lost_red_balloon

So, it's really only a 2 1/2 - 3 hour flight from Berlin to Tallinn... the amazingness of planes. Although, as Henry J. Tillman said, "The saying 'Getting there is half the fun' became obsolete with the advent of commercial airlines." For the moment, I'll bypass this statement, and choose to focus on the fact that I was in Estonia. Who goes to Estonia?

So, Estonia's actually really interesting. We got there about 10:30 pm, so everything was dark and we couldn't really see anything. That first night was fairly uneventful. Our lectures were pretty sweet, though, especially our last one. The thing is that Estonia enjoyed a very short-lived independence after centuries of being occupied by Germans, Russians, Norwegians, Swedes, Danish, usw. and right before being occupied by the Nazi forces and then "liberated" and subsequently annexed by the Soviet Union. So if you want to know what a young country is, go to Estonia. The Baltics can, simply because of this, automatically be distinguished from a lot of Eastern Europe - most countries considered behind the Iron Curtain in the Cold War were independent, but communist and very dependent on Russia. The Baltics were a part of the Soviet Union.

They still have a lot of issues with this - for one, Estonia is right on the border with Russia and even has some contested territory still with Russia. They also have a Russian minority (and other ethnic minorities who speak Russian and are sympathetic to Russia). And no one really knows what to do about it.

street

they had family in Houston!

Our hotel was actually right down the street from the park where the infamous Bronze Soldier statues stood. These statues were erected years ago as a memorial to the Soviet troops who died in the "liberation" of Estonia from Nazi Germany. Only last year, it was decided that, because the liberation essentially meant annexation into a repressive communist regime, the statues would be removed and sent to a random cemetery somewhere in the city (no one could give us directions there...). This incited huge riots by the Russian minority and those Estonians who are more sympathetic towards Russia. It was a really big deal. Because of this rocky history, there is a HUGE differentiation between peoples in Estonia, and the Estonians can be touchy about it.

typical looking building

Soviet-era housing

Our first day in Estonia, we headed over to the University of Tallinn. If you were to envision a post-Soviet city, Tallinn would mostly be it. Everything was rickety and run-down where we were. We meant to take the tram/street car to the university - a plan which should have worked. And, in theory, did work... until it took us back to our hotel. So we got off at a random stop, tried to get on another tram... which didn't go the whole way there. Turns out most of the trams in the entire city are either not working or not going to the right place. Whoops.

newspaper

sign

So we walked to the university, which was interesting. Tallinn has a really odd mixture of really old buildings (the Old Town of Tallinn is essentially undisturbed from its medieval structure because it was never destroyed during any wars) and old Soviet buildings. We got lost (thank you, professors) and walked for half an hour to 45 minutes... which, had we been going in a straight line, would have taken us well out of Tallinn. Finally, we made it, though. One of the students had volunteered to help us by setting up a "Tallinn as Text" program. So we all had to get into groups, and pick a theme to follow out of her options. I really wanted to be in the group about Social Disparity, which actually involved going into a really old market which really displayed the way a lot of people in Tallinn, especially the older people, still live. Tourists don't go to that part of town, so the group that did go didn't take any pictures because they stood out already, but everything looked very impoverished. I really wanted to go the next day while we explored, but some of the people who were going around with us the second day weren't entirely comfortable with that (I am increasingly repelled by "tourism," which I've always felt uncomfortable with, and really interested in finding kind of sketchy but interesting, diverse, revealing adventures.... but I'm one of the few in the group).

a passageway in a palace

Anyway, my group's task was to explore the "Russian influence," which amounted to going to the palace that Peter the Great built for his wife and children as a summer retreat. But it's actually built in more of an Italian style, and, in a rather graceful move, I thought, he opened up the grounds to the public,

the beginnings of autumn

so now it's a really big park. This palace used to house the presidents offices, but then a new palace was built not far away for the president. The paper we had told us to go find it, though, so we set off. We found another palace, but had no way of knowing what it was. There were two guards by the door, so Aymi and Katie decided to go ask. Apparently, though, you can't actually get on the steps, or the guards bang their machine guns on the ground and glare at you. Kind of intimidating...? So Aymi, halfway through asking in Estonian if he spoke English, peered around him to the plaque, said "Oh, look, it is the president's palace," looked shyly at the guard again, then ran back to us. It was pretty entertaining.

