Dancing In The Streets

Posted on November 21, 2008 by Hails

Riho and I took a stroll down to the Old Town last night, having heard something about a parade that was taking place.

Apparently there’s a Winter Tropics Festival going on this week, complete with Samba dance workshops and traditional Brazilian jamming sessions. I have no idea what it’s all about, but thought it might be fun to check out the Samba Parade that was scheduled to go from the Viru Gate to the Town Hall Square at 9pm.

dsc01912The parade turned out to be a bunch of dreadlocked guys playing instruments as pretty, exotic-looking girls with long dark hair danced around them. There was a trumpet, a drum, maybe some kind of flute and a couple of those shakey-ricey thingies. That was it. Most were wearing colourful garlands and waving balloons, and it was Silly Hat Central (I fitted right in). Everyone was smiling broadly, and it was nearly impossible not to join in with the whooping and dancing.

Amused, we stood at the edge of the road to watch them cavort past. It was at this point that it became apparent to me that it wasn’t actually the sort of parade you go and observe, but rather the sort you’re expected to become part of. I made this realisation when a balloon was thrust into my hands and suddenly Riho and I were swept into the midst of the singing, dancing swarm. Alarmed, I watched as someone performed some sort of martial art style dance at my feet. Then I shrugged, waved my balloon, and danced cheerfully along the streets with everyone else. No one seemed to mind that it was freezing cold, or that the majority of people in the parade were just innocent passers-by who’d become entangled in the procession and didn’t really have a clue what was going on.

Merrily, we proceeded through the Old Town. A little old lady watched from her window, drinking her tea and nibbling on a biscuit as if she was simply curled up on the couch watching Corrie. An unfortunate car drove into the procession and slowed down, the driver looking utterly bemused as people Samba-ed their way around his vehicle.

There was no police presence whatsoever, and no obvious parade route. We Norn Ironers just aren’t used to this sort of thing.

After a “concert” in the Square, which involved everyone stopping, blattering happily on drums, and dancing around madly some more, there was a loud cheer signalling the end of the parade, whereupon everyone promptly piled into the pub to start the aforementioned jamming session and stave off frostbite.

I love this place…

Filed under: culture, Estonia, fun, laughter, parade, strange | 2 Comments »

May we live here, please?

Posted on November 12, 2008 by Hails

Estate agents in Estonia are a funny bunch.

Riho and I have finally moved to our new, city centre apartment, but for a while there it did look rather as if we were going to have to check into a hostel or something when the lease of the old place ran out.

Riho wonders if we are doing something wrong. But really, even taking cultural differences into account, can the apartment hunting process differ so greatly that we’ve completely flummoxed all the Tallinn estate agents just by asking to view a few flats? Firstly, you’ve got the ones who just don’t reply to the initial email enquiry. They just ignore you. This could, of course, be because they don’t speak English, which is perfectly understandable (I don’t mean that they should be able to speak English because it’s perfectly understandable, I mean that it’s perfectly understandable that they don’t speak English, but you got that, right?), although I did bravely put together a little “Please excuse my poor Estonian language skills…” sort of email as well, just in case. It was unsuccessful.

Then there’s their apparent lack of interest in shifting any of their available housing. A short reply will say something along the lines of “Sorry, this apartment is no longer available”, without the “…but here are some others that might be of interest to you” that I’ve come to expect from estate agents throughout my life as a renter. I always found it difficult to get rid of estate agents; here, it seems that they simply want to get rid of customers. In frustration, we called in to the office of one of them to ask about an apartment listed on their website. “It is no longer available,” said the incredibly disinterested-looking man behind the desk. We looked expectantly at him in the hope that he might follow up with “I have some others that might be suitable”, but he went back to his newspaper and we walked out quite dejectedly.

When we do manage to arrange a viewing for somewhere, the agent tends to be also seeing it for the first time. They’ll let us in and then stand there texting someone on their phone or looking impatient as we show ourselves around. There is no sales pitch, no enthusiastic attempt to make mildew on the shower curtain seem like a positive thing. And when asked questions about the building, the area, or anything to do with the apartment in general, the answer is usually “I don’t know”.

And the worst part of all is when we  do manage to get that far along the process, and find somewhere we actually want to rent, and send an email to inform the agent. This has happened no less than three times. They just don’t reply! And it’s not that they took an instant dislike to us, because one of them did get back to us several weeks later to confirm that yes, certainly, we could have the apartment. Of course, by that time we’d already viewed about half a dozen others, enquired about twice as many again, and agreed to take the first one whose agent we managed to tie down and hold at knifepoint until he gave us the lease to sign.

