It's all about chillin' in Tallin these last couple of days.
Sleeping in, grabbing brunch, walking around town, cooking dinner, surfing the internet, repeat... Right now I'm watching old episodes of "Friends" on Bryan's computer.
Tallinn is quite a small city with only about 400,000 inhabitants and the compact city center is easily explored in a day or two. So I went out to some of the areas surrounding old town - still touristy but less so. Yesterday I walked to the western side of the city with a large municipal park and many historical homes and also the president's palace. Estonia is a parliamentary democracy so the president only goes around attending official functions and cuts ribbons. At least that's what I was told today on the free Tallinn walking tour. It ended up being a huge group with a rather awkward guide, but still 2 solid hours of interesting information. Turns out Tallinn literally means "Danish Town" and the city has made some horrible financial decisions/investments, namely two public toilets that cost $200k each with a $35K annual maintenance fee. Pretty embarrassing considering they only generate about $3K per year...
Off to Helsinki tomorrow on an afternoon ferry. This will officially mark my last portion of the trip. Only 4 more Scandinavian countries left before heading back to the US. Of course it's also the most expensive part of the trip, and I am NOT looking forward to exorbitant prices.
Sleeping in, grabbing brunch, walking around town, cooking dinner, surfing the internet, repeat... Right now I'm watching old episodes of "Friends" on Bryan's computer.
Tallinn is quite a small city with only about 400,000 inhabitants and the compact city center is easily explored in a day or two. So I went out to some of the areas surrounding old town - still touristy but less so. Yesterday I walked to the western side of the city with a large municipal park and many historical homes and also the president's palace. Estonia is a parliamentary democracy so the president only goes around attending official functions and cuts ribbons. At least that's what I was told today on the free Tallinn walking tour. It ended up being a huge group with a rather awkward guide, but still 2 solid hours of interesting information. Turns out Tallinn literally means "Danish Town" and the city has made some horrible financial decisions/investments, namely two public toilets that cost $200k each with a $35K annual maintenance fee. Pretty embarrassing considering they only generate about $3K per year...
Off to Helsinki tomorrow on an afternoon ferry. This will officially mark my last portion of the trip. Only 4 more Scandinavian countries left before heading back to the US. Of course it's also the most expensive part of the trip, and I am NOT looking forward to exorbitant prices.
Don't starve yourself and sleep on streets... jw
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