ear abacus. Not very hostel-ish, in fact... the only thing making it so is the shared (with 3 other private rooms) WC and shower.

We were pretty disappointed with the Riga section of the Lonely Planet -- written by a "Becca Blonde". Yes, Becca, I'd have used a pseudonym, too. (Fewer complaints for her confrere, "Regis St. Louis", who provided the Estonian portion of the Baltic guide.) Hungry from the bus ride, we set off to find a pelmeni place that was recommended -- it no longer existed in that location, whether it ever had (other addresses were wrong). We had some food at the cafe chain that had replaced it, then set off to the old town to find some drinks and entertainments -- one of the Riga Black Balzam bars we tried to go to did not exist -- in wintertime, at least -- as the map location put it right in the middle of a square. We sipped a Balzam anyway, in some other place, and flipped through the weeklies for other options.

One bar called "Bumerangs" boasted "A pleasant atmosphere, bar, billiard, slot machines from world's leading producers -- IGT, Aristocrat, Atronic, Franco, Bally and Novomatic". (Never considered the importance of knowing who manufactured your slot machine. More later about Riga's serious gambling problem.) We opted for "Alcatraz" instead ("the staff scurries about in prison wardrobe managing to remain cheerful whilst bidding [sic] their time"), hoping to find a Latvian country or rock band. The prison garb was less 'prison,' and more 'Maxwell Taylor's', c. 1989. The only thing "maximum security" about the joint was the ridiculous attempt at face control and cover charge -- immediately upon entering, we were warned there would be a 2 Lat charge for the live music (of which there was none -- nor were there any other patrons). A dreary place.

Next morning, we headed out to the suburbs, to Riga's awesome Motormuseum. Here's a sneak peek, but visit J's blog for more details & more photos.

The Sound of Silence

2007-02-16T01:42:00.000+02:00

One notices right away in Estonia that everything, and everyone, is extremely quiet. On one of our first days here, we dropped into a busy supermarket. There was no Muzak, no people chit-chatting, just the squeezing of apples, the rustling of cabbage leaves and the bristling by of fur-coated elbows. Even in some of the hipstser artsy bohemian-type bars, where you'd think the bartender's musical spin cycle would be top priority, the volume is kept so low, you can barely hear the selected tunes. The flipside is you can hear your interlocutors pretty well, and there's no need to shout over other people or the bar's favoured soundtrack. All the same, you still couldn't do much eavesdropping on surrounding tables -- whether it's the language or the temperament, Estonian chitchat is subdued and even mumbles sound muffled.

Even cell phone manners are (enjoyably) restrained. People's ring-tones do chime at volume, and present some of the most tuneless and/or high-spirited Euro-pop variants imaginable, but the ensuing conversations are pleasantly inaudible. One started today with the screamy intro part of James Brown's "I Feel Good" (not only startling in its high-pitched shriekiness, it was disconcerting as it left me pondering the timely association of James Brown + death rattle), but was followed up by none of the usually loud-mouthed one-sided conversational blasts, though the dialogue was taking place a mere metre away from me in the closed quarters of a Eurolines bus.

Cashiers have started blurting out phrases to me just before I pay. I don't know if they want smaller bills or exact change, or whether they're asking me whether "that's all". I doubt they're concerned about the packaging of the groceries ("Will that be paper or plastic, ma'am?"), since they generally have bags for purchase at the cash, and a lot of people recycle their own. Since whatever's uttered is quiet and curt, my initial desire is to say "pardon me"-- idiotic since I wouldn't understand what was being repeated in any case. I pause, then grunt something and give a blank, uncomprending look. Theirs is a blank-faced, silent retort that involves continuing the transaction as if nothing had been asked. An Estonian did assure me, though, that foreigners are not expected to learn any Estonian at all -- and perhaps they don't want them to. This may explain why we've had trouble finding much in the way of teach-yourself Estonian grammar books/CDs (for English speakers).

All of this seems a bit surprising when you learn that Estonia considers itself held together vocally -- through singing. In fact, it was the culmination of national sentiment through song that united the Estonian people, channelling and strengthening their drive for independence from the Soviet Union. The movement is referred to as "The Singing Revolution". Maybe the silence makes sense, then -- Estonians are literally saving their breath for the important stuff.

"Laulev revolutsiion," a documentary film that gives the historical background of the 20th century Soviet occupation of Estonia, followed up by a recap of events leading up to and surrounding the Singing Revolution, premiered in Tallinn in November, and is luckily now (or still) showing. Though not without its problems, the film gave us a useful overview of what's been going on here, and provided some excellent insight into local sentiment with respect to recent events. An article about the film and its makers is here.