It’s been a very strange experience. However, we’re now in the new apartment. Getting internet access appears to be as problematic as getting somewhere to live, but for the moment I don’t really mind – I do, after all, have quite a lot of knitting to be getting on with, which means I can’t be sitting around wasting time online all night. Plus, when I want internet access I just have to go across the road to the Viru Centre, where I can order ridiculously large mugs of coffee and lounge around on comfy chairs.

It ain’t so bad.

Filed under: coffee, confusion, culture, customer service, Estonia, foreign languages, homelessness, knitting, Moving house, strange | 3 Comments »

The Devil and Big Things

Posted on October 21, 2008 by Hails

It’s amazing what you can learn in the course of a day’s work.

I’m in the middle of writing a series of articles about tourist attractions in Australia, and I have to say I’m very much enjoying it. Not least because I’ve only just discovered, to my genuine surprise, that the Tasmanian Devil is actually a real thing. I was previously unaware of this, and am now starting to wonder what other apparently fictional characters might be Actual Animals, too. I’d love to hear about a small colony of Fraggles living in the Outback, for example.

The real life Taz is, it seems, the size of a small dog. The pictures I’ve seen, however, indicate that it looks like a very large and scary black rat. I would not like to meet one of these things, delighted as I am to find that they really exist. They’re aggressive-looking devils, and it’s not surprising when you hear the story of how they come into existence. The mother gives birth to about 30 of the critters, but they have to attach themselves to a nipple inside her pouch for a hundred days before they start to properly grow and develop. A thirty-nippled creature would be a little bizarre, one would imagine; and indeed, the Taz ladies only have four. So, into the pouch tumble up to thirty gross little slimey things, somehow instinctively knowing that they have to claim a nipple as their home for the next hundred days, and also that they have to fight all these other gross slimey things in order to have a chance of finding said nipple and actually surviving. What a great introduction to the world.

Obviously the four that survive are going to be the strongest and most vicious of the litter. Add to that a set of teeth that keep growing throughout their entire lifetime, alarming screeching and screaming noises, a skunk-like defence system, and the ability to dispose of an entire animal carcass in one sitting (bones, fur and all), and you’ve got a creature that you really wouldn’t want to mess with. They’ve also just become an endangered species because of Devil Facial Tumour Disease: they actually have their own fatal disease, and I didn’t even know that they existed!

I realise that only a very special type of person will appreciate my enthusiasm on the subject of Tasmanian Devils: the existence of, and so I wish to share with you my other favourite thing about Australia. It is a Wikipedia page entitled Australia’s Big Things. I had previously been introduced to this phenomenon by a friend whose travels in Australia led him to several Big Things, most notably the Big Mango of Bowen, Queensland. The Big Things are basically, well, big things. No real reason. Oversized sculptures of everyday objects, scattered all over the continent, which tourists will happily set off in search of, often driving for hundreds of miles just to get their picture taken beside something like the Mango.  While I’ll admit to being slightly alarmed by the Big Mosquito, I have to say that I am generally in favour of the Big Things. The Big Prawn, for example, is nothing short of a work of art; the Big Wine Bottle is mightily impressive, too, with the neck forming a chimney for the open fire inside. I can’t find pictures of the Big Macadamia Nut or the Big Paperclip, but I have no reason to doubt that they are every bit as impressive as the Big Cow, say, or the Big Scotsman.

My job is more of an education than school ever was. I love it!

Filed under: Australia, Big Things, culture, strange, Tasmanian Devil, tourists, travel, work, writing | 1 Comment »

Priorities

Posted on October 20, 2008 by Hails

Having decided to stay in Tallinn for a while, and quite content with the flat-sharing-with-Riho set-up, I’ve been looking on in fascination as he trawls through estate agent pages in search of a cheaper apartment for us to rent.

I am famously clueless at this sort of thing. I will never be able to forget some of the places I saw in Glasgow when I was flat-hunting during my student years: damp patches on ceilings; scary crazy men sleeping in stairwells; things growing in the dirt-filled gaps between ovens and walls; random loose wires hanging out of walls. That sort of thing. I remember arriving at one of them, taking a solitary depressed glance at the boarded-up window and rotting door, exchanging a glance with Red, and both of us walking away without a single word. And then there was the time I was looking for a house to rent by myself. I ended up in a really grotty little hole of a place in Cullybackey, with huge, wind-whistly gaps between the windows and their frames, where it took me approximately half an hour to get out of my parking space in the mornings, due to the fact that there was a previously unnoticed high school at the end of the street.

