Estonia

Posting now from Kanepi Pubi, a small pub in the little town of Kanepi, about 40 km (25 miles) north of Latvia and about 50 km (30 miles) west of Russia. 12 questions about Estonia. 2. Do polar bears live in Estonia? Although Estonia is situated in Northern Europe, the nearest polar bears live more than 2000 km further north. Estonia, on the coast of the Baltic Sea, is at the same latitude in Europe as central Sweden and the…

So we’ve made it to Tartu, the self-described “City of Good Thoughts.” In brief, my first impressions of Tartu: a more relaxed, less-touristy city than Tallinn. Small, for sure (only 100,000 people — as opposed to Tallinn’s 500,000 — and remember the country is only a little over a million). From the pub that I last posted from, I slept pretty much the whole way, but from what I can tell at least on that main two-lane highway there isn’t…

Veljo and I are on the road from Tallinn to Tartu in the south. We’re about halfway (or 100 km) into the trip. We’re stopping at this pub for a lunch of salmon chowder. The interior of this pub is like a Swiss/Nordic chalet, with light colored wood, high ceilings and loads of snow outside. The road between Tallinn and here has been full of snow-covered fields with hardly anything of note, save a few express buses that make the…

Second and Third Sets Kolumbus Pub Tallinn bombing site This weird bar that felt like an Apple ad. More of the bar Still more of the bar Street in Old Town Tallinn View from the Pegasus restaurant More from the Pegasus restaurant Old Town Tallinn by night

Wow, I haven’t been here for even 24 hours and I feel like I’ve seen so much. I won’t go into the details right now, but in brief, here’s what I’ve been up to. – Breakfast at CafŽ Mademoiselle (first WiFi hotspot in Tallinn, in the Hotel Olympia) We started the day with a breakfast at a cafŽ that Veljo (pronounced VEL-ih-yo) likes to frequent. It also has sentimental value as it’s one of the first WiFi hotspots in Tallinn.…

Click here. More later. Off to Parliament now.

Despite getting delayed in New York, I made my flights in London and Stockholm without a problem. Well, Stockholm was sorta weird, only in the sense that when I arrived it was not inherently obvious where I was supposed to go. I asked some people at a desk and they told me to go downstairs where I was to “press a button” to summon a bus which would take me to the proper terminal. It took me a few minutes…