Lastly, here's a peek onto the groovy, possibly UFO-inspired, ceiling of the movie house -- the beautiful Kino Sõprus in the Old Town. This photo is not from the Singing Revolution, but from a one-off, full-house screening of "An Inconvenient Truth". Though we showed up with half an hour to spare, we were lucky to nab 2 of the last 3 available tickets. Our seats were in the front row -- you are supposed to sit in the seat you were assigned. This comfortably eliminates the 'lights-out latecomers' seat-finding conundrum' that inevitably transpires whenever there's a packed house. Before the film, a man gave a brief talk, presumably introducing the film -- we gleaned that this was about all things eco-, bio-, and enviro-. Props included two large rocks and a bucket of water, followed up by a second, larger, bucket.

Spice Monkeys

2007-02-14T12:17:00.000+02:00

Here's the spice monkey. (See Robyn's comment in the souvenir section below). There are probably a lot of them still kicking around. Maybe I should ask the guy in the clock kiosk if his parents have a monkey shaker they'd be willing to part with.

Firsts

2007-02-14T00:01:00.000+02:00

Today was a big day full of local firsts. First things first were first up -- 9 a.m. appointment at the "naiste juuksur" -- women's hair salon -- where I finally got the chop-chop that no haircutter back in Montreal would give me. I had basically given up, since wanted the whole short-in-the-back/long-in-the-front bob scenario, but was repeatedly told it couldn't be done. "You can't make that line." "No, you can't get that kind of angle." "No, I'll have to make it curved in the back." "You want that much off? Well, I'll take off as much as I can." (Takes 10 minutes to remove 6 mm, charges me $40 and I leave with wet hair.)

Though Eida at "Starland salong" and I had only Russian as linguistic common-ground (and even that was pretty spotty for the both of us this day), she had a good idea of what I wanted done from the get-go. I was happy to let the scissors fly as soon as there was talk of "Victoria Beckham". This was obviously a reference to Posh Spice's famous hair-do of summer '06 -- a much toned-down version of which I was after. Aaah, how nice to be back on EuroSoil, where one need only "speak Spice" -- to have one's cosmetic and beauty needs suitably looked after.

The second first was breakfast made by J on our new appliance for cooking. When our landlord initially mentioned the possibility of acquiring a stove, he said it had two burners. I asked whether it had an oven -- no, it didn't. That's because it is a hotplate! Urmas delivered it on Sunday night, and we finally got some breakfast fixings and gave it a go.

Rounding out the evening firsts, come suppertime, we had our first buckwheat kasha (since being here). Then we watched "Play Time" by Jacques Tati (after Intro, click on "Play Time" in the building on the left). This movie is so visually stimulating and relentlessly playful, I felt drained afterwards. This was also a first -- though it's the kind of film you want to watch about a billion times to make sure to catch all the beautifully designed details, humorous splashes and artful nuances.

Eelroad

2007-02-12T15:14:00.000+02:00

It's vexing to be able to "read" Estonian, while not knowing the first thing about Estonian etymology. Since Estonian uses the Latin alphabet, one's recognition of familiar patterns and letter-combinations and the tendency to "sound out" creates an illusion of a transferable literacy that is completely, and consistently, wrong. In the realm of foodstuffs, we initially stuck to things we managed to correctly divine, like the everpresent "kartulisalat" (potato+salad), invariably swimming in "majonees". As for city orienteering vocab, because of their ubiquity, it was easy to guess that a shop was a "pood". We quickly noted that a bar was a "baar", a club, a "klubi" and a pub, a "pubi".

I didn't sample anything "eelroad" for a while -- my loss -- as nothing eel-like is involved (marinated lamprey is, mind you, a local favourite) ... these are simply "appetizers". Meat is "liha". I keep thinking that "sealiha" is fish, i.e. sea-meat, but it's actually "pork". "Sink" is ham. Milk is "piim". Sour cream is "hapukoor". Carrots are "porgandi" and cabbage is "kapsas".

Despite the success of this supermarket cryptanalysis, the pressing annoyance now consists in not knowing how to properly pronounce these words. For one, "pood" should not rhyme with "crude", though that's the way it currently sounds in my version.

How Do You Spell "M-E-D-I-Æ-V-A-L"?

2007-02-11T17:45:00.000+02:00

In case anyone following along does not know what the city's main tourist draw is, I thought it best to attach some photos of Tallinn's Old Town. Vana Tallinn -- Old Tallinn -- is incredibly cute, contained and perfectly photogenic. Come summer, however, it is said that the locals flee to the countryside as the cruise ships release their human consumer-cargoes to amass "suvenirid" and British stag party locusts swoop down on the city, plundering the various "erootika baar"s and "massaaz salong"s that pepper the crooks and crannies of the walled city. Until that time, a clear-skied, ice-cold day in the Old Town looks a little like what's pictured below.

