Estonian break time, part III -- Do I have to leave??

I arrived back in Tallinn on a beautiful mid-early May afternoon.  I stepped off the bus at the Central Bus Station almost as if I were a local.  As if I done it so many times before and that a seat in an old town Tallinn beer garden was awaiting me.  Yet, that nervous looming thought of having to return to Petersburg was in my mind and I really couldn't avoid it no matter how much I tried.  No matter how much I walked around futilely trying to prolong my wonderful break time, I had to go back.  I think the moment that I had to grow a backbone and return was slightly after I took the picture below in Tallinn's old town that evening.  I guess motion of the bicyclists was a cue to me that it was time to head back to my hostel, go to bed and wake up early in the morning for the seven hour bus ride.  Party time was over.  Back to the reality of Petersburg ... which in many ways is straight out of a Dostoyevskian dream sequence.

But I don't wanna go!

The next morning, I got on the bus at 7AM, and hit the Petersburg-Tallinn highway.  We passed windmills and forests until we got to the border checkpoint in the castle town of Narva.  Formerly the site of many battles and sieges from Russians, Danes, Germans, and Swedes, Narva has still not become entirely Estonian.  In fact, it's 90% Russian speaking and the multiple stops the bus made to pick up people visiting family in Russia was certainly testament to that.  I've even read that one-third of Narvans are Russian citizens classified as legal aliens by the Estonian government.  Since Estonia does not allow dual citizenship and since most Narvans are an ethnic and linguistic minority in Estonia, such a statistic is not surprising. 

Narva and adjacent Ivangorod, Russia sit across from each other only separated by the narrow Narva River.  From certain angles, it looks like nothing separates Estonia and Russia, and it's no wonder that both these cities were so easily invaded.  Physically and technically speaking (let's forget about modern day legal boundaries for a minute ... and even then ...) little effort would be required to stomp on over from either side.  You'd really just have to pretend that you were Bear Grylls and grin and bear the current of the river making sure the machete doesn't drop from your pit bull jaws.  More on Narva and Ivangorod in the proceeding post so stayed tuned.

Customs was fast and efficient, and the bus proceeded into Russia.  Even without going through customs, I would have known we were in Russia anyways by all the potholes in the road.  That made having to use the restroom on the bus a ... challenging experience.  In the lavatory, you apparently have to sit down on the dirty seat so fluids don't go flying around everywhere.  There's even a sign, aimed mostly at gentlemen, instructing one to do so.

No, Eurolines is not some femi-Nazi, man-hating enterprise.  They just don't want pee all over the place as the bus motions about.  Of course, one is also bound to move a bit too much on that toilet seat as the bus moves ...

Potholes and all, the bus managed to pull into Baltiysky Station a half an hour ahead of schedule.  In Petersburg early.  It's like Eurolines knew what I wanted.  I got off the bus and the decrepitude of my enthusiasm went with me.  The perks of Petersburg were doing nothing to resuscitate any warm, fuzzy feelings.  I mean ...

From buildings continually crumbling...

... to trash-talking graffiti (this says that a girl named Malvina has stupid shoes and smelly socks.  I think Malvina needs to kick some @$$)...

... to obstructions in walkways ...

... to beer swigging moms ...

... to dimwit drivers ...

... to landfill and sidewalks being indistinguishable ...

... to less than attentive animal control.

...I was really f^cking happy to be back.  And the day after I returned, some speed racer tried to "herd" me around the block (I wasn't really that scared.  I wasn't even walking faster) and actually got out of his douche-mobile that was something of this ilk ...

...so he could meet a foreigner.  It took smashing a half-empty beer bottle in my hand after multiple obscene hand gestures and savagely yelling terrible language in English and Russian for Dima Bilan's inbred cousin to step off.  I guess angry, aggressive, I-don't-give-a-f^ck-if-I-have-to-use-that-rusty-electrical-wire-over-there Westerners weren't beings he met every day.  I just hope he's actually taking English classes and can present this experience for show-and-tell.  But at least I had my Shokolodnitsa devushki who have memorized my order so I could sulk over coffee all the more efficiently.

Oh, Tallinn, with you I hardly had to try.  Petersburg, I just take what I can get from you.

