Then congratulations to the Finnish athletes who performed well, and particularly to the ones who won medals. Women's cross country relay team and individual 30 km bronzes, women's and men's ice hockey teams - yes, Finland recovered from the USA beating and won Slovakia in the bronze game. That one too the hard way by coming from 1-3 behind after 2nd round into 5-3 win!
Let the best team win the Olympic gold - USA with the hamburger stand or Canada with the cheerleaders!
Back to the main topic...
Since the kids had the ski holiday week, we decided to make a mini trip to Tallinn, capital of Estonia in the Baltics. The ferry takes only about 3,5 hours so it is a good way to take a quick break. Unfortunately I had too hectic in the office so couldn't make a longer trip...
Tallinn city centre is beautiful, particularly the old town that has been renovated after the Soviet Union time that ended 1991. Historical buildings, great restaurants, good shopping and in general great people.
I recommend to visit there as soon as possible, since in the outskirts of Tallin and in other places you can still see what the impact of the Soviet Union has been. Very interesting country that has developed a lot since it got back its independence.
Go there before it becomes another European city, beautiful one though - just like Prague!
...back to our trip...
While we stepped into the ferry terminal in Helsinki, we met the first friends and while stepping into the bar at the terminal we net the 2nd friends. Small country, even if we are about the same size as Italy! Italy just happens to have 11 times more people...
I was not bothered by the 1.5 hour ferry delay which was due to bad ice situation at the Gulf of Finland. We had a perfect plan to sit down in the bar and chill out.
What shocked me was something I am still after the years in Belgium not used to - the price of the alcohol;
I bought 2 half litre bottles of soda and 2 mini bottles (equals to a glass) of basic red wine, Gato Negro. The bill was 24 Euros, while the sodas were only 3 Euros a piece...
While enjoying this expensive red, I noticed I could buy from a wine store in Tallinn a 3 litre box of Spanish red wine for 8,20 Euros or a 0,75 liter bottle of Chardonnay for 2,5 Euros. The Gato Negro mini bottles were 9 Euros a piece...
More prices from the shop for the ones interested:
0,375 litre of Vodka is 6 Euros, and if you are a pro they also sell 12-packs of them...
24 pack of Lonkero, the gin based goodie on sale for 12 Euros, normally about 17, and beer around 12 Euros. As comparison, in Finland you can get a beer pack from 19 Euros up. But they are all the basic lager with 4,6% of alcohol - due to a foolish legislation.
For example, Lidl had earlier fantastic German beer in their selection but since the beer develops still in the can, it in some cases went over the legislation level of 4,7% and they had to pull the adds off the shops and destroy them. That hurts!
Onboard the ship the wine was 3,50 Euros and Spanish Cava, the sparkling wine 4,50 Euros. When I asked for a glass of water with the wine, he sold of a water bottle 1,90 Euros since a glass would have been the same. Just to remind you, in Finland the tap water is cleaner than bottled one...
If you wanted to get hammered, the bars had a 0,4 liter pint + 4 cl of Jägermeister for 6,50 Euros.
In the ferry shop a bottle of Pouilly-Fume, a great French white, was on sale 15,90 Euros so you still gotta pay for a good stuff...
During the trip we saw some can-can dancing, watched the traditional ship orchestra perform (better than average) and enjoyed the trubadur in the pub. Not bad at all, played also Jimi Hendrix.
One thing I gotta say as positive behaviour for the Estonian drivers:
They respect the pedestrians crossing the road at the zebra line, even the taxi drivers! I am ashamed to admit than in general Finns push the pedal on the right side when getting closer to the zebra-zone.
Same stupid behaviour is with the queues: most drivers make all they can not to let you come in front of them - behaving like it would be a big loss for them...
The streets in Tallin were not cleaned from the snow at all. You can see that it has been done at some point of the winter, but not recently. And the some of the sidewalks not at all. With that one points in to Finland, but the previous one goes 6-0 to Estonia (funny, I remember these number from the Olympics for some reason...).
All and all, I am happy with the trip, even if there is not much else to do onboard but to shop, sit in the bar or play the games. I barely won my son in a motorcycle game so order in the house is clear for now. Gotta admit though that in Playstation-type of driving games he passed me already at the age of 6, even if he does not play them too much.
Still, it is fun to play with him now and then. Even if he again kicked my but in the car game.
Go to Estonia!
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