We arrived back in Tallinn around 4PM and took the bus into the city. On the way to the hostel we stopped by a Texas-themed restaurant around the corner from the hostel. Another traveler I met in Vilnius told me that she went there and they had a sign offering free phone calls to the United States. Typically I would not be eager to go to a Texas-themed restaurant, especially in Estonia, but I thought a free phone call to my parents would be funny, and I decided to check it out. We couldn't see anything advertising a free call though, so we decided to pass. On our way out this creepy American guy started talking to us, which was unfortunate since we met a really bad American guy at our hostel in Vilnius too. The guy in Estonia was trying to get us to go to his art gallery to see some "heavy" stuff that he and his art collective are working on. He then elaborated, telling us that they are doing racist art, which is "heavy" because they're not racist, or something. They were also going to do some "controversial" stuff like Mohammad strapped with bombs and George Bush and Tony Blair having sex. Obviously this stuff has already been done, which we told him. He kept saying that his art was completely different, and when he asked us our opinion on it, once again, we told him that he's an idiot and there was no way that we would want to come to his gallery.
So, as you can probably tell, it took us a long time to get rid of this guy, but eventually we did and checked into our hostel. That evening I went out for Estonian pancakes and walked around the city.
The next morning I went to the museum inside the Kiek in de Kök tower, and the Tallinn City art museum, which had an exhibit by Orlan, an artist from France who uses plastic surgery as part of her art. It was interesting, but a little too much for me.
Kiek in de Kök
We then went out for lunch, and made a trip to the supermarket. That evening we caught the ferry back to Helsinki. We tried to get off the ferry as fast as possible so we could catch the 9PM train to Turku, but we just missed it. Recently the train station in Helsinki has become a hang out for skinheads, and there were about 10 of them by the door when we came in. The next train wasn't until 11PM, so we decided to find the bus station, rather than stay at the train station. Luckily there was a bus to Turku at 10PM so we didn't have to wait very long. The bus is about half an hour longer than the train, but it felt like it took 3x as long because I was so tired. It was nice to return to Finland, but I also felt inspired that after a week of traveling I didn't feel like I
had to return. Maybe I'll be able to survive this summer after all?
2 comments:
I'm just trying to imagine creepy American guy traveling to Estonia to practice his creepiness. Why? Where do creepy guys get travel money?
You are going to have a great summer, especially if you know how to deal with creepy guys. I encountered a lot of them in my early adventures. I had a friend who would always bum cigarettes off them, then I would have to get rid of them. I became quite adept. Remember, you are under no obligation to hedge out of politeness or even engage at all.
Ditto, that! It took me until my 30s to learn to be rude and simply tell people (men and women) to buzz off.
GC
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