Estonian break time, part II -- Pärnu and Lüüüüüüllemääääe!! Yeehaw.

First off, let me apologize for delaying to post this blog.  I was trying to upload some great photos for this entry, but my computer wouldn't let me.  I'm still working on this problem and I hope to have it fixed soon.  Interestingly, I'm currently writing you from Estonia.  I came back for another visit yesterday and it seems as though I'll never leave!  More on this return trip later.

Anyway, in my previous post I was relishing about how much better Tallinn was ... wait I mean is, than the Kultural Kapital.  And I was going on about how much cleaner everything in Estonia seemed to be.  However, even at that time I wanted to show a little moderation and balance in what I thought off the bat.  Getting caught up in the raptures of honeymoon syndrome is vexing not only to one's readers but ultimately to oneself after not seeing the whole picture.  Even to the lawless, ogre-filled domain of Saint Petersburg, I had to be fair.

But as I ventured out to see more of Estonia, which has surprisingly more places to see in a country of only 1.3 million people, I really couldn't have cared less about Petersburg.  And I felt unbelievably liberated by that.

My next place from Tallinn was the smaller, quiet and pleasantly quaint city of Pärnu whose most famous resident was Gustav Faberge, the Baltic German Russian who designed all those ornate eggs that so charmed the Russian nobility.  But Pärnu is not lined with azure blue and gold.   It's Estonia's beach city and the pace of life there reflected that.  Part of the time I felt like I was walking through some town in coastal Oregon in the summer.  Clean, orderly, livable.  I thought I was in another world.

I suppose that even for Estonia, Pärnu is somewhat of a different realm.  There's actually a nude beach there that I accidentally wandered onto (YES, that's the truth).  I must have looked like a real perv to the ladies lying on the beach with my big old tourist camera, billed hat, and sunglasses.  But while I admired the carefree attitudes towards nudity and the wherewithall not to want tan lines, I think most of them were a bit out of the age range for me to say, "Yeah, baby, I'll make you a star."

But the sunbathing wasn't limited to the beach.  On park benches many old people just set up shop and soaked in precious rays of sun they likely hadn't seen in several months.  A lazy lifestyle in a clean, safe place.  The many rental apartments around there sure looked tempting.

Yet, I had to leave and the next day I visited a friend in Lüllemäe.  No, it is not a place named after a runaway teen from Texas or Alabama.  It's the name of a village in Valga county just over the border from Latvia.  Well ... to say it's a village is perhaps a bit of hyperbole.  It think it's more of a woodsy, barely incorporated mini-district.  The residents of Lüllemäe still chop firewood to heat their stoves.  And in a part of the world with unbearably cold winters, that means choppin' and sawin' that wood several months in advance of Mother Nature's b1tchiest daughter.

Nonetheless, I enjoyed the nice weather of Lüllemäe and the bucolic quietude of the place.  It did have a certain charm when I saw the clothes drying outside in front of the few Soviet apartment blocks or when the locals' tractors plowed down the road staring at you as if you were the funny looking one.  And enjoying some cheap Estonian beer from the local and lone convenient store (which I purchased so the community didn't think my friend was another of the yokel alcoholics) was a nice way to celebrat goin'-down-country for a bit.  Although, I did wake up with a killer hangover from that beer. The quality and quantity of what I consumed in the Estonian woods is not what one would call classy.

Yet, I had to leave Lüllemäe and get the bus from Valga to Tallinn.  During my layover in Valga, I decided to walk accross the border into Latvia.  Since both countries have joined the Schengen zone, border checkpoints have been all but eliminated.  Crossing over country boundaries in much of Europe is therefore like crossing over state or provincial lines, except with a bit more sovereignty among territories.  In any case, I though it would be fun and oddly touristy.  I even wrote one of my Facebook status updates while I was standing in Estonia and Latvia at the same time.  Well, you know what they say ... two at once is always more exciting ;)  My threesome action did have to come to a close, however, because my bus ride awaited.  Though I was never able to get out of my head that a pretty decent flow of local pedestrian traffic from Latvia crosses into Estonia on a daily basis simply to do their grocery shopping.

