Long Trip part 6: Frankfurt, Germany

I'm finally at the final destination of my long solo trip, Frankfurt. Interestingly there are 2 Frankfurts in Germany, Frankfurt am Main and Frankfurt an der Oder, each named after the river they are near and with the former being the more known one. The purpose of going to Frankfurt was 2 fold, first, it was the cheapest place to fly to that I could train home from, and second, I had maked it off on my travel map as a place I had visited since I had a stop over here when I first came to Europe (I was desperate to fill in that map). So I could edit the map or actually visit the place, so here I am.

Frankfurt doesn't really have a whole lot to see and do. It has huge events (see auto show) and a massive airport, but for a tourist point of view, there isn't a whole lot. Factor in the fact at museums are closed on monday and it's more or less a wash. The city lacks a lot of the old architecture I like mainly because the second world war happened and the place got bombed to hell, luckily for me, some things survived. Nowadays, the place is a huge banking place and businessy.

Upon getting to Frankfurt, the first thing I did was get my train ticket back to Switzerland. 42€ to Basel, not too bad. After that I check in to the hostel and did a quick walk around and then it started raining so I went to the internet cafe to start the Egypt planning. Up until now, I was not involved in the planning at all, and I like to know everything that's happenning, so away I went. After a couple hours of that, it was off to see the city.

The only real interesting part of town is Römerberg, the former old city. Since 80% of the city was destroyed, most of it was built in a modern style, Römerberg was the exception, showing what the city once looked like, a stark contrast to the skyscrapers nearby. So highlights include the old Römer (town hall) and the catherdral (Dom). This was the coronation sity of Holy Roman Emperors from 1562 to 1792 and one of the few structures still standing after the bombing raids. After walking by all the skyscrapers it started raining like mad so I retreated inside. Looking at my guide, I found out that was more or less all to see and back I went, planning the next trip.

The next day, I caught the 6:07am train back to switzerland. The trip will take 8 hours to get back to baden, but leave me plenty of time to pack/clean/move/get scrubs and 24...ect

Its been an interesting trip travelling alone, and I think I learned a bit more about myself, but it's just more fun with others. Bring on Egypt!

Long Trip part 5: Göteborg, Sweden

The ferry ride from Turku to Stockholm was pretty uneventful. This time there was no one my age at all. After watching the Finland hockey game I took a look at the Viking Buffet and wondered how hard it would be to dine and dash, so I figured, lets try.

Step 1, walk in unnoticed grab a plate load it with beef and norwegian salmon, check.
Step 2, walk away when done, check...

...except I got a little greedy and went back for some more. As I was eatting the next plateful the waiter asked for my ticket this time, I told him I thought we paided when we were done eatting and then paid for the meal, which was no biggie as I was planning to pay for it anyways, and just wanted to run an experiment. The food was pretty good, lots of salmon, shrimp, roast beef, fruits, deserts, swedish meatballs...ect but my appetite has shrunk considerably (i'll have to build it back up when I get back to Canada).

The rest of the night was uneventfully and we docked in to Stockholm at 6:30, after 9-10 hours at sea. I proceeded to take the train to Göteborg; this trip almost 5 hours. When I got there I didn't really have much desire to do/see anything, my only reason for coming here was there is a cheap flight to Germany from here, and thus bringing me 1 step closer to home (and Egypt). The weather was very rainy as well, which didn't help my mood. After a walking around the town I decided to call it a day, the 15 hours of travel made me pretty sleepy.

My hostel was another crappy pick, chosen for the cheap price more then anything. It was like the Ryanair of hostels. First, it was extremely far from the town it was advertised for, needing an hour bus ride and 10 mins of walking to get there. Second, it is located in the middle of nowhere, which is good and bad, there is a nice little hiking region around there which was nice and I went for a run. Third, it was total no thrills, and they required you to clean your room (floors and everything). On the plus side I did get my own room, which was unexpected as I booked the dorm bed (cheaper). The hostel wasn't too busy either, 1 interesting greek fellow and that was about it.

The next day I went out to check some of the sites, the usual really. Some big church in the center of town (Oscar Fredriks Kyrka), the "fish church" fish market, an old war fortress (Skansen Kronan), the old part of town (Haga) and a museum (world culture meseum, it was free). I remembered Felix telling me how these chocolate balls (chokladboll) where really good, so since I didn't go to the jaza buffet he suggest, I figured I should hunt this one down. It was pretty good but no much chocolate, more sugar then anything. After some more wandering, it started raining so I headed to the mall for some cover. The mall was more or less like any mall in Canada, just with more beautiful swedish girls).

On the last day, I first set out to look for my hat, i think i left it at a store the first day i was here. Unfortunately, like most things, it was closed on Sunday, darn. The whole sunday closing thing is annoying, luckily today is my designated travel day so there isn't a whole lot planned. There is only 1 airport bus for each flight so I had to get there super early and wait there for 2 hours, fun. After flying to Frankfurt hahn (2 hours out of Frankfurt). I got there at round 7pm and found a German girl there that was sleeping there for the night as well, which was nice, as it´s pretty boring waiting there all night. It was nice having someone to talk to for a while. The airport itself was decently big, unlike the ones in sweden which were shacks on the side of the road, but the seats there were horrible bucket seats so you had to sleep on the floor. I got up early and took the 6:15 bus to frankfurt arriving at 8am.

