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.
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.
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