Estonia and more sweden
Trip Start
Jul 17, 2007
1
8
14
Trip End
Feb 06, 2008
Uppsala, Sweden
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Well, there's been nothing on the news front for a while but nonetheless I thought that I'd bring y'all up to speed on the happenings in Uppsala. To put it simply, I've just generally been partying and socializing at every opportunity. The basic idea is to make a few friends over here in Sveden ja' and, once that's done, I can give the liver the break it's been begging me for and start doing more important things, such as traveling and (god forbid) studying.
So basically I've got a whole heap of photos of various parties and O-Week style events and challenges and stuff. The only really eventful thing that I've done since the last blog was a spectacular weekend trip to some random country called Estonia with Benny, an American called Jeff and a yank named Jay. The general idea is that the ferry ticket costs about $AU60 but since alcohol over there is at prices that the Russians would be proud of, and you're allowed to bring back 10 litres of spirits to Sweden, the trip kind of pays for itself.
But the reason why the trip was so generally spectacular begins with the trip over. The ferry has a tax-free shop which sells copious amounts of alcohol, and hence the boat is affectionately named the "drunken ferry". Which, after a visit to said tax-free shop, was a reputation the four of us had every intention to uphold. The boat was massive and had a few dancefloors and a couple of bars and saunas and everything. And it was a Saturday night so everyone on the boat was hitting it pretty hard. Our night started well when we (ie benny) decided that 'what happens on the boat stays on the boat' and all of a sudden we were belting out Barnsey at the karaoke bar. Then Jay picked up some Swedish girl who had a boyfriend (who was in jail for 6 months because he was a professional fighter in an illegal fighting ring). He took her back to the room for a few hours, only for her to pass out stone cold as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Meanwhile upstairs things were 'progressing' further and Jeff picked up a stunner, but had nowhere to take her and hence spent a good hour or two searching in every nook and cranny on the boat for a secluded spot. It now being 4 in the morning, Benny and I called it quits and went back downstairs to our room. He went to bed early but I decided to grab what was left of our tequila and randomly met a Russian guy just outside our room. Thinking I'd possibly found the best drinking partner on the boat, we headed off to his room for more drinks. After walking 50m my eagerness began to wane and that bed was looking more attractive, so I said 'cya mate' and high-tailed it back to our room. A few minutes later the incredibly drunk Russian was banging at our door, demanding 'his' tequila back. This woke benny up, who very politely (but firmly) told him that we were going to bed. The guy started mumbling Russian at us, then reached into his back pocket with his hand (like he was reaching for a knife) and then made a stabbing motion into my stomach. The only problem was that there was no knife and he just looked stupid. So the next two times he did it we laughed at him, then pushed him out of the room and locked the door. But when benny pushed the Russian guy out of our door his shirt flew up and I saw a big dirty knife in his back pocket. It sounds incredibly, but I think that he'd actually been trying to stab me but was just so incredibly drunk that he couldn't actually do it. It certainly was a bit of a wakeup call after being in Sweden for so long.
Anyway, Jeff soon came back to tell us the story of his unfulfilling adventures and we all went to sleep, until about 8 in the morning when Jay's Swedish girl (who had been passed out on his bed all this time) woke up. Not knowing where she was, she completely flipped out. Jay was telling her "It's not as bad as it seems", but she just kept on yelling all types of stuff in Swedish and bolted for the door. Twas possibly the funniest wake-up call I've ever had and had the added bonus of meaning that, against all odds, we were all showered and ready to disembark an hour later when the boat arrived in Tallin (in Estonia).
Tallin is quite an ugly city, almost exactly like you'd expect an ex-communist state to be. However it has managed to keep its original old-style town center and, although it had tourist-trap written all over it, the place was simply one of the most beautiful town centres I've ever seen. So we just spent the day walking around, buying random stuff, eating in a little pub and just generally seeing the sights. We also made an epic trip to the bottle-o and filled up two suitcases and 2 backpacks between the four of us (for only about $AU200 each). Bargain!
We went back onto the boat and decided that, despite the fantastic amount of grog which we now possessed, after the previous night's efforts none of us were really that keen to hit it again. But then a random Swedish girl came into our room and started to talk to us. And talk. And talk. And drink our vodka. And talk. It was amazing. She was so incredibly annoying that when Jeff subtly said "I think I need a drink," Benny and I almost knocked ourselves over reaching for the bottle. An hour later the litre bottle of vodka was no more and we were up singing karaoke to a completely unimpressed crowd and creating wilder and wilder excuses to get away from the annoying Swedish girl.
And that was the Estonia trip. Twas a particularly epic night. Nights like that seem to happen a lot in Sweden, it's a pretty crazy country.
In other news I've started learning Swedish and uni has started with a vengeance. Everyone here actually studies, its horrible! But it's all more or less group work so far which is fun and makes it easier than it should be.
Cyas all, hope you're well.
Comments
Estonia
Your travels seem like a great experience. By the way, I just ran into a website about Estonia the other day - it is a Documentary about Estonia's Singing Revolution: http://singingrevolution.com