h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

From Tallinn I caught the bus to a little town called Rakvere, unfortunately arriving after the tourist centre had closed... Luckily, I got some simple directions (by means of hand waving and street names) and found my way to the 'pansionaat'... So I unpacked, then wandered back into town, fortuitously passing a tourist map showing the main sites and streets of the town, so I had some idea where I was in relation to other things I wandered thru the supermarkets (beacuse I always find that interesting, and also was getting a bit peckish). Then I discovered that the pub on the other side of the town square had a menu in english, so I had a big plate of pasta and half a litre of beer for around $10 and sat outside enjoying a lovely evening.

The next day I had a fairly lazy start, coffee in my room (the coffee jar and kilo of sugar I've been carrying since london seem marginally less ridiculous...) then wandered past the ancient fortress and thru an old oak forest. After that I mooched down to the supermarket to get some breakfast, including lashing out and buying apple juice - I've been using chlorine tablets to purify the water, and it's like drinking straight from a swimming pool - blecccch Wandered around the town - most of it is quite rundown but there were lots of renovations going on, and up to the ancient fortress which is the town's main attraction. It was originally built by German knights/monks of the Livonian order (an offshoot of the Teutonic order, if that means anything to anyone) who controlled large chunks of the Baltic for many years. The fortress is largely in ruins but partly restored, and was good fun to clamber around in for an hour or so

Then I went and got on a bus to Tartu, a university town in southern Estonia, and fortunately drove past the street where my hostel was, so with instructions on which bus to catch, found it without too much trouble. Getting up to the 5th floor with my pack, and checking in when the receptionist spoke basically no english was interesting, but with pointing, gesturing and a little german, we figured it out

I caught the bus back into town and wandered around a bit - it's a lovely place - lots of 'Classical' (Classicist? