A Museum and a Splash of Vodka

Having extended my stay in Tallinn I was unsure what was next on the to do list. Obviously given the temperature here (melting point) there was the option of travelling out of town to the beach for the day. I was told it would be filled with people and while the beach is fun I still wanted to explore the sites around town.

After some investigation I decided to visit the open air museum out the other side of town. It’s pretty much a similar setup to Skansen which I visited back in Stockholm. Thanks to a free lift to the museum by way of the hostel owner, my swiss mate and I wandered the park checking out some of the old buildings and practicing our Estonian language skills on the locals around the museum (mine for reference was appalling bad).

Getting a free lift out to the museum was great but when we were left at the hands of the trolleybus (bus service) to get us home, well lets say it was daunting. With just a pre-purchased ticket and no signage we asked a local and through the broken english it appeared we needed to catch the same bus as them.

As the bus arrived it was heading in the opposite direction of where we needed to go but we hopped on anyway, after all who doesn’t love an adventure. Sure enough the bus drove off in the wrong direction only to reach the end of the road some 15min later and turn around to head straight back.

Some time later and having driven past nothing we could recognise the helpful ticket lady on the bus attempted to explain that we needed to get off at the next stop and catch another bus to the city center. The problem with that you ask, well she never told us which bus we needed to catch. Figuring our luck would last we piled onto the first bus that came along. Watching for a landmark we might know from the previous days exploring, it was only when we though this might not be the right bus that we saw one.

Making our way back to the hostel after the great bus experience we figured it would be worth stopping at a local restaurant for a feed and drink. Sitting down at the first restaurant we got our menus only to discover the price was well above our budget. Like all good people who don’t look at the cost before sitting we waited for the waitress to leave before doing a runner out the door.

Having learnt from our mistakes we found a better place and relaxed for an hour drinking and eating before returning to the hostel to plan out what to do tonight. Luckily for us we didn’t need to plan much as for the last 2 days we had been promising to get a bottle of vodka to drink with the Russian girls who worked at the hostel, so we figured why not.

After a stop at the local store we returned with a bottle of vodka that was completely labeled in Russian, that means it has to be good right?? Turns out it was pretty damn good (even the girls agreed) as after cooking up a meal we managed to demolish over half a bottle in no time. It didn’t help that I had already wet my appetite for vodka drinking with the Russian ice hockey players just the night before.

Eventually making it out to a pub we wanted to continue our vodka drinking as while we had consumed a great deal, we were still pretty good on our feet. That idea ended abruptly after getting a shot of some god awful vodka at the bar, don’t let anybody tell you all vodka is the same as it just isn’t.

Not wanting to drink at the same pub as last night and wit h the bad vodka taste still in our mouth, we headed up to a local pub that brewed it’s own beer. After hearing good things about it we discovered the night we decided to visit was obviously the wrong one to be there as it was near empty. Returning to party the night out at our first pub we drank into the early hours of the morning before deciding to call it a night (or morning depending on your view).