It's the kind of place that the styrofoam-sword-wielders on Mont-Royal wish they were returning home to after a long day's battle, to reinforce their cardboard body armour with electrical tape and tend to wounds inflicted by Dollarama skull spears. Instead of taking out chicken wings, frites et sauce and tuning in to Star academie, they'd be hunched over wooden bowlfuls of steaming forest nutmeats and swilling spicy mead while being seen to by the town's plague doctor. Interestingly, there appears to be no local branch (whether canton, shire, barony or village) of the Society for Creative Anachronism in Estonia, despite the ready-made backdrop.

And le soir:

The irony of late (...or, с легким паром)

2007-02-09T09:36:00.000+02:00

I set out in search of bathhouses -- whether Russian-style banyas or Finnish saunas -- to get sweating and to get the chill out. Turns out there are plenty of saunas about, but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of drop-in public, i.e. affordable, steam. One woman told me that any public wash-houses there used to be had disappeared of late -- and what remained of the saunas was too expensive for the "regular" folks who just wanting a washing-up.

The bulk of the saunas I did find are in hotels, are to be booked in advanced and rented by the hour -- serving more as occasional entertainment than healthful routine (especially considering that most advertise bar services, refrigerators, beds, boom-boxes and the like -- even one (the "Russian House") offering free beer). Some are tucked into forests on the outskirts of town -- entire cabins for hire, many encouraging 24-hour bookings. This arrangement likely suits if you have 10-15 people in your party (the hourly charge starts at about 300 EEK ($30 CAD) -- but a bit much if you're only two.

I did discover that Kalma Saun, the oldest sauna in Tallinn, still works as a public bath. They also offer a small private sauna -- accommodating "up to 2 people".

(By my calculations, that would mean either exactly 1 or exactly 2 persons. Though this recalls another encounter we had suggesting local acceptance of the fractionalized person. When our landlord was arranging the delivery of mattresses to our apartment, he asked us whether a mattress with a width of 120 cm "for 1.5 people" would be ok for us... we suggested that since we were 2.0 persons, it would not quite do).

We rented the sauna for an hour, and gratefully ridded ourselves of all the salt, toxic beer residue and varied Nordic grimes we'd accumulated in our first week. Two hours would be ideal, as we were definitely rushed (the damp body always ungainly in its response to hurried encasement in longjohns/tights, fuzzy thick socks, T-shirts and turtlenecks). Next week, we may have to book it for 2 hours, perhaps in the future finding more people (or demi-persons) to keep costs down. I'll eventually hit the public area and send J over to the men's side, to find out whether the goings-on over there are like those portrayed in the Russian classic "The Irony of Fate".

Keeping time

2007-02-07T14:30:00.000+02:00

In an effort not to go home without souvenirs (as I did when I left Russia after 5 years), I have made some purchases already. First, not one to hang out in kitchen gadgets departments, I had never seen an individual-sized "zitronenpresse" before -- we ordered Russian soup (seljanka) at a pub and were each given our own lemon wedges in their special presses. I found some later at the Kaubamaja (department store). Souvenir number one.

Next, I went snooping around the Russian market near the Baltijaam (the train station) to find some kitchen supplies, and spotted a groovy clock in one of the kiosks in the old wires/batteries/light switches/machine parts/tools section of the market. The kiosk was unfortunately closed, and it wasn't even clear whether the clock was for sale. I eavesdropped in on some Russian men peering alongside me into the goods on display -- it seemed the person running the kiosk had "taken off". Prospects were dim.

In the meantime, J's wrestling with our suitcases during the move popped his fairly-recently-purchased-from-eBay watch off his wrist -- it smashed face-down, cracking the crystal and dislodging the hands. We headed back to the market on the weekend to find him a replacement watch and the clock kiosk was manned! We could hardly make it to the kiosk window -- whenever we approached the window, someone would sneak in ahead of us with some time-consuming transaction, someone getting his watch battery replaced, someone purchasing a home Alkometer, the usual stuff.

I finally made it to the window -- and expressed my interest in the clock. He wound it up for me, explaining that it was his parents' clock. (It was unclear whether it currently belonged to them or not.) He named his price, and I took it.

-Да, да, возьмите это, возьмите это! Через 5 лет, это будет стоить 20 евро!

The thing is an mechanical wonder -- no cords, no batteries -- you wind it once a week, is all. Souvenir number two.