The tail part of my trip has been a little boring, mainly cuz I didn't go to these placed with too much I wanted to see/do and partly because I had so much fun in Riga. I think I'm burned out from travelling as well (especially alone), but I'm really looking forward to Egypt and Canada.

All in all, the scandanavian countries were beautiful and calm, but outside of going to clubs (see expensive) there wasn't a whole lot to do.

Long Trip part 4: Helsinki and Turku, Finland

The trip over to Helsinki, Finland (Suomi!) was pretty interesting. I took the Viking Ferry from Stockholm and it was a 15 hour journey. The ferry was interesting and resembled a cruise ship, only with everything costing extra and the fact that you don't need to book a cabin and can just sleep where ever (what I did). They had a bunch of , with really good food, but it was 26€ for the buffet, a casino, pub, karoke lounge, nightclub and even a small sauna area. They were playing the Canada-Finland game at the lounge so it was nice to watch. The crowd was very pro-finland, but we wasted them, I wish I had my Canada Jersey on. On the ferry, I met some other people that didn't get cabins (2 guys and a girl from Columbia, 1 guy from Germany) so we chilled for a bit (see drinking beer). Later on in the night a crazy amount of Finnish girls (on their way back from a school trip or something) stopped by to talk. It was good fun until security took away our alcohol (apparently you can't drink on the boat),but not before I tried some Finish vodka stuff that tasted like licorice (similiar to Sambouka (spelling) from Riga, but stronger and sweeter, so we decided to go to the club for a bit and stuck around till 3, but the music was horrible and I couldn't stand it anymore. I tried to stay up to watch the sunrise, but I passed out at around 5 (i think sunrise was at like 5:30). We arrived at Helsinki at 10 in the morning (and they didn't stamp my passport :( ).

Helsinki is much colder and quieter then Stockholm, so there wasn't a whole lot to do. After locating the hostel, we (the german fellow tagged along for the day) took a ferry to the island forturess Suomenlinna (Fortress of Finland or something, the swedish name is Fortress of Sweden, interesting). After that I more or less just wandered around the city looking for the tourist sights. There was the Helsinki Cathedral, Uspenski Orthodox church, and another neat church called Temppeliaukion Kirkko. This place was carved into the rock or something adn the walls are all rock, it was interesting. A quick obervation or Helsinki, it has to have the highest concentration of McDonalds in the world. walking 10 min in the center, I saw 10 different McDonalds. Helsinki is also damn expensive (Finland as a whole). We just took it easy for the night (couldn't find a club or anything) and drank a few beers by the cathedral. I learned a cool trick on how to open a beer bottle with a lighter (something we were wondering in Russia). Good stuff.

The next day I just wandered around the city until it was time to catch my train to Turku. I wanted to go to Turku mainly cuz that's where Kipper is from. Talking to the finnish girl in Riga (she lived in Turku but was out travelling at this time) she told me the city was famous for 2 things, hockey players and beautiful women. A pretty accurate statement as I came to the city because of a hockey player, and the women looked very swedish (a good thing). Turku is apparently the oldest town in Finland, and once the capital of Sweden. The train was really nice with a conference room, electrical plugs for computers and stuff, built-in radios, and seats that recline a lot. It was really comfortable. The trip too around 2 hours and I was in Turku at 4. Everything was more or less closing at this time, so I just took pictures of the sites and looked into things to do the next day. Walking around the city, I saw some weird art stuff, like a large web covering a cave, and the Fibonacci Sequence on the chiminey stack of a power facility. Along the river there were some neat things in the föri, a free ferry to send people across the river, more art stuff like the "whale tail", and a lot of old boats. There was a large 3 mast sailing ship called the Suomen Jousten (Finish Swan), another sailing ship called the Parkki Sigym, and some random military boat (Tykkivene Karjala). At opposite ends of the river are Turku Cathedral, and Turku Castle (creative naming). I caught the Canada-Slovaki game on tv so that was good, awesome 3rd period.

On the last day in Turku, I had planned to see the cathedral, castle and a museum. The cathedral was pretty plan inside. It burned down, along with the rest of the town 100-something years ago so I guess they didn't bother making it too nice. I also checked out a museum that was ruins of the old town which was pretty interesting. It also held a modern art museum which was weird. They had some mechanical art display so it had random moving stuff, like vibrating cubes and tilting bookshelves. The castle was a long walk away and I got lazy so I decided to go back to the hostel to sleep for a bit, probably due to lack of food (sweden=expensive, ferry food = expensive, finland = expensive). I figured I should at least try some traditional finnish food (we looked in helsinki, but it was crazy expensive) and looked for a place to try reindeer. I found a boat resturant called Svarte Rudolf (with a name like that, they better have reindeer....they did) and tried the braised Reindeer; it came with Lingonberries (I can say I tried something swedish also now). It was hard to define the taste of it since it wasn´t 1 large hunk of meat, but it seemed sorta like a cross of horse and veal. It was pretty good. After the meal I realized I ate dinner 2 hours earlier then I wanted to (damn hunger induced hallucinations). With a few hours left before the ferry, I went back to the hostel to see if the hockey game was on.

