Sunday 24 February 2008

In Transit: Tallinn to Helsinki [Viking Lines] [Carla's Birthday]

Well, we leave now from one party [from Hollywood in Tallinn] to a party on the Ferry from Tallinn to Helsinki. This ferry known as the Viking line, runs 3 hours and contains various pubs and bars, and a tax-free shop with alcohol. It is not allow to drink alcohol bought in the tax free shop on the ship, but solely because they want you to spend your money at their bars [which is more expensive]. But no one cares, every one is walking around carelessly and drunk with tax-free cans of beer in their hands. When entering the boat we saw several buses entering the car deck...that's amazing how a ship can support that weight and be stable. :|

After running to catch this boat, since we went to the wrong side of the port, we finally relaxed and drank our two mini bottles of tax-free wine and two cans of beer. Satisfaction and relaxation levels increased! bonus!

The best part of this boat trip was meeting this cute, semi-drunk, graphics designer, Hanna, from Hamina, Finland. Come on, it's green eyes!!!!!! Apart from her, we met two girls [sisters] from east Tallinn near the border or Russia, and they spoke Russian! At end we realized that they were in high school :S....that's to show how mature these girls look and dress...however, my heart and mind still lie elsewhere...

The trip was fun, except the boat was totally moving up and down and we felt more drunk than we were. At the end, everyone was drunk, totally falling down - men, women children, just drunk... :). And of course trolleys of beer were being shipped out...

After this, arriving in Helsinki to yet another party - the birthday of the sister of the girlfriend of Marcos [Anna's sister: Carla]. It was good went to a couple of bars [Carla's pub crawl] - bar hopping. Met Anna's dad at a bar with her mom and godfather [drinking of course, the natural Finnish way]. Her godfather actually visited Trinidad about 10-15 years ago for the carnival, how amazing! After it was to a karaoke bar, where we discovered we weren't missing anything in terms of girls from Estonia, since the beauty was still existent even in Finland...[to the right - the Finnish sisters, wow: from left-right: Milla, Carla, Anna]. Absolute Helsinki...


Above: Left-Right: There's Marcos, "The Godfather", Anna, her Mom, her Dad, et moi...

Scandinavian Trek: Riga, Lativa & Tallinn, Estonia

Ok, so being in Finland, and so close to all these Baltic countries, we decided to do a petite Scandinavian tour. After all, we are here already, and I've always wanted to go to Estonia. I mean who goes to these places [Estonia and Latvia]. As my mom put it: "I'm going to places that Patrick manning [the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago] has never gone before". The line up is as follows:

Bus from Turku to Tampere, Plane from Tampere to Riga, Bus from Riga to Tallinn, Boat [Ferry] from Tallinn to Helsinki, Bus from Helsinki to Turku.

Turku, Finland > Tampere, Finland > Riga, Latvia > Tallinn, Estonia > Helsinki, Finland > Turku, Finland.

Tampere: we only spent one hour here, and didn't see much, but what little we saw of the city, it was beautiful and serine. The port was nice, the curches were different [orthodox] and there were many companies established here. Oh, that's another thing, currently we are all looking for summer jobs or masters thesis research internships in europe, so our entire trip was revolving around identifying potential scandinavian companies and girls to which we could apply. ;)
A few Tampere pictures are on the Tampere picasa album.

Scandinavian Trek: Riga, Latvia from the Latvian girls [although they were close to Russia...and of course Russian girls are beautiful] as much as Estonian girls; but these Lats surpassed our expectations. They were all hott, and dressed really: so, finally we touched down in Riga. I'm in Latvia, come on!! Who really visits there. We were not expecting so much "provocatively", and had very "prominent" body features ;). Slim, blond, blue eyes, tall, tall boots, pink skin. They dressed with a certain fashion - short skirts although it was freezing cold, as if they were going to a night club but it was in the middle of the day in the middle of the week. Even the moms were hott; we came across these Latvian Moms one morning. Hott! These girls asked us to help them carry their baby carriages across bare and active rail road lines. :| dangerous... but worth the risk... ;). Even the receptionists at our hostel were amazing, so friendly [almost like the Czechs], which made them more attractive than they were. Though most of the girls on the streets at nights [along with taxi drivers] are aggressively harassing you to go to a "gentleman's club" with them or "buy them a drink". Anyways, Marcos and I even met a Belarusian girl [a real girl, not one on the streets] in the hostel, so hott, now we got accommodation in Belarus hahahahahaha, who the hell visits there? who lives there?

