On the road again.

You guys caught up now? I took a day or two off writing posts just so you wouldn't get too behind... (Not because I was lazy or anything.)

A few days of new places for us before we can hang out in one spot for a longer period of time.

After touring Tallinn for the day yesterday, we trained back to Pärnu on the slowest train ever (really, cars were passing us) and left this morning with some very sad goodbyes...Sandra's grandmother was pretty much crying as we left. Really, it was awesome staying there. Now we will miss our five traditional meals a day from our legit Estonian grandmother. 

Our bus arrived at the Riga airport (bad memories.....) and we took a city bus to the hostel. Which kinda sucks considering we have to bus right back to the airport in the morning to Chisinau, Moldova.

 On the corner near our hostel was a grocery store so we bought a jar of tomato sauce and a head of broccoli to go with our pasta we have been carrying around since Paris. We miss Estonia already. Have you gotten that impression yet? 

Now after cooking in an actual kitchen, not a hallway, we turned down an offer to explore downtown Riga with some very nice Spanish people. It's almost 9pm, and they seemed like genuinely nice people, but Riga is kind of known to be Amsterdam's younger sibling. We could tell they were as poor as us and wouldn't go all partying or anything but we really have no interest in Riga. It needs to make it up to us somehow. Maybe next time.

At this point, after watching them walk down to the bus stop together and out of sight, Tessa and I kinda looked at each other and thought, wow, we are really antisocial people right now. We've realized since we are traveling together, it's a level of comfort and "well I'm not by myself" so why would we need to interact with other people? 

This is a very bad state of mind to be in while backpacking Europe, obviously.

So we decided the next opportunity that comes across looking benign and interesting, we will probably take it. In the Crap Hostel of London, we did chat in the Hallway while making dinner, with an older Italian guy who was pretty funny, but other than small conversations with a few people, we haven't gotten to really connect with any other backpackers/travelers yet. We haven't needed to. So now it's time we two introverts start branching out.

From this point on, as far as we know, it'll all be hostels and maybe some couchsurfing. No more staying with friends. This will help, I think. Community kitchens and hang out areas of hostels are perfect for that kind of thing, right?

We'll work on it.

Ciao

Some pics from the last few days:

We took a side trip to hell; here's the devil himself.

We took a hike in the woods outside of Pärnu and it was very beautiful. The woods turned into bogs at the end of the trail, before looping back. Lots of people swam, but since the bottom is unknown, we decided not to.

(Top of a random watchtower from ages ago. See where it gets light green? That's the bogs/marshy/swamp area.)

In Tallinn I had an orange cinnamon coffee at a small cafe, or Kohvik as it is in Estonian. There were actual slices of oranges in it. (In the background is Sandra's banana coffee)

This is some more of the food we miss:

Some chocolate cake thing, baked aubergine, and a radish sandwich. Their radishes are very sweet, like a dessert, and they don't find this out of the ordinary at all. YUM.

Egg and till (dill) on toast, which is what they call a sandwich, always open faced. And then a creamy oh-so-tasty soup that touched my soul almost as much as the  porridge.

(Mini strawberries, porridge one last time, yogurt to drink, and a carrot pastry) (and a walnut pastry in the middle, but we were too full to try by then....)

Ah, I will miss this toit. So much. So, so much.

Oh and this is from the website of the hostel we are at right now. Read: "squee!" .....mhm. Well they are nice.

Midsummer!

Midsummer is a big deal here in Estonia. That's why we originally planned the trip around this week to be here, now.

Today we walked around with Sandra doing slightly touristy activities. It was pretty hot and humid, so we got our vitamin D in, making up for three weeks of rain following us. And we went inside buildings a lot. I got a pin, and a postcard to send.

Estonia, and other Baltic countries like Latvia and Lithuania, are known for amber. You can find it in any souvenir shop, and in stands along the street. It's pretty cheap too. I got some earrings and a ring today, for under 10 euro together.

There are a number of malls in town, and we wandered in a lot of them, observing everything, and Sandra kept laughing at things we took pictures of. We went into a bookstore that was pretty much a B&N. I started eyeing all the foreign editions of my favorite books.....so hard to resist....and I couldn't. I just found a book by my favorite author, it was in Estonian, and normally 15 euro but was on sale for 3 euro!!! How could I pass that up!? Well I didn't. Not sure how it's coming home yet. And I don't know a lick of Estonian or anything related to it, but it looks so cool!

Another place we found in the mall was a small science centre place, which was very odd, and we lost about 12 years of maturity while looking at things inside.

Also a cheese store! A whole store just for cheeses. We got to sample one that was 7 years old, one that tasted like pizza, and the one that won the world championship last year. Yup. It was actually really good cheese, too. Juustupood. Cheese shop.