At 9 I went to catch the ferry to go back to Stockholm and from there, Göteborg.

Long Trip part 3: Stockholm, Sweden

I originally thought that I arrived in Stockholm much later then I actually did, so I didn't book a hostel for the first night (I was planning to sleep in the airport). I arrived at 6pm, didn't want to stay at the airport for that long, and the airport was really small with no good areas to sleep. For this flight, I flew with Ryanair, and I must say, Easyjet is much better. Ryanair seems to fly to places nowhere near the actually city. The airport I went to was over an hour away by bus, shitty.

When I got to Stockholm, I immediately wandered around the city looking for a hostel to stay for the night eventually stumbling across one. Afterwards, I just walked around town taking some random pictures, not knowing what was what. I didn't go out for the first night since I was really tired from the travel and a little warn out from all the partying in Riga. So far Stockholm is a beautiful city, especially the old city. The weather has been nice as well.

The next day I wandered around the old town, Gamla Stan. Here I saw the Riksdag and Riksbank (parliament and big bank). This area was sitting on a platform that was suspended in the above the water by 15,000 wood logs. The problem was that sometimes the logs would not be total submerged underwater and could rot. To combat this problem, they were in the process of moving the lake or something to keep the logs underwater. I needed to get a ferry ticket to Helsinki, but the office opened later so I went to check out the Nobel museum first. It was pretty neat and explained why/how the Nobel prize was created and well as some interesting facts here and there. For example all the prizes but the peace prize are given out in Stockholm, with the peace prize given in Oslo, Norway. The reason for this is that Sweden and Denmark were in a union at the time. Since there are too many winners and the muesum was quite small, the focus was more on the creativity of the winners rather then the winners themselves. The central area had large video auditoriums that should little clips about all the winners. At the back was a Einstein exhibit with a cool video art thing called "Luna park" which was some weird representations of Einsteins theories. The ferry to helsinki was pretty cheap (ferry + nights sleep = 285 SEK). After that I went to see the New Royal Palace (the old one burned down) and stumbled across the changing of the guards, which was pretty neat. There was lots of music and horses and stuff. Around there was the Royal Cathedral (Storkyrkan) which has the famous sculpture St. George and the Dragon. There were a few other museums around like the Coin museum with an example of the largest coin in the world, and the Royal Armoury which talked about the various kings of Sweden as well as the Sweden/Norway union. After walking around the large park area (Djungården) it was time to go back the the hostel. The interesting thing about this hostel is that it's a boat (Everything time I see a boat, I can't wait till the cruise). It's not to big and doesn't rock so much, so it was nice. No one at the hostel wanted to go to a club and I didn't want to go alone, so that sucked.

I didn't have much time in Stockholm on my last day as I had to go to the ferry ín the afternoon. I decided to explore a different island of Stockholm (Stockholm = a bunch of island connected by bridges). On this island was Katarinaberget with is a like a pedestrian elevator that get people up ontop of a hill quickly. There were some other nice buildings such as the water tower (Mosebacke Vattertorn) and some churches (Katarina Kryka). Here is also the jazz bar that Felix told me to go to for sunday brunch, but since it was on monday that I found it, it was too late.

I'm off to Finland for a couple days now and looking forward to it. Overall, Stockholm as been a nice city but it would have been nice if others were here to check out the night life, o well, next time.

Long Trip part 2: Riga, Latvia

After the long bus ride I was a little tired so I pretty much chilled in the hostel. In the hostel I meet up with a bunch of guys Wally (canadian), Francis (aussie), keith (american), andrew (british), Alisa (Finnish) and paul (brit).

Since I arrived fairly late all the tourist places were closed, so we just chilled around and watched the hockey and soccer games. After that we decided to head out to the clubs but at some point I fell asleep and woke up the next morning, damn.

The next night I went quickly to try to get tickets to the evenings Canada/Latvia hockey game but unfortunately it was sold out, damn, it woulda been amazing, but more on that later. I decided to buy a ticket to the Russia/Ukraine game instead (manly cuz I wanted to see Ovechkin and Malkin play).

After getting my ticket, I went to the central market which was quite interesting and got a bunch of pasteries for 0.30 lats (0.60 cdn). After that I did the whole tourist thing, seeing all the buildings and such. St. Peters is the tallest one, i think so I went up to the top to get some good shots of the city. There were some other churches including St. Johns and Dome Church. After some other random architecture shots I went to the hostel to grab my Canada Jersey and walked to the stadium. Amazingly I was the only Canadian Jersey around, so that sucked a little, but the Lats didn't cause any trouble (it was before the game). On the way to the game I asaw the Freedom Tower (every time I see that word makes me want to go on the cruise more and more, damnit, august can't come soon enough) and a Russian Orthodox cathedral. The atmosphere in the game was disappointing, as the attendance was around 40%, but they were pretty loud. The Russians really took it to Ukraine, winning 6-0. Ovechkin played an alright game and got a goal and an assist. He wasn't the biggest impact player, but was pretty dangerous whenever he was on the ice. His goal was off a deflecting for the point. Malkin impressed me a lot more then AO did. He's gonna be an amazing place and plays a complete game. Very sound defensively, strong on the puck, good passing and vision and played with heart. In one sequence, he brought it in the zone, passed it off, recovered the puck twice and set up a good scoring chance. The kid can play. The russian goalie wasn't so good, always playing it safe and covering up the puck, but Ukraine never really threatened. Overall it was nice to see the young guys play.