I don’t think things through, nor do I have even half the amount of common sense that would be needed to ask a question like “Is there any heating?” in a country where winter temperatures reach -25°C. And so it has fallen to Riho to single-handedly seek out the right place for us to spend the winter months. I have merely observed with great interest, making occasional constructively critical remarks like “I know this one is 2000EEK per month more expensive, but it has a dishwasher and a coffee machine!”. Someone has to consider the important matters, you know.

Tonight, though, having viewed a lovely city centre apartment that was already gone by the time we got home and decided to take it, and a beach apartment in Pirita that appeared to be falling down around us, I decided to have a little look-see for myself. I immediately decided that I was an excellent apartment-hunter, as the first place I found was absolutely perfect. It was compact (and therefore easily cleaned – these things are important to me). It was in the city centre (close to the Old Town, no need to spend a fortune on public transport). It was Seriously Funky. I mean, look at this. Click on veel pilte underneath the kitchen photo, and you’ll see all the pictures. How cool is that? A funky little microwave in a cool blue unit! Bar stools! Floor-to-ceiling windows with a harbour view!

I found myself rolling my eyes as I thought about how long it had taken Riho to find appropriate places. And here I was, finding The Place in a matter of seconds! Honestly – men. I called him over to look at it.

“Yes,” he said patiently, in response to my confident This Is The One assertions, “but you see, the problem here is that it has no bedrooms.”

And it doesn’t, you know. How can a flat have no bedrooms?! It’s not even like it’s a studio, with a bed in the living room. There are no beds whatsoever in this apartment! This was a little embarrassing, as realisations go.

“We could sleep on the floor…” I suggested meekly, staring wistfully at the funky blue kitchen. Riho looked pityingly at me for a long moment, and returned to his own, more practical flat-hunting.

I think I’ll stick to making helpful remarks about dishwashers and proximity to Chinese restaurants.

Filed under: apartments, changes, conversations, decisions, Estonia, strange | 5 Comments »

The Guli Guli Church

Posted on September 9, 2008 by Hails

On Saturday I took a trip to Haarlem with Tobias and Claudia, my Noordwijk dorm friends.

What a gorgeous place. It’s like stepping back in time! I said in wonder, as we walked past canals and through the old streets lined with thatched cottages and majestic churches. We found ourselves inside the most beautiful church I’ve ever seen, where the lady at the entrance told us that we were welcome to come back for a special service with the choir later on.

I’ve never experienced a church service quite like it. A large part of this is probably due to the fact that it was in Dutch and therefore made no sense whatsoever to me. But it was so much fun! We found ourselves laughing along with the rest of the congregation, not understanding the jokes but genuinely appreciating the humorous tone and warm expressions.

The church was absolutely enormous, so the sound of the four part choral harmony was a treat for the ears as the voices soared and mingled to fill every inch of the building. Abba, Vader was particularly moving. I closed my eyes and let the voices wash over me in the familiar tune; opening them again, I realised that my companions were doing the same thing. The serious pieces were followed by a bouncy rendition of Jacob’s Ladder (in English, so we could sing along with less confusion than during the opening hymn – although I must say that the three of us gave that a fairly admirable attempt, too!), towards the end of which a few choir members started spontaneously clapping. Before long, everyone was doing the same. There was swaying and dancing, smiling and clapping. You couldn’t help but smile and clap along.

The pièce de résistance, however, was the rather bizarre finale:

I have no idea why. Even more amusing was the fact that it was kind of like “rounds”, with the choir breaking into A Ram Sam Sam* as the rest of us sang Pease Pudding. It did not fit at all with the rest of the songs, and yet it blended perfectly into the fun-filled atmosphere. We loved it!

Leaving the church, Claudia and I happily hummed Jacob’s Ladder. An elderly bearded man in a suit was walking behind us, and he interrupted us when we got out on to the street. Excuse me, he asked politely and seriously, you did see the choir? We nodded. And, he continued in earnest tones, may I ask did you like?

Oh, yes, we chorused happily, it was fantastic!

The old man smiled in delight. Then I am happy! he said proudly. He gave us a gracious little bow, and walked away looking pleased, singing softly to himself.

* I don’t know if it’s just me, but when I hear “A ram sam sam, a ram sam sam, guli guli guli guli guli ram sam sam” my brain automatically launches into an immediate “McDonald’s, McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken and the Pizza Hut!”. Which only made things even stranger, really…

Filed under: church, culture, day trip, foreign languages, friends, fun, Holland, humour, laughter, lyrics, singing, songs, strange | Leave a Comment »

Lullaby

Posted on July 24, 2008 by Hails

The pipes, the pipes are calling…

I wake up from my dream, the soft, soothing melody of the music delighting me. Everything else is quiet; it is 3am and Lyon is asleep. The traffic noise outside my window has died down, there are no conversations to be overheard from the restaurant downstairs, and the only sound is the tune from the lone panpiper wandering through the streets. The tune cuts through the still night air and drifts in through my window.