Estonian break time, part I -- outta the Kultural Kapital and to the Official European Capital of Culture for 2011

So last Saturday night I caught the (almost) midnight bus to Tal-linn and began a five day Estonian trek.  Huraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

Hello, Estonia!  Tere, Eesti!

Okay, it does sound quite like midnight train to Georgia, but it's the close enough, behind the Iron Curtain version.  Needless to say, I NEEDED A BREAK from Petersburg and I got to see the wonderfully picturesque capital of Tallinn.  In my first 24 hours in Tallinn, the following were my initial, baker's dozen reactions:

1.) It's cleaner
2.) It's more relaxing to walk around.
3.) It's cleaner.
4.) The people don't seem like aggressive, pseudo-threatening oddballs you have to shove out of your way like a madman in order for you to be understood.
5.) It's cleaner.
6.) I could have lied nonstop on top of one of the old town roofs, soaking up the sun for hours and hours.
7.) It's cleaner.
8.) The food was much better and the restaurants were more inviting.
9.) It's cleaner.
10.) The drunks are funny.
11.) It's cleaner.
12.) There's much less annoying at-talking that the residents do!
13.) IT'S UN-F^CKING-BELIEVABLY CLEANER AND LIVABLE THAN THE KULTURAL KAPITAL!!


Again, those were my initial reactions.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the whole "the grass is always greener" idiom, but it really doesn't apply in this case as I have experienced it.  Neither does any sort of universal approach that contains any phrase like, "it's like that in (fill in the blank)."  If I thought these things did apply here, I would *not* be saying any of this!!!   The world really isn't so similar all the time and differences do exist.  Very often, one person's truth is just an opinion to someone else and vice versa.  And d@mnit, that's how Tallinn vs. Petersburg is for me!!  Bwaaa!!!

Anyhow, my five day trip to Estonia was much needed and enjoyable.  My bus arrived in Tallinn 25 minutes ahead of schedule at 5:35AM.  Unfortunately, I couldn't check into my cheap hostel just yet, but fortunately it was a bright, sunny morning.  I thus decided to start my photography early despite be *wiped out* after my 7.5 hour bus ride.  None of the coffee shops opened until 8:30 so I had to fight to stay awake.  It was understandable though.  It was a Sunday morning.  It was Estonia.  Work would not be the first thing on the agenda.  Except at McDonald's which opened at 8, but I never go there unless no other options are in sight and for the restrooms.

I did manage to photograph a funny drunk on his way home in the early hours.  As shown below ...

"I down't need no kind of (hiccup) ... help ... (hiccup)  walkin' home.  Oh, $h1t ... those wuz stairs (hiccup)."

I may have had a long night with little to no sleep, but at least I would not have to suffer from a monster hangover like this guy probably did.  And the drunks leave presents behind too!

No dearth of used glasses for beer and other alcoholic beverages make their home on the cobbled streets of Tallinn on Friday and Saturday nights.

Even the drunks were clean!  I saw almost no broken glass or vomit on the streets of Tallinn.  Nor any litter.  Even if I loved it, that's an obvious contrast I just couldn't overlook and puts Petersburg to the depths of shame. 

But as I leisurely strolled around old town Tallinn, my mind was escaping any stress or reminders of the filthy domain I had left.  The spires of the Hanseatic architecture; the quirky themed stores that would open in a couple hours; the view of the southern Gulf of Finland -- I didn't even think Petersburg was anywhere nearby, until I saw THIS horrible sight as I was so contentedly walking down Tallinn's winding streets!

Не напоминайте мне!  Don't remind me!

I'll be sure to make a reservation for my next visit and send all my praise of this place to Lonely Planet.  Hmmph.  I walked away from here quickly enough and slowly found my happy zone once more.  It was almost 8:30 and the first non-McDonald's coffee place was about to open.  I was starving and thirsting like a badger left to wander in the desert.  I walked into a nice coffee shop that was ... western style and semi-quirky!  It had been so long for me.  I felt like I had re-entered some land of plenty.  Their menu was plenty large and even had this dish on it:

I guess for those cold winter nights here, this dish could do the trick, but otherwise you may not want to have this in the morning.