After the game, I went back to the hostel and meet up with the guys. We decided to chill in the hostel and watch the game from here. After ordering 2 giant pizza's for 2.25 lats each we settled down for the game. This game was nuts and I really wished I could have attended. Canada opened up a 4-0 lead quicking (big props to Crosby) and never looked back. The funny thing about the game was that it had to be delayed twice due to the fans complaining and throwing stuff on the ice. The first time was with 2 minutes left in the first, with Canada up 4-0 after the ref called another penality on Latvia (there was like 8 pp chances for Canada in the first). They called the first period early, did the zambonie stuff and played the final 2 min then the 2nd immediately. Canada took it easy in the 2nd only scoring once but turned it on again in the 3rd scoring 3 in the first 2 minutes. After another Latvian penality, the crowd got worked up again and the players were sent back to the dressing room while they fixed things up. One of the Latvian played had to talk to the crowd though the PA system to get them to calm down. The Latvian's also had the weirdest/funniest chant going, "Fuck you.....Latvia", gold. After play resumed Canada scored immediately on the pp and ended up winning 11-0. Many were complaining that Canada should have taken it easy, but in all honesty, they did. 9 of the goals were on the PP so not much you can do there, when it was 5 on 5 they didn't push too hard. I think they said about 17 lats were thrown on the ice in coins (35 canadian) as well as a shoe and a cellphone (and a bunch of random crap). On a side note, the cheerleaders at the hockey games are SO pretty!! It's so hard to concentrate on the game with them dancing around. Crazy Europeans.

We went out to a club (Essential) afterwards and on the walk there, the Lats were cheering everywhere (I guess losing 11-0 is a good thing here). Wally was being an ass as usual which was funny, making fun of them all and such. Good times all around. The club was pretty nice and played good music (house?) but was damn expensive so we decided to leave a while later. A quick note, Latvian/Estonian/Finnish girls are very pretty.

On friday I go up earlier then the other guys and too a walk around, checking out some monuments and places, like the Swedish gate. Nothing too spectacular. Afterwards the guys went to get tickets to the USA/Finland game. I wish I coulda went too but I had spent my money elsewhere, more on that later. After checking out the Central Market, it was off for my fun activity of the day, the firing range. I went with 6 Brits to this place that just looked like a shack, but was like a huge underground bunker. In there we got to shoot a pistol (not sure which one), an AK47, and a shotgun. We had 8 shots for each gun. I think I was a little nervous and used my wrong eye to aim for the pistol, so they were all along the side of body target (5 points each) instead of center mass (10 points). With the AK47, it was set on single shot and my aim was much better, with all my registered hits to center mass. It didn't have as much kickback as I was expecting. The final gun was the Shotgun, this thing had a ton of kick, and my shoulder/bicep is still hurting (i think it slipped from my shoulder during shooting and was using my bicep as a brace. I managed to get the nicest shot the the day, a shotgun blast to the left side of the face :)

All in all, I got 150 points. I was hoping for better, but it was still fun and they let us pose with the guns afterwards. A bunch us us (me, paul, analisa) stay in the hostel to watch Finland just beat the shit outta USA. Afterwards, the guys that went to the game came back and most of us went to a pub to grab a drink. I tried some local shot called Sambouka (spelling?) which tasted like licorice). When I was there I met Mike Comrie and Kyle Calder (play for team canada) which was quite fun to chat win. Comrie was pretty quite, but Calder and his buddy were lots of fun. They offered to give me tickets for the Sunday Game but unfortunately I'm gone tomorrow which sucks. They also wanted me to come with them to the club, but we had made plans with some of the other guys to go to another place, so we didn't go. My Flames mojo was pretty low at the time (maybe cuz of the alcohol) but they were quizzing me on Flames numbers, and I couldn't remember them (i suck). I just couldn't remember Lundmark, and Juice's number, I got simon though (upon further checking, I did get Lundmark, they had it wrong). Not as good as Leslie's world championship experiences, but pretty sweet.

After the pub we headed over to a local club for some drinks and dancing. The group consisted of Wally, Andrew, Francis, Paul, Alisa and Me. It was pretty wicked there and we stayed till sunrise and called it a night. I love Riga!!

On my last night, I originally wanted to check out the Occupation Museum (have to do 1 museum) but I got up pretty late. When I was about to leave, we found out Wally had lost/thrown away his passport (he was headed home in 2 days) so we had to get that stuff straightened out. Crazy guy. After that we pretty much just did the usual sitting around, talking, chillin. Was definately a much different trip then most of my other ones. As I finish this post, I'm off to the airport to Stockholm. In my crappy planning skills, I found out I arrive at 6pm (much earlier then I thought) and didn't book a hostel, so it's gonna be chill at the airport and sleep there night. O well, at least I can do some planning for the rest of the trip. See you all in Stockholm.

Long Trip part 1: Tallinn, Estonia

I went out on my long solo trip with my first destination as Tallinn, however, the adventure started before I even left Switzerland.