palace built by Peter the Great as a "summer abode for the family"

a fountain

a statue by the Baltic

So then we had a lot of time to kill, but we saw water in the distance, and I was determined to find the Baltic Sea. Which it was. It was actually very entertaining for us to hear the presentations back at the university about what each group did. The first group said "we did this and that, and we saw the Baltic Sea!" and showed a picture of the Sea from a distance. The second group said "well, we did this and that, and we touched the Baltic Sea!" and showed a picture of everyone with their hands in the water. Then we had to go up. Thanks primarily to my determination (and insanity, especially considering I was sick), we got to say "well, we visited this palace and that palace, and we went in the Baltic Sea!" and showed a picture of us all splashing around in it. I definitely got to point down to my pants and say "I'm still wet from the Baltic Sea!" Those waves get you every time.... It was a lot of fun, though. It was about 50 degrees outside, though, and the Sea had to be even colder. It was a bad decision for my health, I found out later, but more than worth it.

not excited?

excited?

The Baltic

it was really cold....

LOVE!!!

the Baltic and port

The Baltic

Other than the lectures and the "Tallinn as Text," though, we mainly just wandered.

an old house

We ate a lot at this restaurant that was really cheap and served traditional Estonian pancakes (which are like really thick, delicious crépes) and the beer there is fantastic. We also tried Estonian vodka, which is the best vodka I've ever had (and, thanks to Sally, vodka is now pretty rough for me) and Valla Tallinn, some traditional liquor from Tallinn. We also had a really amusing conversation with Warren where

HE ranted about how unfair things were for girls, because we had to do so much to get ready to go out and all of these things were expected of us in public, whereas guys get to be guys. Period. I found it really amusing. We also talked about lots of other things, and it turns out Warren is actually very observant. A lot of things we talked about, ex: about me, didn't surprise him and when I asked why that was he said "well, a long time ago when we were kicking a soccer ball around in the group (which was maybe a month ago and we didn't know each other at all then) you told us about what traveling you had done before. And something about the way you talked about it, and about the kind of stuff you liked to do... I don't know, you just seemed so worldly that it makes sense you would have done all of these things..." It was kind of weird... but

a famous Eastern Orthodox church

nice, I guess.

passageway

Old Town

a famous Estonian writer...?

something old, something new

oldest town hall in Europe

One of the first nights we were there, Aymi, Dannielle and I got hopelessly lost. We were so

children on the way to school

disoriented from the trams not working and our professors getting lost while walking, that our mental navigation was essentially useless. We were trying to get back from the Old Town to our hotel (which turned out to be 5 minutes straight shot down one of the main roads), and it turned into us wandering for 45 minutes in really shady parts of town. Finally, while standing next to a really small train station where we are fairly sure drug deals go down, we stopped a middle aged couple that looked nice enough to ask for directions. IT was quite literally, "Excuse me, do you know where Hotel Uniquestay is? It's really big, with a big orange U?" The lady didn't speak English, but the man spoke very well, so it turned into a 20 minute conversation in which he would try to explain in English and consult her in Estonian. It got complicated, and kind of absurd. Apparently there was no easy way back, we were so lost, and directions would have been useless. Finally, they talked in Estonian a bit, and the man said "Well, our car's right over here, and we would be more than happy to give you a lift. It would just be easier for everyone, I think."

I don't know what Mickey Mouse is in Eesti

A lift? Really?
We said yes. To this day, i couldn't tell you why we said yes. But we did.

Old Town

So, at midnight, we followed a couple we had only known for 20 minutes or so to their car. In a dark, shady part of town. At one point we were walking and the woman was off to the side, kicking leaves up as she walked. Dannielle leaned over and whispered "I can't tell if that's really cute or really creepy." I concured.
It got even more awkward when the man left to go pay their parking fee, leaving us in the car with this

