(no subject)

In the morning Piret had to go to work and Rob had an appointment of some kind, so I gathered my belongings and Rob drove me to the docks at about nine in the morning. I paid thirty five crowns ($2) and left my bags at the luggage check there, and then set out on foot again.

It was refreshing having a whole day of freedom to explore Tallinn. I just had to be back at the docks to catch my ship at six in the evening. I felt like I was moving again, doing something, and that was good. I still didn't feel that great physically, but at least I was making progress.

Walking to old town I passed the giant post office I had discovered the day before. I went inside and got some coffee and spent an hour on the Internet, writing a few emails to people and about what had happened to me.

I walked around old town a little bit, but I didn't really like being around the crowds of people, and in the cold. Now all the kids looked the same, and they looked threatening. Only able to see with one eye, I couldn't see very well, and looking around hurt, so I felt vulnerable as well.

Then I noticed that this guy was following me, right at the entrance to old town, right outside of McDonalds. Was I just paranoid, or was he really following me? I sped up a little bit, he hurried to match my pace. I crossed to the other side of the street, he started crossing to the other side of the street. Yeah, he was following me. Immediately I crossed to the other side of the street again, and this time he came right towards me, yelling something angrily in a language I didn't understand. ``I don't understand,'' I yelled back. He yelled back: ``Go away now!''

I sought safety in McDonalds. It was warm there, and one place I was guaranteed to be able to meet other English speakers. I bought the coffee and apple pie combo (10 crowns) and took refuge in the back of the restaurant where I could see out of the windows and see everything that was going on. I wasn't sure, but it seemed that the guy was loitering outside the entrance to McDonalds. I stayed in McDonalds for an hour, watching the people go by outside, counting the obvious backpack-toting `moving target' college students, so obviously on their way to the hostel, counting the happy canadians with their maple leaf flags, counting the kids who now appeared hostile. I didn't see the guy anymore, so I left. Was he just crazy, or what?

I went to the tourist office and got a new map of Tallinn from a copy of This Week in Tallinn. I was hungry, so I walked down the street in search of a restaurant. There were so many to choose from, and everything looked so good. I passed a cuban place, thinking I might come back to it, and a Russian place, which looked very good but I didn't know what anything was on the menu, and finally stopped at a restaurant/cafe of unknown theme (possibly `normal') and ordered something. I was very pleased when the hostess delivered to me a big plate of food, beautifully presented: some kind of cheese-filled chicken with cream sauce, and vegetables and potatoes, and coffee. It was delicious and I felt much reinvigorated after eating. I was seated at the window, and as I drank my coffee I looked out at the Swedish Embassy (Sveriges Ambasad) and ambassador's house directly across the street, contemplating the huge blue and yellow flag that flew there, and the thrice-crowned crest of the Kingdom of Sweden. Parked in front were perhaps the only Volvos in Tallinn.

I decided to take a walk to the areas of the old town labeled as `scenic' on my map. The map makers weren't kidding, either. I walked up a huge hill (by relative standards) into a tremendous fortification and looked out over medieval Tallinn, out over the Baltic in the direction of Helsinki and in the direction of Stockholm, looked out over the land in the direction of where I imagined Lasnamäe lay. I walked through this upper part of the old town, visited the old Russian cathedral there. Tallinn is in many ways what you imagine when you imagine a medieval city, castle on a hill and everything.

After this I visited the museum of photography in Tallin, which is in an old prison (although you can't tell that by its appearance) right in the central square of old town. At EEK 5 admission (29 U.S. cents) it was well within my budget. The main theme of the museum is that photography came to Tallinn almost immediately after its discovery, & presented is the evolution of photography in parallel with historical prints of Tallinn and Estonia. The MINOX spy camera is on a pedestal of sorts, as it was invented there; they present patent documents and such and seem to be extremely proud of it.