When I got to Basel I found out that my flight was delayed for a little over an hour, being in no hurry (I was sleeping in Berlin that night anyways) I didn't really mind. I sat down to organize my stuff (and write all my travel info in my black book just incase I lost some stuff later) and reliazed that my flight from Gothenburg, Sweden, to Frankfurt, Germany later in my trip was booked wrong. Apparently, I booked it for Feb 21st instead of may21st, thus pulling my first "Tommy" of my travels. In a panic, I go to the pay internet kiosk and hammer away at the thing. Then, over the PA system, it's time to board my flight, crap! I managed to finish all the booking and boarded the flight (gonna cost me an extra 60-70 bucks, crappy). Luckily I found out in time and had a cheap solution around it. Upon arriving in Berlin, I found that my favorite sleeping spot was already taken (damn Easyjet delay) so I had to find another one, which wasn't too hard).

The next day I flew to Estonia and all was well, after dropping off my stuff in the hostel (the most solitary place I have ever been in, not only was I the only one in my room, but the only guest in the whole hostel) I went to walk around. The first day I just randomly walked around taking pictures and the second day, I took the audio tour to see what everything was, so i'll kinda combine those days together.

some general info of the city. The old city consists of 2 parts, Toompea, on a hill where Estonia was run, and lower city "all-inn" where merchants and stuff were. These were 2 seperate cities for a long time.

Some of the sites of the city:

Kiek in de Kok
This is the canon tower used to defend the city. The old city was walled up and heavily fortified. The walls were around 16m high and 3m thick. This one was the biggest tower, 36m tall and beat the crap outta the Russians many times. The name is low german for "peek in the kitchen" since it was so tall the soldiers could see into the peasents kitchens through the chimeny.

Danish King's Garden
On this spot, the Danish had just took over Tallinn, the Estonians started fighting back to take it back by tricking the Danes by giving them free booze (works everytime). The Danish king looked to the Heavens to find a sign for confidence, a red flag with a write cross fell from the sky. The Danes pushed the Estonian's back and this flag eventually become the flag of Denmark. It's also on Estonia's small coat of arms.

Toopea Fort and Tall Hermann
The fort was the old castle here. It eventually got remodelled to be more of a palace but has some fort elements till. The most noticible is the tallest tower, Tall Hermann. It's 45.6m tall. The Estonian flag first flew on top of the tower in 1918 but 1940 the Soviets swept in and put their flag up, in 1941 the Germans removed the Soviets and the Estonian flag was restored, but this lasted only 1 day, as the next day, the German's put up their own. After WW2, the soviets came back and put theirs up. This lasted till 1989 when the country gain independence. Every night the flag is lowered to the national anthem. An interesting fact is that the anthem has the same melody as Finlands.

Aleksander Nevski Cathedral
Orthadox church, part of the Russification of Estonia. 11 bells with the biggest being 15 tons.

Luhike jalg and Pikk jalg
"Why does Tallinn walk with a limp? Because it has 1 long leg and 1 short leg". This a joke commonly told (so I read) and the 2 streets, Luhike jalg (short leg) and Pikk jalg (long leg) are named. These 2 streets are the only steet connecting the 2 former cities (Toompea and Lower city). Interestly the 2 cities didn't always get along and there are large gates to block off the path (with shooting holes and everything).

St. Nicholas Church
This church was up before the city walls and this doubled as a defence fortress. The floor is a little below the ground outside to provide cover and the windows were originally small. After the wall was put up it was converted into a more conventional church.
One interesting thing about the church is the mummy inside. The Swedes were attacking the Russians. Tsar Peter 1 pannicked and left, leaving the foreign Duke Carl Eugen de Croy in charge. The russians were beaten bad and the soliders blaimed the foreign leaders and started killing them. de Croy turned himself into the Swedes, and they let him live in Tallinn freely. He accumulated a lot of debt, but always said his rich relatives would pay if off. 1 day he suddenly died and they refused to bury his body until his relatives came to claim the body in which they would get the money he owed back. No one ever came and they threw his body in the crypt. About 100 yrs later he discovered that his body had mummified (due to high alcohol in the blood). He was put on display in the church and the church charged admission to see him. This went on for 80 yrs until he was buried.
Inside St. Nicholas's is the painting "Dance of death" which I touched on in my Edinburg entry.

St. Olaf's Church
At on point this was the tallest building in the world at 159m. It is now 36m shorter after it was struck by lightning and burned. The legend of this church is that they were having a tough time trying to find a builder but some one eventually stepped up but asked for a lot of money. He later had a counter offer, if anyone could guess his name before the church was done, it would be free. The church was built fast and no one could get his name. The night before it was to be complete, someone followed him home and heard his wife singing to their child "tomorrow, Tuuletallaja will bring home gold for you". The next day, as the builder was placing the cross on the top, a villager yelled " Hey Tuuletallaja, it's a little crooked". The builder was stunned and fell to his death. When the villagers ran to the body, a frog and a snake came out which proved he was actually the devil (why would the devil build a church? I hear stories for the devil building churches also, most notibly in Munich as well).

Guild houses
Lots of those here.

Another interesting story. Every year, on an Autumn night, a small gray man will come out from the lake and ask the guard "Is everything done building?" Like most cities, something is always being constructed or built, but if everything is ever done and he asks, you must say no or from that moment, the water in the lake will rise and destroy the city. The legend probably originated since Tallinn used to be lower and thus the water could reach the town.