I enjoyed my breakfast (which was a lot) and took off for some more sightseeing around the city.  As the day continued, the sun got brighter and the weather was warmer.  It was one of the few nice days I had experienced since settling in the Baltic.  I then headed out for more sightseeing and then to my hostel to check-in.  Well deserved sleep was on the agenda.  Stay tuned for part II ...

Don't you just want some thing to drink from this establishment?  At least one thing's always on tap.

Watch out for purse snatchers!

She's trying to figure out what a text message is.

Estonian national pride with remnants of Russian influence as a backdrop.

Yes, there are even modern office buildings in Tallinn.

On having a dirty mind

Greetings yet again, dear readers.  I must warn you that this blog post has a TVMA or internationally equivalent rating.  Viewer discretion is advised.  Just kidding.  We're all adults ... tehehehe ...

Anyhow, the point of this blog is just to provide a little commentary on having a mind that strays from less than pure thoughts.  A mind that functions with many filthy paths of divergent, tri-vergent, tetra-vergent considerations.  A mind that just can't accept that which is in front of it is not at all Freudian.  A mind that is dirty, dirty, dirty.

Now, in the majority of societies this is somehow labeled as wrong or inappropriate, and understandably so.  It's not exactly good manners to talk about genitals and primordial impulses at the dinner table.  As humans, we have built complex social systems that, by an large, have helped civilize us and maintain "good behavior" we have thus coined as etiquette and manners.  Avoiding strife and suppressing animal urges that corrode social conventions are ways we seek to keep society stable.

But let's face it.  Humans are still animals and no matter how many times the most religiously fundamental people self-flagellate to rid themselves of satanic prurience, nasty thoughts always find their way through.  And in my case they make several special guest appearances!  Rather than try to dismiss these thoughts of mine (which would be like trying to fit a blue whale into a fish bowl), I just embrace them!  After all, good Jewish boys and girls learn that sex is a pleasurable blessing ... of sorts.  So it should be okay, right?

A mitzvah ("good deed") if you will.  I mean, Monica Lewinsky, for example, just wanted to enjoy her work day a bit more!  Do you know how tedious government jobs in Washington, DC can be??  She only wanted it to be more fun and not bring down a nation; merely to perform her good deed for the day ... and the next one and the next one and the next one and the next one... (ooh, reeeoww!!!  Mean!)   So, to paraphrase this into a youthful rap line that I could market to various school districts in the Bible Belt from Georgia to Arizona in order to provide a MUCH more fun alternative to Abstinence Only education,

    "If it puts a smilez on yo' face/then it ain't no dis-grrrace.  And if u go wit' da flow it don't make u no h^e.  So if u luv hur, best use a rubberrr."

It's a genius PR campaign that also makes kids think twice before getting any number of venereal diseases, the worst and most untreatable of which results in a screaming, membrane-covered being called a baby making its entrance into the world after nine months (wow, everyone went all silent on that one.  Was it something I said?)

But seriously, having a dirty mind is really not all that bad.  I've always liked to let my mind wander a bit more to formulate a bit of entertaining creativity so I don't get bored.  I wish I could say why I do that, but it could be any number of things.  From some sort of potentially innate dementia to coming from a family where the men end up being overly-schooled, imaginative, and fact-obsessed versus sports-heavy and brawny, you name it.  Whatever it is, it's all about making seemingly implicit observations, no matter how outlandish or elaborate they may be interpreted by you.  Uttering forth that twisted giggle at the right moment is always the end goal.

Yet, just because I am afflicted with a dirty mind, does not mean I enjoy seeing graphic sexual images on every street corner or TV station (that's only occasional...).  So I would not thank Sesame Street for telling us that today's Halloween episode was "brought to you by the letters S & M!" and sponsored by the National Endowment for Erotic Bakeries.  I just made that up, but imagine if that were real!  Okay, it would still be funny, although very child unfriendly, but I hope you see my point. 