By now it was about 8pm and the sun was still full blast in the sky. We wandered toward the opening festivals and there was a band playing near the water, fireworks off some boat..pretty neat. The weird thing was, everyone, the whole crowd, was just quietly standing there. It was so odd. Sandra kept apologizing for the laziness and lameness of her people, but we thought it was amusing. A big name band was even playing and people just stood and watched them without even moving to the beat at all. If you YouTube this, you will find the band and song:

Põhja-Tallinn - Meil On Aega Veel (Official HD)   

It's been stuck in my head all day now, but I really like it! Notice though, how non-expressive everybody looks. They're like that in real life, too. Estonians are just super low key here.

While waiting for the bus to come take us back home, an old woman came up to us. She started talking to Sandra in Estonian, and then...she started to sing to us. Sing! It was so random and cool! After she left about five minutes later, Sandra translated for us, what she said and sang. Apparently she took one look at us and decided we were young enough not to have "found a man yet" and she said there's still one for us: Jesus! Sandra even explained we were both atheist, but she said it was fine, there was still time. And her song was about God loving you, and Jesus loving you, and just lots of love. It was hilarious. We had no idea the whole time, and she was about 86 years old. After, she shook our hands and walked away. Very strange ending to the day.

A couple other words I learned in Estonian:

Thank you: aitäh (eh-tah)

Water: vesi (veh-shee)

The population of Estonia is only 1.3 million, and about 20% of those are Russians. Estonian is dying out because only about one million people speak it. I think it's very pretty looking and sounding, even though I have no idea what people are saying.

And also, did you know pretty much the whole country has wifi? Like everywhere?  That's pretty cool.

Food (Toit)

The main thing we have done here in Estonia, is eat. A lot. It is wonderful. Sandra's grandmother is magical. Every time we leave the kitchen, and come back like an hour or so later, there's another random and delicious meal waiting for us. Usually something traditional and we have no idea what it is.

Our absolute favorite food is porridge; it's pretty much the best damn food on the planet. You can put jam on it, or as Tessa did, Nutella. Or even plain. It's that good.

Toit is food in Estonian. Pronounced pretty much how it's spelled, long "i".

Piim is milk. Homemade apricot and strawberry jam, and porridge! I'm drooling as I write this. The only thing that made me go to sleep last night was the knowledge I would get some for breakfast.

(Tessa's Nutella porridge.)

See that covered plate above? This is what was inside. I thought it was meat but Sandra said it was red cheese. "Why is it red?" - "Well why wouldn't it be? It's red cheese." :)

The most interesting and, to use Tessa's word, "intense" pizza we have ever tasted. Sort of like a Chicago style quiche thing. Estonia is known for this restaurant. And there is a place among the tables where you can go get a plate of salad (coleslaw stuff) and a bread roll if you want. Very unique experience.

This is Tessa's favorite food, it's a kind of  a cheese spread, but not cream cheese. We still can't find a translation to it.

And after a long day of Midsummer, we come home to this on the table, strawberry over a kind of signature yogurt/cheese/stilll looking for translation/custard. And a surprise biscuit near the bottom. Yuuuum.

Pärnu finally! And food.

Sandra had gotten food ready for us, so we ate (porridge!! So tasty!!) and then slept for four hours, and then ate again. To wake us up, we explored the town with Sandra. Pärnu is very, to use her term, depressing. Our walk took about an hour and a half, and you can see the flats where Russians live, and the overall poverty of the town. It's a safe area, but there's just no money to renovate old buildings or build new ones. I'm learning a lot of history here, firsthand. I took some pics:

Tallinn Bus Station: in Estonian.

Look guys. Slippers for house guests!!!!!!

This whole area of the world kind of reminds me of back east. Maybe it's because I've never been to Northern Europe before. I like it a lot.

Tessa and Sandra looking to see if the Russian church is enter-able...it wasn't.

At the grocery store I bought some plum flavored ice cream!

Salsa nuts! Blue cheese nuts! I just love foreign packaging way too much...

Welcome to....Latvia? (14 hours of hell)

Oh boy! Where do I begin. Today has been the most interesting and stressful part of this trip! Right now I'm on a bus leaving the Riga (Latvia) airport, and heading to Tallinn, Estonia. It's almost 1am. And this is how it happened.

We arrive at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport without mishap and plenty of time to spare. Our flight on AirBaltic is two different flights. Paris-Riga, then hour layover, Riga-Tallinn, our final destination.

Going through security is kind of different, they scan your boarding pass three different times, and a conversation pops up like this:

"Miss, do you have anything in your pockets?"

I realized earlier that this would probably come up, but I wanted to see what happened anyway.

"Yeah, my pant legs."

"No, anything in your pockets?"

