Trip to Tallinn Day 1

The hostel was sweet and its staff was really helpful and friendly; they seemed to be enjoying themselves rather than just working. The rooms were decorated in different colours, house rules were something you shouldn't be taking too seriously and our room's number - I mean name - was Porn. Yep, Porn. Perhaps that tells something about the hostel's atmosphere... Relaxed and full of young people, just how it should be.

After having a small bite at the hostel, I quickly met one of my old friends from Lady Gaga's concert, which was two years ago in Tallinn. Yet again, it was fun to realize how similar languages Estonian and Finnish are. I would really love to learn Estonian, because it's like Finnish with a cute touch. This time I only sticked to occasional Estonian words like 'Tere' and 'Aitäh' (=hello, thank you)

Then it was time to wake up my sleepy friends and see the Old Town's cute streets and viewing platforms. On our way to the platforms, we found a lane telling about Estonia's history and future on a time line. There was also a big rotating globe with all of Estonia's cities. I'm not sure what this place was, but it looked cool. Definitely hadn't seen it before.

Walking, walking, stairs, walking... finally there! We visited two of the three viewing platforms and the view was amazing. I'm happy we had a good map so we could navigate easily without bigger problems.

Walking around and heat aren't that much of a great combination, so we decided to sit down and find a place to have some icecream. The first place we came across was a café called Koogel Moogel, which turned out to be a cosy café&theatre. It was okay, at least it made a nice difference to the usual restaurants and cafés. Oh, and a little note to self: if the waitress asks you two or three times 'Is everything alright?,' you might want to get up and pay. I thought we were to pay from our table as the waitress had brought our receipts there, but apparently we had to pay near the entrance. It was funny, since we we're just sitting there waiting for her to come and take our money.

After seeing Old Town, it was time for some shopping in a mall further away from the centre: Kristiine. Despite our aching legs, we walked  there. We did come back to the centre by bus, whose bus stop was nowhere near the mall, which I think was pretty weird. Anyway, we were happy to get back to the hostel and then go out eating to St. Patrick's after this long day. The food there was ordinary, but its low price and huge portion size compensated it. Below are some portions: salmon pasta and cheese balls. Having been awake for over nearly two days, sleeping felt just priceless. We would still have two days to go, so catching some z's was very important!