In the basement there there is a little gallery of sorts. There was a binder filled with approx 3"x5" black and white prints and a note saying that the photographer was selling them for 15 crowns ($0.86) each. There was one that made me laugh and I went back later to buy it. As I was leaving, the woman working there asked where I was from, and set up a chair and we started to talk. She was very concerned that I see how nice Estonia is in the summertime, so she dug up a portfolio of mounted photos from a summer 1981 'fotoklubb' trip she took to an Estonian island. Indeed, it does look like a wonderful place for summer camping trips in the woods and islands. She was quite interesting.. when I said I was studying engineering she said that she had been a physicist and had worked in the semiconductor industry. She was clearly very excited about photography but apparently gave up picture taking due to failing eyesight.

Just as I was leaving again, a man came in, and she said, ``Oh, this is Otto, and you just bought one of his photos.'' So I stayed and talked to him a little bit. Also elderly, he spoke very little English and the woman, who spoke a little more English, translated. He was very happy and proud that someone wanted to buy one of his photos, and communicated this. It was fun meeting the photographer and he told me a little of the story of the photo. So that was interesting. That was pretty much the only thing I bought in Estonia other than food/money/travel and a new passport.

Then it was time to catch my ship.

Tallinn to Stockholm

I got to the terminal at five, with an hour to spare before departure, and was surprised to find a tremendous queue already in place. Not really a queue, but a mass of people trying to check in. I settled in to the queue to wait. At six there was still a queue, and I found myself reassuring some confused Americans... ``You're going to Sweden? Yeah this is the right place. Don't worry, just wait in line, the ship'll wait...'' Indeed I was finally able to check in, go through passport control, and run onto the ship.

My cabin was of the really cheap variety, which you can read to mean `below watertight doors.' I found my cabin and a Tallink person let me in. After a shower I explored the ship briefly, and then returned to my cabin, surveyed the safety and evacuation instructions (this was, after all, the fateful route of the Estonia), and went to sleep.

As Mark Twain wrote in The Innocents Abroad:

However, there is always a cheering influence about the sea; and in my berth that night, rocked by the measured swell of the waves and lulled by the murmur of the distant surf, I soon passed tranquilly out of all consciousness of the dreary experiences of the day and damaging premonitions of the future.

Coffee	EEK 12
1 hour internet time	EEK 60
McDonalds	EEK 10
Lunch	EEK 70
Photography museum	EEK 5
Photo	EEK 15

Hello from Tallinn

Greetings from Tallinn, Estonia!

The sun's just rising now and the sky is all pink and purple and blue (like my eye!). It's finally stopped snowing (it's been snowing constantly since I got hree on the 30th) and there's even blue sky (and the accompanying drop in temperature to -17). I'm in an Internet Cafe at the Tallinn central post office, which is kind of like a shopping mall except there are postal boutiques everywhere.

Anyway, to the point: Shortly after the beginning of the New Year, I was abducted, beaten, and robbed by a group of (presumably) Russians. (an old fashioned "Euro Changeover" ?) Some people found me amidst this sort of archipelligo of idential-looking Soviet-era apartment complexes in the snow fields, took me into their apartment, and treated me for shock/hypothermia (they gave me hot tea, stuck a hairdryer down my shirt, and offered me vodka ["you're so cold.. drink vodka!" it seems to be a sort of universal remedy in these parts] and called an ambulance. I woke up around 6 am in the neurological ward (suspected head injury?) of a hospital near here. Luckily I had the phone number of some nice people I'd met on the boat written on a scrap of paper in my pocket, so the doctors called them, who sent a taxi to collect me. These people -- an American expatriate living in Estonia and working in Finland, and his Estonian filmmaker wife -- have taken care of me for the last few days, for which I am quite grateful. Yesterday the Consulate here granted me a temporary passport despite me not having any form of ID whatsoever, and if all goes well I'll set sail for Stockholm tonight on the ship Regina Baltica. Anyway, it's been interesting. Excepting material losses and a tremendous black eye, I'm fine. (And save for a few hostile kids, everyone here has been very helpful and friendly and my impression of Estonia is still generally positive.)

So, well.. happy new year everyone! I hope yours was a little less exciting than mine.