leaving helsinki was easy, physically and mentally. physically, the boat ride lasted about an hour and a half. it had a bar, restaurant, deck, and the seating resembled an airplane. i found a seat next to a window and wrote the entire time. mentally, don’t get me wrong, i thoroughly enjoyed helsinki. it was a very beautiful town, safe, super easy to navigate and get around, and the people were very friendly. however, the one thing that helsinki was missing was the medieval setting that awaited in tallinn.

after leaving the superseacat boat, i immediately saw the old town with the surrounding medieval buildings. the hotel was in a great location; in between the docks and the old town. we checked into the hotel, the Reval Inn, dropped our luggage off and headed for the old town.

we entered the old town and i quickly knew i would be photographing every single inch of the place. the streets were cobblestone, the buildings short with castle turrets above, buildings in different colors, big iron lamps hanging from the buildings, and just simply amazing. and that was the first street!

we wandered through the streets and ended up in Raejoka plats, the town square.

off to the right was the only surviving gothic town hall in northern europe and the rest of the square was restaurants with outdoor seating and shops. basically, i went to the center of the square and spun in place with my camera. it was just amazing. like stepping into another world.

we had lunch at a restaurant in the square. the people working at the restaurant spoke really good english and the menu was in english, which was great. estonian is a complicated language and i was happy i didn’t have to use the guidebook to translate anything.

walking around old town was wow, just wow, triple wow, freaking quadruple wow.

this was my first experience in a medieval town, and it was amazing. it was very surreal as if i was in a dream. what if i touched the building, would the bubble pop and i wake up in my room from a deep sleep? at the same time, it was overwhelming. it was so excruciatingly beautiful with so many little details along with the knowledge that i would be leaving the day after tomorrow caused some anxiety on wanting to see everything and not miss a thing. i seriously could spend several weeks in the old town. there were so many winding, narrow streets with hidden treasures that i wanted to find.

i’m writing this at the crack of dawn with a slight hangover from the night before.

i don’t have much time left before we leave for a tour of old town so i am going to quickly zoom through the day cause i could spend forever writing about the town. check out the pics cause they show a much better story. while i was finishing up the entries about helsinki at cafe pegasus, john found some lesbians who told him about the gay pride walk happening in the city. not a parade, but a walk. apparently the gays got into trouble last year, so this year, they walked around with rainbow flag pins and bracelets to just be seen. john’s new friends gave him a gay guide to the city and said they would be at a place called g-punkt later on.

we walked around a bit more and headed back to the hotel to meet the tour group. john and i made predictions about the group and none of them turned out to be true. the tour leader was a brit named adam and the group was, well, let’s just say we lowered the median age in the group. the majority were from the UK, two aussies, 1 (not including us, obviously) from nyc, and 1 from florida. 17 people in total. it doesn’t really matter who was in the group. john and i would keep each other company.

after the meeting, we went back into the old town and dinner at the arizona saloon for a not so traditional estonian dinner. in fact, i haven’t had a traditional dinner yet. gotta put that on the list. the food was ok and i discovered my new favorite beer. it is called saku and it is a favorite in estonia. i also had another beer called a le coq, which tasted like water. not very good.

after dinner, we headed to the x-baar, a local gay club, and encountered the star wars cantina. in fact, the rest of the night was just a little weird. at the x-baar, there were two people with severely physical challenging conditions. it was cool they were out and about and good for them. i felt sorry for them, and it reminded me that i should never be depressed about my problems.

anyways, onto more exciting things. we left the old town to go to g-punkt, a lesbian bar that was having some gay associated event behind a building in a dark alley with only a orange light over the door. i was hesitant at first, but it proved to be a great experience.

why a great experience at a lesbian bar?

they had absinthe and i tried it! i have always wanted to try but it is illegal in the states cause it contains wormwood. it is legal here and the boyish russian lesbian bartender prepared it like a chemistry experiment. she set out coffee beans on a plate, poked a straw through a napkin, then poured a shot in a sifter, placed it on top of a regular glass, and lit the absinthe on fire. the absinthe burned for a bit and then she turned the sifter upside down to pour the absinthe into the regular glass and put out the flame by sufficating it with the sifter which let out fumes. she quickly took the sifter with the fumes and put on top of the napkin. the napkin has a straw through it and she covered the other end of the straw. ok, drink the absinthe, eat the coffee beans and then inhale the fumes. wow, what an experience. the absinthe tasted like bacardi 151 cause it burned going down, the coffee beans added an interesting texture to my mouth and then i inhaled the fumes, but it didn’t taste or influence anything. i think that is added for flair.

absinthe is known to cause hallucinations, but only if one consumes a bunch of it. no hallucinations here, but the drink gave me a good, kind of energetic feeling. maybe that was the coffee beans.

so, we left the lesbian place cause it was boring and headed back into old town to a place called angel, guess what it was. yep, another gay bar. ain’t i such a nice guy? angel was a proper dance club and a bunch of people were dancing. the setting was really cool. bunch of colorful lighting against the brick and stone. i snapped some photos of the place (without the flash), and then i was approached by a big german guy who wanted me to come with him. uh oh. i went into another room with another big german guy,and while i should have been nervous, i was happy go lucky. so, what’s up i said. they replied, delete photos. haha. ok, no prob. i showed them as i deleted them, and they let me go. wtf?! i couldn’t find anything that would want them to not allow photography.

so, john and i danced a bit to the house music and then the music turned weird and so we left. it was pretty late already and we had to wake up early for the old town tour, so we headed back to the hotel. on the way, we took some photos of the town square at night.

that wraps up the first day in tallinn, and what a day indeed. exploring an incredible medieval town, sampling absinthe and getting in trouble for photography.