Old Town

woman. The whole car ride to the hotel, Dannielle (who was next to the door, I was in the middle) had a grip on my arm on one side and a grip on the door handle on the other. Just in case. But they were really nice, and dropped us off at a Hotel UniqueStay. Keep in mind, A Hotel UniqueStay. Not our Hotel UniqueStay. But we said thank you, in Estonian, and they drove off. Then we realized it wasn't ours.
I dashed inside to go to the bathroom while Aymi and Danielle got directions at the front desk, and it turns out our hotel was only a ten minute walk or so away. So we set out. And got lost. In unlit streets full of old Soviet-housing. We stopped in the only open cornerstore to ask directions, but the guy didn't speak English, and also looked like he might be hiding a gun behind the counter from the way he acted. FInally, outside, we stopped a guy about our age walking by with a laptop case, assuming he spoke English. He gave us directions easily. It was then that we realized that all of this old Soviet housing had been turned into student housing. It's really bizarre to see these run-down, concrete block style buildings, but to look in the windows and see plasma screen TVs.

we found it!

So we found the hotel. And didn't tell any professors how we got back.

Old Town

Aymi is teaching me the art of bumming cigarettes. For one thing, we've learned that we have a habit of getting lost at night, and, being 2 girls alone in a city at night, a lit cigarette is actually one of the best weapons/protection devices you can have. So we've gotten into the habit of going up to people (mostly guys) and asking if we can buy a cigarette or two, and offer them money. Most of the time they don't take the money - it's not polite in Europe to expect payment for cigarettes, we learned (when Aymi has cigarettes, though, she lets others bum them, so it's even). If you're looking for a good bar or restaurant, it's also a really good opportunity to ask the locals. Overall, good plan.
So, the second night there, we wanted to go out because we didn't have to be up really early the next day. Aymi, Katie, Meghan, Danielle and I went out together, and were looking around. Finally, Aymi and I went up to a group of five Estonian guys to bum a cigarette and ask advice. It turns out one of them (his name was Haiko...) was actually turning 22 that night. They said they were heading to "Club Hollywood," which was the hot-spot of Estonian night-life and really expensive, so they never went. But they had heard that when it was your birthday, you can get ten people in for free, so they were going to all try and go. They were five, we were five, they invited us along. Turns out the rumor was true, so we got into the most popular Estonian club for free, and hung out with Estonians all night, and got to skip the line in.
This is where the oddly segregated Estonian mentality comes into play again. Russians go to this club, too, obviously. So we were all waiting to check our coats, etc before going in, and some drunken Russian comes up to us, speaking in Russian. Aymi tried to say she didn't speak Russian, sorry, whatever. Haiko shows up and says "No, don't talk to the Russians," and tells this guy to go away. The dialogue essentially went as follows:

Haiko: No, don't talk to the Russians!
Aymi: Why not?
Haiko: You just don't. They are bad people.
Aymi: But... but why are they bad people? Why can't I talk to them?
Haiko: Do you not know about Estonia and Russia?
Aymi: No, I do know, really. But you weren't really alive then. Your parents, yes. But why do you hate them?
Haiko: They are just bad people.

*at this point in the conversation, as part of the offered explanation, Haiko pretended to kick something.

Aymi: They kick you?!?
Haiko: No.
Aymi: You kick them?!?
Haiko: Never mind. Just don't talk to them.

Old Town wall

We haven't figured out yet if the Russians kicked the Estonians, or if the Estonians kicked the Russians, or if he was telling us WE should kick the Russians, or if that was just his way of expressing anger. No clue.

Of course, when we left the club, three guys from our group were waiting outside to get in. They asked how it was, and we said "Eh, it was okay." They asked how much it costed us, and we said we didn't know, we got in for free. They asked how much the drinks were, and we said we didn't know, the Estonians had bought us drinks all night. By the time we actually left, Warren was mad. Which was even funnier, considering the conversation we had already had at the pancake place.

My last good story about Tallinn was the last night we were there. Aymi and I went out to wander around, and ended up finding a hookah bar. So we sat in this hookah bar (which was really a bar in a concrete box that happened to sell hookah) for hours. We got stuck in between two groups of Estonian teenagers who seemed to know each other, so we felt awkwardly in the way, but it was really nice to be able to rant about anything and everything over hookah in Tallinn.

written by

lost_red_balloon on September 22, 2008 from Tallinn, Estonia

from the travel blog: The European Union

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We had to meet at the train station at 6:30-ish to catch our train to Berlin. Despite being sleepy, I was somewhat amused by the reluctance of everyone to ride on a train for 7 hours, simply because 7 hours here gets us from the very southwest corner of Germany to Berlin in the northeast. 7 hours back home gets me to Laredo... from the middle of Texas. I wasn't worried about it, but as the trip progressed, many seemed to be getting cabin-fever.
The scenery was really interesting to see. It was my first really extensive exploration of Germany, so all I'd seen before was the Rhein Valley, which is all hills, castles, and vineyards, and the Black Forest which, coincidentally, is all forest. As we moved eastward, though, things began to flatten out, but it was all mostly farmland. We were in nicer cabins - the kind that seat six people within an enclosed area. In my cabin, though, there were only five of us. Which means strange and increasingly-younger German men kept coming in to sit with us. I felt bad for all of them, just because they had to deal with us becoming increasingly slap-happy.
Eventually, though, we got to Berlin. It's amazing what kind of things will turn me into a giddy, 5-year-old girl. Being in Berlin is one of them. Even as we stood outside the train station looking at more German billboards, I had an inevitable grin on my face.
It was a strange trip initially, though, because we were split up for the first time. There are 60 IES students, and we all have to take a class entitled PO350 - Integrative EU Seminar or something along those lines. There are 4 sections, and we'd been told that on our trips we would travel in two groups. PO350s A and B were one group, in which the students tend to gear towards the political science area, and PO350s C and D were the other group who tend towards economics. I am, of course, in B, because economics is not quite up my alley. So AB and CD stayed in different hotels, had different tours, went to different lectures, etc.

Alexanderplatz

Our hotel was in former East Berlin (that inevitable grin I wrote about? Yeah... it got bigger). I am not yet an expert on Berliner architecture or the city layout or anything, but walking down the street to my hotel, I couldn't help but think that East Berlin was somehow exactly how I had envisioned. Things just looked a little run-down, and it struck me as exactly how East Berlin should look and should feel.

TV Tower

Ampelmännchen

We dropped our stuff off in our rooms, then went down to take a city tour. Of course, we only really made a point to stop and talk about the big sites - the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the World Clock in Potsdamer Platz and we went to Alexanderplatz. It was amazing. For me, anyway. Shanthi told me at one point that she didn't really like Berlin too much (Shanthi, I've concluded, has her own comfort zone which she is reluctant to leave, and Berlin, as a big city that, in many areas that aren't tourist-y can seem a bit shabby, doesn't quite fit), and asked me why I did. It was somewhat harder than I would have expected to explain to her exactly what I loved about Berlin. A lot of it is just that I read spy novels. I love the Cold War, and I'm intrigued by the identity-crisis the division of Germany has caused, and so many of the characters I have loved, hated, respected, and pitied have been in this very city I was walking around in. So much of how I have developed until now is wrapped up in this city I have, until now, never been to before. Imagine trying to explain to someone who only sees the peeling white-washed walls and cracked sidewalks that every corner of this degenerate city has some spectre haunting it, and I've been waiting my whole life to experience each and every one.

Holocaust Memorial, dome

We ended up around Potsdamer Platz, which has a huge display on the Berlin Wall, but only shows pieces exhibiting the western side (there was no way in the East anyone could get close enough to graffiti without getting shot):

the wall

Our tour guide left us with some advice about what to eat. She recommended restaurants for people, then said "Well, if anyone is interested in having a truly Berlinisch meal, they should try currywurst. I know where you can get the best currywurst in the city, and it's on my way back home, so anyone who wants to come is welcome to follow." I said yes (surprised?) along with Meghan and, surprisingly, Warren and Anthony (neither of whom we know very well).

currywurst

So the four of us set off with this tour guide, who took us on the subway and on a bus that passed a section of the wall that is still erected, to Konnopke's Imbiß, which, we learned upon getting lost later, is way way up northeast. She also taught us how to order, because there isn't really a menu. Currywurst itself is a kind of sausage with a particular sauce on it (kind of like a spicy ketchup... anyone had Rudy's spicy bbq sauce?) and, in typical European fashion, you can get mayo on your fries. Menü weiss (literally white menu/meal) is the currywurst, fries with mayo. Menü rot is currywurst with fries and the currywurst sauce all over. I got Menü weiss, which you can see below. It was the best wurst I've ever had.

