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So here I find myself on the 9th floor of a non descript tower block hotel in Estonia.
Flight over was uneventful and made slightly better only by the fact that I had cleverly downloaded Friday's Eastenders. On arrival, we sought out a taxi and sped off towards the old town. Only then did I read the helpful handy hints on the taxi window that told us we should have agreed on a price before we set off. Hmmm. Anyway, what was supposed to be a 5 minute, 4 Euro trip was doubled on both counts, but was still cheap as old chips compared to Amsterdam prices.
Shoes Galore
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After dumping my stuff and then helping out with some last minute meeting preparations, Rumy, Filiz and I trotted off to the mall which is located below the hotel. Within 30 seconds we were in the biggest shoe shop I had ever seen. It was huge and was loaded with, er not surprisingly, shoes. Anyway, within 2 minutes I'd scouted out about 50 pairs that I wanted. Within 3 minutes I'd realised that actually bying 50 pairs of shoes is a little extreme and quite impractical given that my little old faithful suitcase is bursting at the seams already (
Sparrow-sized portion
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We were getting a bit hungry and went into the old town for some grub. All was quiet after the recent riots, although there were a lot of policemen milling around. There were a couple of groups of English-blokes-on-stagnights milling about, one group was dressed as startrek characters which was quite amusing (although never having actually ever seen an episode, I only know they were dressed as startrek because someone told me).
We found a really nice bar off the main square with lovely comfy red armchairs and settled in for some cocktails. After a couple of coffee flavoured white Russians, I was well on the way to the land of nod (something in the back of my mind was nagging me that people with head injuries shouldn't be driking alcahol but I ignored my sensible nagging and quaffed some more. Dinner was nice but, after having not eaten all day, it just wasn't enough so we went off to another bar and had dinner number two. There was a giant aquarium in the restaurant with a very bored shark swimming round and round in circles, which reminded me of my poor ugliest-fish-in-the-world starving to death at home...hold on for a few more days fishkins! Arf arf arf.
The Private Life of Chairman Mao
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So, the Estonians are a bit anal about their smoking laws and in most places, smoking is only permitted when a designated room is available for smokers. In the second restuarant we went to, there was a little smoking room set up...it looked like a sort of gentlemans' club, with a couple of armchairs, cigar cabinet and bookshelves. I was rifling through the books, most of which were not in English, and found the Private Life of Chairman Mao which made me laugh my ass off. It was HUGE!!! How on earth could they have written a volume that large about his private life. eheheh. The other English book on the shelf was Sherlock Holmes, incase you're interested.
Sweating
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After laughing at Chairman Mao for a while, we went back to the hotel and got an early night. I couldn't get the bloody airconditioning to work and was sweating all night as if I Was kipping in a sauna. Anyway, now I realise that there's underfloor heating in the bathroom which belts out continiously. Once I shut the door, the rest of the room became suitably frosty.
Interesting Observations
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1. The local girls in one of the bars last night were drinking pints of beer through a straw!
2. Yes, yes, I am obsessed with toilet, but the flushes on the toilets here are always located behind the toiletseat so you have to close the seat before you can get to the flush. Gnuuuuuuurgh.
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