Eh?!

That doesn’t seem quite right. Sleepy and disoriented, I get out of bed and stumble over to the window. Hanging out to peer at the street below, I see a solitary figure walking along the pavement. He could just be a normal punter on his way home from a night in the town; the difference, however, is that he is playing a tune on some sort of flute as he walks. There he is, just walking down the street, in the dark, on his own, all serious and thoughtful… playing a flute.

I watch him until he disappears from view, and the sound of the music gradually fades away.

It is not for me to question the strange sights I see on my travels. I tried that: there are too many, and I’ve begun to realise that maybe the only strange thing is that I see them as strange. So now I just record them without questions.

Filed under: life, Lyon, night, piper, strange | 5 Comments »

Cheddar Cheese and Bagels

Posted on July 8, 2008 by Hails

I was a little saddened to discover the lack of decent cheese in Estonia.

 But, hey – I was moving to France. They’re mad about cheese there, I thought cheerfully, there will be loads of cheddar-like varieties to choose from. But no. A significant portion of Friday’s visit to my local supermarket was spent anxiously perusing the selection in the cheese aisle. I mean, honestly. 3.2 million types of cheese, and nothing even remotely resembling a block of mature cheddar. Surely this cannot be right?

Soft cheese, cream cheese, holey cheese, white cheese, orange cheese, flavoured cheese. Cheese with bits of fruit in it, cheese with a selection of crackers, cheese that smells really bad. Mild cheese, blue cheese, sliced cheese, spreadable cheese, blocks of cheese, tubs of cheese, balls of cheese, wedges of cheese, stringy cheese, smoked cheese, crumbly cheese. Every type of cheese imaginable, and more cheese on top of that. But no cheddar equivalent. Pity about that, France.

And while I’m on the subject of absent foods, why, oh why are there no bagels anywhere? This is most distressing to me, as someone who is particularly partial to a sesame bagel with cream cheese, or an onion and poppyseed bagel with scrambled eggs. Thorough searches of several supermarkets in Tallinn, one in Helsinki, and three in Lyon have revealed that I have clearly been taking too many things for granted.

On the plus side, though, I can’t help but feel that French crème fraîche, coffee, and croissants are, in their own special ways, kind of making up for the distressing lack of cheddar cheese and bagels. Mmm-mmm-mmm…

Filed under: bagels, cheese, coffee, complaining, Estonia, French, Lyon, sad, strange, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

What a difference a day makes.

Posted on June 23, 2008 by Hails

Would it cheer up all you grumbling Ballymenites who moaned about the Irish weather following my previous post (“That’s one way to alienate your readers,” commented Riho, “write posts complaining about sunburn when they’re all stuck in the rain.”) if I told you that we’re all in the same (waterlogged) boat now?

Yes, today it rained. I worked at the same window, but was warmed only by yesterday’s glowing sunburn. Which, incidentally, wasn’t too bad until I forgot about it when I was vigorously drying my back after my morning shower. Again, ouch. Anyway, I worked, it rained. I finished work, it rained.

That scuppered the plans to go out and see the Victory Day/St. John’s Day party and bonfire, which made me sad because I’d heard they like to jump over the bonfire and burn witches and all sorts of fun stuff like that. However, this is Tallinn, and there’s always something entertaining going on. Sometimes right outside your window.

Like this old boy, for example.

He was either (a) an alien, confused and disorientated, just landed from a far-off planet from which he was  sent to gather data about the mysterious human race (like Mork, for example. Or John Lithgow when he was in Third Rock from the Sun), or (b) very, very drunk. Bemused, I watched as he stared at his feet for a while, raindrops pelting down on him and bouncing off his sodden clothes. I look at that picture and the only word that comes to mind is drookit.

It was unclear to me why he took off his coat and hung it on a light. To be honest, I was a little distracted by the fact that he then approached the round plastic thing at the end of a drainpipe (I don’t think I’ve ever had occasion to refer to one of those before, and I find myself at a loss for an appropriate noun), contemplated it for a long moment, stooped down, removed it, and then drank all the rainwater from it!!! By the time I came to my senses and grabbed a camera he had reverted to the original Father Jack-esque Are those MY feet? stance, so I’m afraid you’re just going to have to take my word for it.

Suitably refreshed and impossibly drookit, he walked very slowly and deliberately out of sight, possibly to purchase a new coat and/or call Orson.

Never a dull moment.

Filed under: aliens, Ballymena, confusion, contemplation, drinking, drookit, strange, weather | 5 Comments »

How did you get here?