Konnopke's

eating currywurst

Apparently the lady who now owns it (who is definitely at least 60) inherited it from her father, who founded it over 70 years ago. So this business has survived the Second World War and the Cold War, supposedly without ever changing its menu or its taste. It's infamous among people who actually know Berlin. The Imbiß is, quite literally, a little kiosk in the middle of a really complex intersection underneath the line for the street cars. So it's loud, gritty, graffiti-covered, and utterly amazing.

The four of us ate (standing up, no places to sit were anywhere around), then decided to explore a bit. So we just walked. We went into thrift stores, retail stores, grocery stores, book stores, everything. We talked about Berlin, and school, and music and graffiti. It was a lot of fun. The boys, of course, wanted some alcohol so we stopped into a store and I had to help them translate a bit (Warren was confused by the concept of Kräutlikör... or cabbage liquor?) so he bought it. We made our way back to the hotel eventually, and hung out in their room where the two of them quite literally talked about what they were wearing to our meetings the next day while drinking Kräutlikör (which is like a slightly better version of Jägermeister, which I hate). Warren definitely has Grateful Dead ties. Good times.

The next day was a meetings day. I wish I had more pictures (I have to steal them from all my friends' cameras). First we went to the Reichstag (where Aymi and Katie were actually greeted by Angela Merkel as she walked by), which is a very very German looking building. But it's kind of cool. It was actually destroyed (fire, among other things) and then the area became East Berlin, and the DDR government never fixed it up, so it just sat for years. Now it's the main government building. Right when you walk in, you see these walls covered in notes in the Cyrillic alphabet, which seemed a little random. The guy who met us there explained that when the Russian soldiers finally overtook Berlin in WWII, the building was in pretty bad shape, so they all picked up stones from the ground and wrote notes in charcoal. Some of them were understandable (someone's name and a year) and a couple had different names but the words surrounding the names were identical, so I'm assuming it was something along the lines of "so-and-so was here." Either way, the German government found these notes when renovating the building and decided to keep them there as a reminder of the German past, so they only washed off the offensive ones.

We were shown to the SPD conference room (the SPD is the social-democratic party, or the centre-left party, generally a little bit further left than our democratic party) and an SPD representative just did a question/answer session with us. It was pretty cool, he cut through all the waffle that politicians always give, and said exactly what he thought about everything. Very refreshing.

SPD

inside the Social Democrats room in Reichstag

we invaded her picture

inside the dome

dome

We then got to go up on the roof of the Reichstag (which one normally needs to wait in line for a few hours to do). This big glass dome was built on top to signify a new era in German history. The idea of it is that people can walk around on the roof around this dome, and there's a really complex series of mirrors in it right over the main meeting room in the building. It is all supposed to signify a transparency of government - that no matter what, the people walking around above are visible and can see what is going on.

inside the dome

We then went to the German Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Defense (on different days, technically). The Foreign Ministry guy was basically just a paper-pusher (no offense to him, of course... I may end up one) but he really just followed the Foreign Ministry line and didn't answer anything straight. Which is probably his job. It was frustrating. The guys at the Ministry of Defense, though, were really cool.

Checkpoint Charlie

subway stop for Checkpoint Charlie

Checkpoint Charlie

Then we went wandering around Berlin. I had to stop by in a Vodafone office because my phone locked me out and I needed to change my number. I handled the entire conversation in German, which was pretty good considering it involved both colloquial speech and technical jargon, but as I left the guy told me, in German "Don't ever forget your pin again!" Like I'm that stupid. I just spoke to you in German because your English was worse! Grrr....

Brandenburg Gate

That night we went to Potsdamer Platz, then just walked. At about midnight we decided to get cocktails, b/c we passed a cocktail bar that looked pretty cool. No one was in it, so we just chilled and talked to the bartender a bit, who was only a little older than us. At one point he came over and said "I'm going to change the music. Any requests?" So we asked what he was going to change it to, and he said "Well,

cocktails

I was thinking..." and said the name of some group none of us knew. So he said "it's electronic tango. It's really good." So he put on electronic tango for us. It was a lot of fun, but we had to make our way back to our hotel without public transportation at 2:30 in the morning....