There are even arguments to say that having a reasonably dirty mind makes one sharper.  As Tracy Clary-Flory from salon.com states, a dirty mind allows for good mnemonic ability:

    "Most of the difficulties people have with memory are not that they forget completely, but that they find memories difficult to find. The key to finding a memory is to make it bright and attention-grabbing in the first place. Sex, of course, tends to grab our attention." (http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/03/21/dirty_mind)


 Indeed this has certainly rung true for me.  As a pre-teen/teen I participated in geography competitions and am still currently able to identify most any country or region based on its shape, even on topographical maps.  Sure, everyone says that you can remember Italy because it looks like a boot kicking a stone, but what about less easily identifiable Bangladesh with the, uh, flowing waterways of the mouth of the Sacred River Ganges  ...

Okay, that was a bit of stretch, but you can't ignore the very, uh, "tadpole" shape of southern Thailand and peninsular (even that previous word ...) Malaysia ...

And just think how far you can go with capital names!  But of course, you have to mix the dirty with the clean or it just goes too far.  Yes, the main Japanese island of Honshuu really resembles a boomerang.  Let's not transform that boomerang into something else!

See isn't geography fun!  And you can make any subject or topic  "polymorphously perverse" as Freud would put it ... although with some it may be more challenging than others and you should control your enthusiasm in the classroom.  I digress.

As far as my time in Petersburg is concerned, having a dirty mind has actually helped me laugh at life here (some are pretty obvious).  The alternative is to be serious and unhappy.  Thus, my wandering camera lens has helped keep me sane and I leave you with some very ... interpretive pictures. ;)

Cougars that wear lingerie.  Like Kim Cattrall or Demi Moore.

Rabbits celbrate Valentine's Day too?

What?  It's just a woman holding a drill.

The id.

Tsk, tsk.  The architects of the Petersburg metro apparently think age is "just a number"

The old woman found some...maracas.

Well, at least we know that sexual harassment has been a problem in the Russian military since the days of the Soviet Union.

I really can't tell about this one.  I think that this means that religion is important and that CEO was spelled incorrectly in a vertical fashion meant to imitate scriptural forms of East Asian languages.  That must be it.

Analysis ...

"Soft play"

No, this just means that animals like to be ... friends and enjoy .... partnership. 

Just looking for ... where he put his glasses?

Semester's over; leaving the Kultural Kapital for the summer

All my school work for this semester is finally over.  This semester hasn't been difficult because of the schoolwork per se.  It's just been a period of many transitions -- new city, surviving a never-ending winter, etc.  It's good it's done and it's good that I can finally be free of this city for a few months.  But coming to Petersburg, particularly in the depths of midwinter, has made me realize and appreciate ...

1) how up-to-date, functional, modern, etc. Moscow is by comparison.
2) the fact that getting through a tough adjustment period is worth it and is *not* forever.
3) that my future lies beyond Petersburg and that I might as well value my time here, even if I'm not where I want to be.  How many people outside Russia get to see this city anyway??

I know I won't see the White Nights here and I'm sure from at least a tourist's perspective, that sounds like I'm missing out.  But I, uh, actually appreciate some darkness at night and I don't want to deal with all the crazy party-going that will be happening here once there FINALLY is decently acceptable weather.  The sunsets here are getting increasingly later which is throwing me off -- when it's 7PM it seems like 4PM!  Plus, with the carefree attitude here, that is oddly civilly uncouth, I would have a harder time enjoying myself.  I want to retain my good feelings of accomplishment in order to remember this first portion of my time here positively; that means leaving this city for a bit and coming back with a sense of renewal in the next few months.

For the next few days, however, I'll be day-tripping and traveling around, so stay tuned!  On May Day, which was FREEZING (well, the wind chill made it feel so), I went to the surprisingly nice town of Gatchina south of the city and home of Tsar Alexander III.  Although a tourist spot, it's far less visited than the city itself or Tsarskoye Selo and Peterhof.  It was a good choice to avoid this city during the May holidays -- a time when everyone and their babushka comes up to revel in the Red Army's Victory in World War II.  Or just get drunk and hope they don't barf into the canal on a tour boat passing through.

Some pictures from Gatchina

Gatchina Palace

Gatchina Palace Museum

Gatchina Palaca Museum chapel

Gatchina Palace

Gatchina Palace Park

Gatchina Palace Park

Soborskaya Ulitsa

Pavlovsky Sobor

Since 1796