Month August 2011
DEODORANT! Piles of deodorant, the staff havent even bothered to put them on shelves. All around are all kinds of cosmetics in all colours, types and sizes. A few steps away are rugged outdoor clothes, winter jackets and rain pants and on the other side, underwear and t-shirts. Moving on to lighter clothes, jeans, shirts, sweatshirts and even suits. Simple white signs with text over the clothes racks proclaim the low prices 199, 149 and finally 599 for a suit.
The central aisle is full of people, a slow trickle of shopping carts laden with everything from food to clothes, … Read the rest
We have been lacking an internet connections lately but now we are back in Sweden so its time for one last post about our north European trip.
Coming back from the draisines, we slept one night in Reettas parent’s house then got picked up by Reettas sister Erika who drove us to Turku where we added Erikas husband to the gang and started on a small road trip. We drove to the small town of Naantali, where the Mumin live, for lunch then moved on to the island of Kustavi where we found a small camp site for the night.
We rented a small … Read the rest
The last few days in Finland have been great. We arrived here on Sunday morning and my friend Reetta met us up in the train station and brought us to her parents house. They cant speak a word of English but are really nice. We explored the nearby area on bike and tried a real finish sauna; nice and relaxing. After dinner I also got a chance to try my tea making skills as I tried to teach her parents how to make green tea.
Yesterday we started the main adventure of the Finish part … Read the rest
Today we did some final exploring of Narva, visiting Narva Castle and seeing the Swedish lion monument. We did everything slowly seeing as we had a lot of time and not that much to see. It was nice to take it so easy for once. We then got on the bus back to Tallinn for one final night here before moving on to Finland with the ferry.
View of Ivangorod castle from one of the arrow slits 
Yini found a flower in the castle courtyard 
Swedish guy in front of the Swedish lion monument
Some pictures from our last day … Read the rest
There is more to Estonia than just Tallinn, or at least that was our premise, so we searched through lonely planet for tips on other places to visit. Shunning both beaches and national parks (we’ve seen plenty of that already) we finally opted for the rather small but supposedly interesting city Narva in the far east of the country.
We caught one of many buses in the morning and got here in roughly three hours, not bad compared to travel opportunities to smaller towns in the two other Baltic states. The main attraction here is that the town borders on … Read the rest
After the lest few days barrage of old towns and soviet prisons we figured we needed a bit of nature. According to the guide book, there should be a beach not too far from central Tallinn so we decided to go there. From the shopping mall right outside old towns south-eastern end we got on one of several bus lines going to Pirita. Just when we hopped off the bus we stumbled upon a building that looked like it was only a gable with no roof, we just had to check it out.
It turned out it was the ruins … Read the rest
Today has been a much better day than yesterday, I’m back to my normal happy self. We started by some shooting…or rather I did the shooting while Yini acted as a photographer. I got to shoot a revolver, a 9mm pistol and a tactical shotgun. It was loud, forceful and fun, much more so than what shooting we did in the military. The shotgun especially was an experience since I was shooting from the hip, the kick of the thing was so strong I actually got a bruise on the side from it.
Firing a revolver…
…a Glock with a … Read the rest
Apparently traveling is not always a pleasant endeavor, or rather, sometimes things don’t turn out as well as you hoped. I got up bright and early this morning, intent on going to an old Soviet fallout shelter to fire and Ak-47 at a card board James Bond. About three quarters of the way there I realized I had forgotten the one essential thing I must not forget: my passport. The bus to Tallinn was scheduled to leave promptly at noon and by this time I couldn’t go back to the hostel, get the passport and start out for the shooting … Read the rest
During the last few days, the internet access has been very limited as we have been camping slightly northwest of the middle of nowhere. We had read in our guide-book that a place called Cape Kolka was supposed to be very special with a desolate moon landscape. This sounded very interesting to me so we checked and rechecked how to get there which, the place being so remote and desolate, was rather hard. Eventually we did find a bus to take us there as well as a campsite willing to rent us a tent and some sleeping bags and off … Read the rest