Another interesting note, motorcycles drive on the side walk here (also in Riga).

I also checked out the new city a bit and they have a nice beach. The sand is white and very fine. That night I went to the bar to watch the hockey game, but they showed the fin/czech game instead of the can/usa game, o well, it was pretty good and damn cheap. On the topic of food, I left my extra euro's at home so don't have much spending money (closed my swiss account, said it would take a couple weeks to get the money transfered to canada.) so I have to watch my budget. The first night's ratio consisted of 1.30 cdn (as did the last night).

My final day I took the bus from Tallinn, to Riga. The trip was 5.5 hours long and was fairly comfortable. The border check was pretty neat and I got my latvia stamp now (score!). Hopefully I can get my canada/latvia hockey tickets. I'll write about Latvia next time, cheers.

My last weekend in Baden

I'm still not coming home for about a month, but with all the travelling coming up this was my last weekend in Baden. On friday night a bunch of us (Jacqui, Evan, Crispin,Felix, Travis and I) went to Zurich to hit up a nightclub called Rote Fabrik (which I have just butchered the spelling). The club played a bunch of old-school hip-hop which was really good. Those who know we know I don't/can't dance, so it was gonna be an interesting night. On the way there Jacqui hooked me up with some drinks to loosen me up (much needed) which was cool. When we got to the Zurich HB, there was a beach volley ball thing going on which was kinda cool, but it was guys playing. There was a ton of drums and stuff out as well, so Evan rocked out on them for a while, it was totally random and cool. We got in the club at around 11 and after a while I started feeling the beat and getting into it and had a blast. Maybe I should go clubbing a bit more often. I didn't really try to talk to/pick up any one and bombs horribly when I tried but o well, 1 thing at a time. 1/2 of the group left at around 1 and shortly after they left and MC and headliner DJ came out and was playing a good selection of songs (I didn't know any, but it was creating a sweet atmosphere). We partied there till around 3 and started to walk back to the main trainstation to get home and got home at around 4:40, was definately a fun night. Unfortuately Jacqui's camera disappeared that night, so that really blows, hopefully it'll turn up.

On saturday we were originally going to go go swimmbad (outdoor swimming pool area) but it was closed so we eventually went to play some b-ball. At the trainstation in Baden they had some celebration thing going with Karoke and a mech. Bull. We wanted all the praktikants to come and do a spur of the moment karoke concert but couldn't find everyone. We were gonna form a boy band with matching clothes and dance routine and everything...too bad. At the b-ball courts some swiss kids challenged Travis, Naveen and I where we promptly crushed them. On the rematch we started screwing around and so it was a bit closer, but still remarkably easy. After that we went to Zegelhau to meet up with everyone to go on a bbq. The group consisted of Felix, Kahn, Berfu, Henrick, Keegan, Travis, Krispin, Jacqui, Lindsey, Evan, Pat and I. We didn't have much food and it was short notice, so Felix and I had another adventure in cooking, where we took a soya sauce chicken we had earlier, and added some pickled veggies and tons of parmasian and cooked it over the fire with a frying pan. It turned out damn good (2 for 2 on the adventures in cooking this week). After chilling for a bit we called it a night and went home.





Earlier in the week Felix wanted to make a cake for no reason, so we did that. We made a Blackcurrent/mint tea cake with Maple nut crunch and maple glaze. We infused the cake batter with mint tea but boiling milk with tea bags and using that for the cake. We had some Black current surup as well. It surprisingly turned out really good (especially the glaze, i'm gonna eat straight glaze more often now).

All in all a good week. On Sunday a bunch of us went to the zoo for a bit. It was pretty nice, but seemed small.

Later that night I flew to Berlin to start my 17 day tour of Estonia, Latvia, Sweden, Finland, and Germany.

A swim in Baden

Last night we went out to the beer gardens to meet some of the new praktikants. When that closed we proceeded to go to Pickwicks, the local english pub. The thing is Pickwicks has a fountain infront of it and it's tradition to get thrown in before leaving. I had just missed the mass dunking the week before due to my trip to Edinburgh-Barcelona so I knew I was going in. Olivier had come back for a week for some work thing so when he was about to leave Vance and his posse pounce throwing him in. Vance, knowing I hadn't gone it yet targetted me next. I didn't mind going in but figured it'd be more fun to put up a struggle and make them work for it. I think I put a decent struggle but didn't want to kick and flail too much incase I took out someone's teeth. I had a good hold of Vance's leg and was trying to force him in with me, but with my feet off the ground, I didn't have much leverage and eventually in I went. Afterwards we threw in Vance and Tommy and a few others. All in all a good night.

Moscow, Russia

Excitement, amazement, danger...this trip had it all!!

Before coming to Moscow, I heard so many thing. Everyone said it was going to be expensive, it was going to be a hastle to get into the country. My co-worker told me to leave the airport as fast as possible as people get killed there and I read stories about priests beating up random people in the streets. For the most part this was far from the truth.

Aside from the visa costs, the price of things in Russia were quite decent, very compariable to Canada. Getting into and out of the country was surprisingly hastle free and getting to and from the airport was effortless. It was also quite peaceful there aside from 1 incident, but more on that later.

