Old Town, Stolen Beer and Movie night

Tallinn, Estonia

6th November 2006

This morning I woke up early. I noticed that my SIM card I got wasn’t letting me receive text messages from the UK which made communicating with Anja quiet difficult and expensive. Norris and I watched an episode of prison break before going to eat breakfast at Scotland Yard.

I ordered the breakfast in English given the place usually has lots of tourists there.

Afterword Norris drove me over to the seaport. I was going to go to Helsinki for the day but I didn’t get there in time to catch the boat. So instead I bought a ticket for tomorrow.

I went to blue barracuda’s Estonian office to say hi to my new colleges. Then I went and wondered around the old town. It was snowing quiet a bit, which added to the beauty of everything.

I took the opportunity to visit Tallinn city museum. There they had exhibitions on the history of Tallinn, Muslims in Estonia (all 2,000 of them at last count) and the Russian occupation of Estonia.

My heart bled when I saw photos of the sickle and hammer placed on prominent buildings in the old town and I could feel joy looking at a photo of a man sitting where a statue of Lenin once stood with his hands in the air. All I could think to myself was: “It was never meant to be that way”. I feel amazement that freedom from the Soviet Union ever came at all. Humans are usually too hard-headed to let things escape their hands like that.

I ate lunch with Norris and Marko. I had a nice fry-up for £2.25.

Later on in the afternoon, I went back to Norris’ house to relax. I saw that the old owners of Norris’ house were there and they stole my beer from the fridge. I then set out to buy some more for my friend Dan’s party that night.

I found a kiosk and unlike shops in England, you have to ask them for whatever you want and they’ll get it for you. It becomes a bit of challenge to an Anglo-Saxon when they only speak Finnish, Estonian and Russian. Of those 3, I can only speak in Estonian.

I asked the lady working there: “Palun Mulle kaheksa A. Le Coqi”. She then went and got 2 beers. I said “Ei, Palun kaheksa, ei kahks A. Le Coqi”. She held 2 beers in her hands saying that she understood that I wanted eight beers. I then made sure I asked for eight by counting with my fingers in front of her “Uks, Kahks, Kolm, Neli, Viis, Kuus, Seitse, Kaheksa”. She then pulled another 6-pack from under the counter and I felt like a complete muppet. At least I had my eight beers :)

I went to Dan’s place with Norris for Monday Movie night. We met 7 others there and we watched an Australian film. It was a Monday and most people had to work the next day so it was a pretty quiet evening. It’s nice to see what a UK salary can buy you in Estonia though.