J's since snapped off the replacement watch's strap-buckle by putting on his knapsack. He might opt for a pocket-watch on the next outing.

New Digs

2007-02-03T15:27:00.000+02:00

The apartment search was quite daunting in the beginning. We were told about some websites with flats-for-rent postings, but were warned that the postings are primarily those of real estate agents, who will charge a one month's rent commission on every deal. Communal building fees, electricity, heat, water and gas, were generally not included in the monthly rent. Alas, we needed to find a place to live.

Saturday morning, we hunkered down in our hotel room, our various maps splayed open, our dialing fingers at the ready, our self-consciousness dials set at "low", and our afternoon wide open for setting up viewings.

Apparently, not many agents work on Saturdays. We placed a bunch of calls - J and I taking turns at the telephone, since neither of us particularly enjoyed stumbling through what, with every call, could potentially present as a triple-language obstacle course.

A bunch of apartments were listed as "ready" (i.e. for moving in), though when we called, the agents informed us that the landlords had informed them that people were still living in the premises. That is, the listings were still valid, but maybe call back in March. A handful of landlords didn't want short-term renters -- and were holding out to sign yearly leases.

A couple of agents didn't pick up, but used their call-back functions or something -- we'd get calls from them soon after in our hotel room wondering why we'd called. We emailed some of the agents - some replied many days later. One flat advertised it contained a sauna -- unfortunately, it had been snapped up the day before.

We managed to set up 2 meetings that day. Surprisingly, the second one turned out to be the one -- a huge relief to not have to do any more searching. The landlord -- not an agent -- lives in the building, and wasn't including any commission in the deal. The place is newly renovated, with 2 storeys - kitchen, bathroom and living area below, and stairs up to a bedroom-loft. We agreed on the spot although there was no furniture. We were assured there was 'a possibility' of getting some things - mattresses, fridge, etc.

Karmically perhaps (in contrast to my recent experience back down ol' Coloniale way), we have the best landlord ever. He's since supplied us with a luxurious mattress pad, a table and chairs, 2 armchairs, a coatrack, hangers, a pot, a pan, mugs and some teaspoons. And he's arranged for us all to share three ways the monthly costs for wireless Internet service (belonging to another apartment in the building).

The neighbourhood is full of old wooden houses, many still heated with wood-burning stoves, which gives the area a peculiar, yet pleasant, smell.

From West to Eesti

2007-01-29T13:28:00.000+02:00

Our first view of the Estonian coast -- we flew over it and then off to Helsinki.

I'm now on Eesti Standard Time. Well, East European Standard Time, to be precise. Have zoomed up 14 degrees of latitude from Montreal's paltry 45 to Tallinn's 59. J and I caught a small glimpse of the Old Town as our ferry from Helsinki docked just before sunset (officially, at 4:20 PM, the "day" having lasted 7h 32m and 21s -- adding 2 more witching hours to those already used -- whether snoozed through or boozed through -- in Montreal).

We'd decided just to wing it upon arrival -- I'd stayed at a pretty nice hostel in the Old Town before, and thought we could go there if nothing else occured to us. We were met by J's pal S at the ferry terminal, who suggested that the school would likely pay for some nights' hotel. Calls were made, all was to be confirmed the following day -- in the meantime we settled into the school's recommended Reval Hotel Central, on Narva mnt.

We were famished, having been dealt the usual lousy hand by Air Canada's catering service. Our hefty carry-on Ziploc of homemade trail mix had also left us parched and vacuously seedy-stomached. S suggested his favourite cafe -- Noku -- an artistes' members-only cafe hidden in the Old Town.

No sign above the door, and entrance is by inserting plastic membership card into a gizmo street-side. None of us had said card. But someone had failed to pull the door to--, we happily entered. Story is, once you're in, you're in -- there's no checking of cards. So we jetlaggedly glugged on our first Saku Tume's, as we endeavoured to decipher the menu. (The first time I visited Estonia, my travelling companions and I fondly referred to Saku Tamu as Sock-It-To-Me -- this is definitely a high-powered brew.)

John ordered some readables -- borscht and "pelmeenid". I knew from Russian what a "kotlet" would be (not really a cutlet), but was obviously unfamiliar with the (presumably) adjectival accompaniment in Estonian: "madaroikakastmega"*.. so I ordered it.
Turned out to refer to horseradish or horseradish sauce or done a la horseradish or in the manner of same -- in any case, a most important condiment, and, thus, a much welcome bit of new vocabulary (if only I could remember it/knew how to pronounce it).

*I'm not showing the diacritics in this word, since don't know how to type them in! For sticklers, the first "a" has two dots on top and the "o" should have a tilde.