One thing that I did hear before coming that was true was the impressive metro stations. Many of them were all in marble, had nice stained glasses, chandiliers (i butchered that word) and nice carvings and designs. They were also very deep underground, probably to double as bomb shelters back in the day or something.








I started my journey on friday night, taking the free night train to Geneva airport to spend the night. Like my previous trip there, I made a b-line to the full length leather couch and made myself at home. The next day I met up with Vance and Warren on the airplane. I had opted to save 100 CHF and fly from Geneva instead of Zurich. Vance spent the night in the Zurich airport and Warren in the Zurich trainstation so I think my accomodations were a little better. The flight was good, it was nice to not fly easyjet for once and get food and drinks and chocolate (although I slept through the chocolate).

After getting into the country we headed straight for the hostel. We found a super cheap shuttle bus to take to the city and Vance randomly decided to get off at a stop, luckily there was a metro stop there and it was easy to find the way to our place. Since I was travelling with people other then Keegan, we went for lunch right away (apparently I'm the only person on the trip that doesn't need to eat).

We found a nice little cafe and ordered some stuff. I got a russia soup and the first of many russian beers (Балмика - Baltika)



Since we arrive fairly late, we decided to just wander the city and not really plan anything. We spotted the first of many Orthadox churches (onion dome roofs). When we got there we spotted more and until we were left standing infront of St. Basil's Cathedral in Red Square.




In red square, Vance saw a matrioshka dolls set with 10 of Russia's leaders and had to get it. I told him to wait it out and shop around but he was determined, so I got one as well to lower the cost a little. The leaders in order are (Vladimir Putin, Boris Yeltsin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Leonid Brezhnev, Nikita Khrushchev, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, Tsar Alexander, Catherine the Great, Peter the Great).


After some more random walking we saw some pretty big monument of a ship or something, we weren't totally sure, it was kinda random.


As we were walking back to the Red Square we came across the Cathedral of Christ our Savior. Stalin had originally destroyed the original (made by Nicholas I) to construct this huge new one but Khrushchev abandoned those plans and turned it into the worlds largest indoor swimming pool. The water vapor was starting to damage stuff in a near by museum and it was converted back into a cathedral.


We eventually made it back to Red Square and found it surprisingly quiet at night. After a few pictures we called it a night as we had a long day of travel.





The next day we got up early to check out Lenin's Tomb. The line up was fairly long but it move quiet quick and before we knew it we were infront of the man himself.





I was thinking of some elaborate scheme to take a picture in there, but they didn't allow camera in at all and have metal detectors and the whole 9 yards, o well. Inside was pretty dark with a Russian guard at every corner. It also look like a mirror reflection as all the guards looked identical. The man himself looked pretty waxy and was a very short guy. The presentation was really something, but you could stay long as the guards pushed you along right away. After exiting the tomb you walked past a wall where other leaders are buried, such as Stalin.

The next destination was the Kremlin which consisted of 4 churches/cathedrals, 3 palaces a large bell and a canon (among other stuff). I've never seen such a large number of churchs in such a small area. The churches were all pretty neat and the orthadox cathedrals are definately much different from those in western europe. The walls and ceils are just totally covered in wall painting with very vibrant colors.





On display was also the Tsar Canon, a 5.34 metre long thing weighing 40 tons. Much larger then the big one in Scotland.


Another gigantic thing was the Tsar bell, which is 6.14 metres high, 6.6 metres in diameter and 200 tons. It apparently fell when it was being raised.


We went to the armory museum in the Kremlin to see the faberge eggs. We also saw some amazing carriages and thrones. Unfortuately my pictures of the eggs sucked, but heres 1 from the gift shop.


After finishing most of the Red square sites we head off to a Market to get some souvineers. Warren wanted to buy a bunch of fox fur hats (he bought a rabbit one earlier) so we decided to attack that together to get a good deal. We found a stall and the guy asked how much we paid for the one warren was wearing and I told them 400 Roubles (it was actually 700). This proved to be a good starting price as he said we got a great deal and it showed him we were experienced shoppers (far from the truth). We eventually got 5 fox hats (1 for me, 4 for warren) and he threw in a free rabbit hat for us. I think we did alright.


We also bought a buch of matrioshka dolls and headed out to dinner. We found a Ukranian resturant which was great as Vance proclaimed he was 1/4 Ukranian and then proceeded to screw us by ordered the most expensive beer for all of us (it cost more then the meal, damn you!!). Vance felt pretty bad about it but o well, it happens.

Since we had a nice time at Red Square the previous night, we pick up some beered and headed there to chill for the night. Picking up our new hats we went out for the night.

At Red Square, we meet some really cool people there. We talked to 1 couple for quiet a while which was really interesting. We had a little trouble with the language barrier but it worked out. When they left we talked to another guy who told us Russian beer was only fit for the floor (this time I was having Каинское упьтра and Сибирская корона, the second one apparently being Syberian Corona). He then asked us if we wanted some vodka and left to get some. I wasn't expecting him to come back but it was a nice gesture, so far everyone been really friendly in Russia. Eventually a police officer casually strolled over and told us no beer which is understandable since he didn't want a mess in the red square, so we called it a night.


