7 nation army

Time for another entry...me thinks. Well, last weekend I went on a 24hr trip to Tallinn, Estonia with my good Finnish friend Leena! Great craic! On leaving Helsinki on the boat (after wandering around from the train station vaguely in the direction of Länsisatama, West Harbour!) there were clear blue skies and all signs of the recent storms seemed to have gone; bonus! The evening in Tallinn was really nice, quite peaceful and we basically just checked into our hostel and then went out for some grub and a litre of red wine :D The hostel was shit, quite frankly. Clean enough but the staff were most unfriendly *biscuit-arsed* and we didn't get the room we had booked, instead a mixed 6-bed room which was ok apart from us getting the dodgiest bunk-bed in there and some Spanish dude coming in at like 5am and shining a light on everyone....a bit of a rude awakening, he was probably just looking for his bed, but c'mon!

The next morning we were up and out bright and early and went for breakfast in a nice wee cafe, very cheap too! What Estonians and probably Finns called "rice porridge" is actually what I would call "rice pudding" and therefore really sweet and not what I expected, hmm...

The old town was beautiful!! Highlights included the cathedral (pictured), the town hall square, the castle, the old fortress around the old town and just all the other quaint, colourful buildings and windy streets! We visited one museum: the Museum of Natural History, mostly because I noticed that they had a Penguin exhibition, I love penguins!! Then wandered some more, inbetween stops to re-fuel. By about 3pm we were both extremely knackered and the grey, cold, rainy weather was not helping, so we made our way to Stockmann (i know...) and flopped there for like 2 hours and just chatted! Then it was time to head back to the boat, via the duty free alcohol shop where Leena bought 5litres of Estonian vodka and I managed with a slightly more modest bottle of Chilean red wine :)

Since my last post, I've been at another concert: Eva Dahlgren and Peter Jöback here at the Tampere Talo! My CEO basically had extra tickets and so a group of us from work went; they were great seats too! I really enjoyed the show because they had a brilliant band and a girl of about my age in a great red dress rocking out on lead guitar; I wanted to be her! In the name of live music, I bought 2 more gig tix on pay-day....und zwar 3 Doors Down at Helsinki Ice-hall and Bo Kaspers Orkester also in Tampere Talo!! Both are in November but I can't wait!

I've been loving the Olympics too....HYVÄ ISO-BRITANNIA!!!! GB has just surpassed all of my expectations and for once is displaying a very respectable and decent performance....hmm, that would be what, 19 Golds so far!!! Yessssss! and that puts us 3rd in the medals table behind China and the USA, but in comparison we're just a wee country! hehe! Finland is also doing well amongst the Nordic countries, the best I think! The time difference has been a bit of a pain in the ass when watching, meaning that I'm just catching bits and pieces at work on my breaks and then the highlights in the evenings...

So, 1 very busy week and a couple days coming up, hopefully a nice and interesting weekend and them i'm off to Switzerland on a work trip! very excited about that! watch this space...