Chilly day in Old Town in Tallinn, Estonia

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A new day and a new country — there’s nothing like it.

Masayo and I arrived in the port city of Tallinn, Estonia by overnight ferry from Mariehamn in the Åland Islands this morning. I’ve always wanted to visit Estonia; it’s always seemed so beautiful and unique, and I really know nothing about it. I consider being in Estonia a big item to check off my personal list of goals. And Tallinn is an unbelievable city to arrive in.

When I woke up and stumbled out of the four-bed room I shared with three unknown guys, I went to a table upstairs and waited for Masayo to wake up and join me. My blood sugar wasn’t too bad, considering how high I was all day yesterday and the fact that I only slept about five hours: 167.

Breakfast was from a cafe on the ferry, which also had free wifi. I spent the last part of the voyage updating t1dwanderer.com and sipping coffee from a paper cup. Motion and borders and coffee and newness: my kind of morning.

We walked through the cold drizzle of Tallinn in circles, somewhat tired and irritable, before finally locating Center Hotel where the staff could find no evidence of us having booked a room online, though we had in fact done so. They worked it out and we checked in, and even got an unexpected ensuite bathroom/shower. A little something from the travel gods.

And then we went to explore Tallinn.

Vanalinn: Tallinn’s Old Town area

The medieval Old Town of Tallinn, called Vanalinn locally, is a stunning UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s full of cobblestoned streets, colorful buildings with quirky architectural details and trimmings, historical plaques, quaint cafes and bookshops that exist quietly for those in the know, and a large, bustling central square. Even the “tacky tourist” aspects of Vanalinn aren’t too bad — like Olde Hansa, a restaurant serving food that purports to use the same ingredients as were used 400 years ago. If so, that’s pretty awesome. (We didn’t have the chance to try it, for better or worse.)

Strolling around Old Town at random is the way to see it — it doesn’t matter where you are, because something is always turning your head, pulling you here and there into this courtyard and through this alleyway, along the base of this tall and curving ancient wall. You duck in and out of markets selling yarn, and shops selling original paintings, antique knight’s armor, or silly tourist license plates; it’s all tossed in together. You can happily lose hours in Old Town Tallinn and still not even get a sense of the layout.

Up the hill at Toompea

After a nice lunch of meatballs and potatoes, before which my BG was 140 (and which was much cheaper than Sweden and Åland were), we walked up to Toompea, a hill on the edge of Old Town. It is from here that the famous photos of Tallinn are usually taken because you can go to the edge of a surrounding wall and look across the old red roofs and severe angles of the buildings. The piercingly frigid air kind of enlivened the atmosphere for us, as did the relative lack of other tourists.

Back in town I found a record store and checked it out: beside some Ray Charles LPs (I always look for Ray records, for fun), they had a good Beatles section, including a Russian knock-off of Abbey Road on which John and Paul’s feet were switched: Paul was shod now, and John was bare-hoofed. Why? Who? Huh??

In our Center Hotel room later, my BG was 257. Mashed potatoes? Likely. I was annoyed.

The late, great Argo Baar

A local tourist map suggested a Georgian restaurant near our hotel called Argo Baar. I didn’t know what Georgian food was like, so we set out through the dark, residential streets to find it. It turned out to be a construction zone: the restaurant had been demolished to make way for apartments. Argo Baar was now an empty lot.

Bummer, Estonia.

So we found a sushi restaurant, which was a little pricey (about $40 total) but very filling. A little taste of Japan in case we were getting homesick.

Before bed I did a load of laundry in the Scrubba, including for the first time my new Bluff Works pants. The pants were basically dry immediately afterwards — they must be made of some devilish plastic or something, but they’re very comfortable and so far have been worth the $100 I paid for them. Durable, light, and easy to dry: good for backpackers anywhere.

Tallinn has lived up to its reputation as a unique mixture of Scandinavia and Russia. This was where this trip was originally scheduled to begin (before we realized that for almost the same price we could fly to Stockholm and see Åland before arriving here), and being here kind of feels like the real beginning of the trip. Can’t wait to see what else Tallinn can show us.

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