Posted on June 13, 2008 by Hails

I’ve just spent a very entertaining half hour scrolling through a list of words and phrases that people have typed into search engines, resulting in them finding my blog. And the top search term ever?

Dingbats.

Eh? Why on earth are hundreds of people searching for ‘dingbats’ and ending up at Coffee Helps? This is clearly the reason that Dingbats and Dipsticks is my most read post of all time (kudos to The Housemate), but why are so many people searching for information on Dingbats on a daily basis? It’s a little confusing.

Do frogs feel pain? is another popular option, along with frogs blow straw and inflate frog. Pah. I seem to have inadvertently advertised the barbaric practice of frog inflation, to my dismay. Just say no, kids. The good old elastic band ball has also generated quite an impressive volume of site traffic, not to mention the Scrabulous tournament (you know, the one that never went anywhere after the first frantic and highly stressful round… perhaps the Stray one has been busy with more important people..) and, oddly, inspirational Beatles lyrics (an angry post which really makes little sense unless you’ve read the previous post).

Depressed cat is up there, too, with other cat-related terms such as My cat is crazy and Garfield Monday. It does not bode well for those seeking a change of career that CV excellent communication skills leads them to my blog rather than to a respectable CV advice site; however, I feel much sorrier for the person who searches for things like What is excellent communication skills? - good luck, buddy.

Less frequent and more obscure search terms take us to phrases like Ally McBeal dismount, Larry Paul glasses, Crocs Castlecourt, big mugs, Rod, Jane and Freddy scandal, my head is spinning, and Tallinn nudism. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that an alarming number of people seem to be coming to me for piercing advice, with search terms like how to insert a corkscrew nose ring, nose ring shape, my nose piercing looks red, and nose red outside, hurts. Erm. Hope I helped.

If I were the sort of person who knew a lot about SEO, I’d doubtless be writing about the Lisbon Treaty, Euro 2008, and your everyday porn stars/topless models in order to lure more unsuspecting readers to my blog (do you see what I did there, eh?). However, I know nothing about such things. And also, it’s not like I’m making money from it, so it doesn’t really matter if I have 200 visitors a day, or just 2.

But the thought of someone finding me by typing rude old grannies into a search engine just fills me with unspeakable mirth. And so I will continue to find great enjoyment in my blog stats and their hidden entertainment. Keep searching…

Filed under: blogging, search engines, strange, weird | 5 Comments »

Pancakes, ‘Art’ and… erm, sex shows.

Posted on June 1, 2008 by Hails

Whoop-whoop! I’ve found another pancake place. I should really make some effort to take control of this situation before I get to France, or Crêpe Land as I suspect it’s also known. Otherwise I’ve probably developed an obsession that’s going to have just as great a hold over me as smoking is capable of having. Pancake Dependence. Not good. I think I’ve consumed more pancakes since moving to Estonia than I’ve eaten in the rest of my entire life until this point.

Anyway, my main reason for mentioning Kompressor was not to rave on like a madwoman about the joys of savoury filled pancakes (mushroom and blue cheese saturated with garlic, though… mmm…. and I never told you about the mashed potato, onion and bacon one I had in Bann Cook the other week…), but by way of introduction to more things I’ve spotted that could rightfully fall under the heading of Rather Odd. Over the page from the pancakes on the Kompressor menu, for example, were the drinks and other extras:

I wondered aloud if it would count as smoking if I ordered the cigarettes from the menu and treated them as a dessert. According to Riho and his raised eyebrow, it would. Anyway, all thoughts of cigarettes disappeared from my mind when we passed an art exhibit in the street. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of one we saw the other day, which consisted of two life-sized dummies dressed in black and wearing scary masks, suspended from a crane of some description. And a bored woman in the corner of the room, apparently supervising. Art, you see. I’ve no idea what this one’s meant to be, or do, or say. I couldn’t ask anyone, because my Estonian still isn’t quite fluent enough. To me, it looks like a large model made of drainpipes, adorned with cups.

It is, however, Art, and therefore must be respected. What do I know?

And let’s not overlook this poster for The X Club, which happened to catch my eye as we passed it in the street. I looked at it in some concern. “What?” asked Riho, realising I’d stopped walking. I continued to stare at the poster. “This poster just gets more and more alarming the further down it you read,” I said nervously. I have decided not to visit The X Club. Despite the fact that ‘ladies’ apparently get in for half price, I’m not sure I want to know what a Bizarre Show or Water Show might involve.

Filed under: Art, confusion, contemplation, culture, Estonia, marketing, pancakes, smoking, strange | 1 Comment »

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