The next day was a very eventful day. The first place we went was the VDNkH, which was the Socialist Economic Achievement Area. Pretty much it a area showing all the amazing stuff to prove that comunism worked. It was totally over the top and great. For some reason the guide books barely mention this place which was a little weird. Before we got there, we saw this huge titanium tower for the Cosmonaut musuem which cool Russian carvings. Soviet stuff is great as everyone is dipicted as very strong and proud. Stike a pose!









In the VDNkH there were 50 amazing building of various styles all packed into a 2km by 1km block. To top it off there was a golden fountain and a aerospace displace to show the amazing comunist system at work. Inside these buildings was, as Warren put it, "a poignant juxtaposition, a motley assortment of vendors and small shops and the sounds of vibrant capitalism". The area was just amazing.









Afterwards we went to Victory Park which was a huge area with, on 1 side the Triumphal Arch for 1812, and a huge spire for WW2.




I think there was some celebration or something as there was a huge crowd there.

Afterwards we made a stop at the world's busiest McDonalds near the Red Square. It was pretty neat and had to get a Big Mac there. On a side note, the Ice cream there was damn cheap, 6 Roubles.


That night we went to a Russian Circus which was amazing. We got seat in row 9 and could see everything. The first act was a bunch of monkeys dressed in Human clothes dancing around and stuff, the usual stuff. Afterwards, there was a 2 person trapeeze show which was aright followed by a bunch of clowns and then dogs doing tricks. After that, the cool stuff started. First was a crazy juggler. When we first came out I thought he was just a raver in an awesome costume then outta nowhere he pulled out a bunch of balls to juggle. The costume had like 6 pockets all over carrying ball and he was so smooth it grabbing and places the balls there. There was 1 sequence where he's grab a ball from a pocket on his leg and let another one drop in there, it was crazy stuff. Next was a really well done clown act involing throwing around a light (the illusion of it at least). The next act was a cool act where they used a sea-saw thing to launch people high in the air doing flips and stuff and landing ontop of a human tower, it was crazy. Afterwards they pulled off out these huge stilts and where launching people as well. They were going damn high and doing crazy flips and stuff. To one-up it even more, they pulled out a bigger launcher and bigger stilts to go higher and flip more. It was sweet. We thought it was over after that and proceeded to leave and found out it was only an intermission, awesome!

The second half started off with a 6 person trapeeze act which was cool. 2 of them seemed really young. The ending part of the act was that 1 dude went to the roof and did a sucide dive head first into the net, it was pretty crazy.

Afterwards there was a fire eating act while they took down the safety nets and then a roller skating thing. Next was a really good clown act that really got all the kids involved where they were throwing imaginary coins into a bag and you could see and here it enter the bag. It was great for the kids. The next act was this 1 crazy no-spine dude who was on a 2-handed or 1-handed hand stand for the whole act and doing crazy balancing and stalls. It was sweet. The last act was the tiger tamers which was nice for the kids. It was great to see a circus again and had a great time.


After the circus we went for some Georgian/Azerbaijan food which was interesting. The waiters spoke no english and just stood there not giving us any time to look at the menu. We couldn't communicate with him to give us more time and just randomly picked some food to eat.

After the meal we picked up a drink for the way home and proceeded to head to the hostel as Warren had to pack his things. As we turned off the main road to the small steet towards our hostel, we heard some one yell stop, creud drawing below.


At first I thought it was a cop telling us to not drink and I turned to see 1 huge Russian guy and his friend who was about our height. The dude then yells "Money" and it strikes us this dude is trying to mug us. Vance and I are standing there trying to comprehend the situation when without any delay, Warren (who from here on out will be refered to as Braveheart) replys "Fuck you!"

"no, Fuck you! Money!", the russia dude reply quickly followed by Braveheart's reply,
"Fuck you!"

At this point the guy takes a swing at Braveheart, but Braveheartstays up. Vance and I spread out to surround the dude and I also keep an eye out for the guys friend.
The dude sensed he wasn't in control and then went and takes out his gun. Vance and I instantly thought it was fake, but who knows. He never pointed it at us, so we figured he was bluffing.

The Russian turns his attention to Vance now and Braveheart takes the oportunity to get closer to the main street to call for the police. The guy trys to take a swing at Vance and lands a glancing blow. Braveheart, seeing an openning throws his Fanta bottle at the guys head which stops him for a sec. Seeing this we proceed to run back to the main street towards people to get outta there. The whole situation took about 1-2 minutes but everything slowed down. We were all happy we got out safely and that we never panicked at all. We took an alternate route to the hostel as we had enough for the night. At the hostel we talked about the whole thing and Vance and I both thought of using our beer bottles to hit hte guy but figured if he didn't go down, it would have escalated things and we were both saving it for like the worst case senerio.

On the last day, Warren had a earlier flight then us and took for for hte airport right away. Vance and I had a little more time so we went to check out the inside of St. Basil's.









After that, we just roamed around the streets, got another cheap ice cream and went to catch the train for the airport. Unfortunately we missed the train by 1 minute and had to wait another hour for the next one. When we got to the airport, we were surprise how easy it was to go through customs and security (had this cool full-body scan thing though), much different then what we were told. Upon landing in Geneva, I left to take the train, while Vance proceeded to fly to Zurich. I got home at around midnight, ending one hell of a trip.