"The rest of my pants."

See, I was wearing zip offs, and had put the pant legs in my pockets in case it got cold or rainy.

"Nothing in your pockets?"

"Nope!" I was cracking up by then. But the security guy just kind of smiled in a confused manner.

Past security, we eyeball expensive food, because our flight arrives in Tallinn just after midnight, and we will probably be hungry. While we browse for snacks suddenly the power goes out. Everywhere. My first thought: "Oh god, where are the zombies?"

Ten seconds later the power flickers on, and we look outside and see nothing, because a torrential downpour has started, and we can't even see the parked planes at the gates. Thunder is booming and the power flickers here send there. This goes on for about half am hour. We soon realize there is no way any plane can land in this weather, and sure enough the boards all read delayed. Much frustration.

Time passes. Our plane is able to land once the storm clears up an hour later, we board, and we are trying to figure out what we are going to to when we touch down in Riga...

An hour is lost when we land, and it's 11:40pm. The airport is very closed looking, but we stick with people from our flight. (By the way, there is apparently a Jehovah's Wittness conference in Riga, so we were surrounded by them on the plane. They have name tags and are easy to recognize.)

What we are thinking now is, since we missed our flight and (looking at the boards) the next flight to Tallinn is 9am the next morning...where's our luggage? We need our deodorant and toothpaste.

We are redirected to the baggage claim area by an AirBaltic representative, who says nicely "We will figure out hotels and flights for all of you, just go downstairs and get your baggage and then go to the ticket office upstairs."

After a few anxious minutes, we are happy to see our packs on the belt in one piece, and not soaking wet, and we head upstairs again. Unfortunately this time of night the immigration booth where you get your passport stamped, is closed... :(

Tessa and I are now excited by this mention of a "hotel" development, and this keeps us going, because we are already really tired.

Upstairs at the office with the dozen other people who missed their flight, the lady is working on getting everything in order so we are there for about 45 minutes. Finally she calls, "Tallinn, this way!" And heads outside. We are crestfallen when we spot the huge charter bus waiting on the curb.

I guess they figured it was cheaper to bus us all directly to Tallinn, than a hotel and put us on another flight (which is probably already booked) the next day. So what else are we to do at a deserted airport at one in the morning? We board the bus. 

A plane ride is only 40 minutes, but the bus ride is just over four hours. And the whole time we're facing where the sun is not setting, so that's weird too. Pictures below catalogue our journey, because it's easier that way.

Three hours in we realize we should have asked where the hell this bus is taking us. We only find out when our bus stops at Tallinn Airport and drops all of us off. Nobody from AirBaltic is there and they don't have anybody in the whole airport from the company to help us. They pretty much abandoned us there. Like, "See! We got you to the airport! Just 6 hours late!" 

By now our moods are more than annoyed. The best thing is to go to our hostel and see if we can sleep or something, because it's hard to think. At 5:30am on no sleep or proper meals from the last 12 hours. Carrying 25-pound packs.

The one silver lining of Tallinn: our taxi driver who got us from the airport to Hostel Tallinn 4 miles away, was very kind, sounded a bit Irish, and said to be careful in town, because he is a parent too, and worried for us. :) He also gave us a map of the town in German.

Once we actually got inside the hostel though, the reception was closed. Well. Tessa worked on getting her phone to work Internationally, and managed to call the number posted on the door. (This took about 30 minutes.) Upstairs there is some commotion, and this guy shuffles down the stairs past where we are sitting. He is half asleep but buzzes the reception door open and we try to check in.

Problem.

We were supposed to check in the night before, at whenever our flight landed, so just past midnight. The guy says the dorms are booked for tonight, so we can't change our reservation. Thankfully we didn't put any money down so none is lost.

Tessa finally finds Sandra's phone number, (her pen-pal, whom with we are staying) and she is up! It's only 6:15 or so. Anyway she is happy to hear from us and tells us to go next door and take a bus to Pärnu, because she was about to leave for one to get to us.

For once, everything actually works out.

Murphy's Law happenings today:

-Catacombs in Paris are closed for something, for yesterday and today only.

-Zombie apocalypse almost begins.

-We miss our connecting flight by ten minutes.

-AirBaltic sucks.

-these aren't all Murphy's, but I'm tired as shit right now and can't think properly, but I want to write it all down before I forget, and think it was all a dream or something.

Okay now I am finishing this post in a most sleep deprived state, at seven in the morning, making our way to Pärnu, to Tessa's friend Sandra's house.

Want. Sleep. 

Bye.

We often followed the guy with red hair, with all our confusing flight stuff.

In Latvia: Stopp is not spelled wrong for them. :)

It's very hard to sleep with the sun in your face. At 3am.

Arrival at Tallinn Airport.