Ok, enough about the women, let's discover the city. "Riga is the largest city in the Baltic states. The Historic Centre of Riga has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the city is particularly notable for its extensive Art Nouveau (Jugendstil) architecture, which UNESCO considers to be unparalleled anywhere in the world." [source]. The buildings, architecture and city are all beautiful, different and attractive, unlike the claim of "wikitravel guide" that they were ugly. It was a mixture of old German, Soviet, and Russian style structures, with modern New York style buildings [on the outskirts and perimeter of the old town]. Most of the steeples of many of the buildings and houses and castles possessed little weather cocks and cats and dogs perched on top. In terms of nightlife, the city was a bit dead since it was the middle of the week, so we decided to focus on the city. Oh my god! We found a casino in Riga, called "Tobago", which is actually based around my island of Tobago!! apparently we have a history with Latvians!! So strange to see something like this in Europe, since not much people know about Trinidad and Tobago. The next day we visited a bit of the preserved old style houses of the city. It was really cool, I felt like I was in the middle of the world war ages. By then we were totally hungry, starving and collapsing. We passed through by chance a typical Latvian market place and begged and hassled for two bananas from a lady with the few cents that we had, and even took her sample mandarin for free [Bonus!]. After starving for the entire day, almost fainting, we found this great cheaaaaaaap food place with wonderful Latvian styled food in a meat market near the bus station, definitely a BONUS!!! See more pictures from this trip at the Scandinavian Trek: Riga, Latvia picasa album.

Scandinavian Trek: Tallinn, Estonia: OK, after running to catch the bus from Riga to Tallinn, we were finally on our way there...tired from the trip already, we slept for what we thought was hours on the bus, but was only one hour. The four hour trip ended with excitement as we came of the bus and set foot on Estonian grounds! WOW, we were in Estonia, Capital of Prostitution! Our expectation of girls here were very high, and they were met pleasantly and even surpassed; with there tanned skin and blond hair and pink clothes and tall boots. It's final! Scandinavian girls are the hottest on this planet, I don't know why. [of course the French can't be surpassed in beauty, with their high fashion and beautiful French style ;)]. It was also determined that McDonald's [as mentioned in the previous post that there were lots of benefits] is a hot-spot and resource-pool for hott girls. We just needed to enter any McDonald's in either Riga or Tallinn and were bombarded by beauty. Our Hostel was so extravagant, covered in wood, like a sauna. And the shower was the Coolest I've seen [in our hostel], it has mirrors everywhere, jets for you to sit and relax, dual shower heads 9one to the side and one directly above], lights, radio and speakers.

Ok enough enough, now the city: "Tallinn (historically known by the German and Danish name Reval, among other names) is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It lies on the northern coast of Estonia, along the Gulf of Finland. The city is an important industrial, political and cultural center, and seaport." [source]. The city is quite small and can be covered in one day, it consists of the old medieval town surrounded by new industrial buildings and large companies and shopping centered. Quite the contrast! One really funny thing was that there was a tower named "Kiek in de Kök", pronounced "kick in the cock" :| hahahahaha. just a bit strange.

Marcos and I have grown quite fond of night tourism, which is where we sleep most of the day and go out at night, not to party, but to see the city, sightsee, take pictures etc. It's really fun, quiet and peaceful, since there are no annoying tourists, and most of the buildings look more beautiful with the night-lights than in the foggy cloud daylight. Also, we have a concept that our trips are now much like a video game where by the mission is to find the cheapest places and best deals [student way], and of course discover the regional girls. each time we succeed, we say it's a bonus! like the free medieval nuts and bread we got in Tallinn old town center. Our last night in Estonia was well spent in a night club called Hollywood, it was not as nice at Trinidad's Zen, but quite nice. We even met some [real and drunk] Estonian girls... ;).

This trip was tiring and almost over, the last day in Estonia was spent looking for a gift for Anna's sister's [Carla's] birthday. We then had lunch at a "buffet" which was not a real buffet, but just a stupid restaurant were you choose and pay for various different things, and then once again had to run to catch our ferry to Helsinki [we're always running for buses, trains, planes, and boats].

Friday 15 February 2008

My Winter of Love: Erasmus Breaks Hearts

So, in my last days of France, I managed to acquire myself a French girlfriend. ha-ha. Marcos got himself a Finnish-girl, but I was the only one in the program with a French-girl ;). I mean who has a French girl? That's just hott! I managed also to fall in love with her, in love for the first time in my life, for real, and I can't manage to fall out of it. She's just amazing, with her cute butterfly eyes, and soft brunette hair, and intelligent independence and purpose in life, and her French accent, and her beautiful, loving, simple self.

Now that I'm in Finland, it's become a distance relationship that's piercing to both our hearts. This Europe has it's benefits, but one thing that's rising is the mobility and the breaking down of barriers and the ease with which someone can move around. This mobility makes it almost impossible for couples to have stable and normal relationships. I think I'd love her for a while... All of my memories keep you near, In silent moments imagine you'd be here.
Erasmus breaks hearts.

[Sorry for the tabanka post]




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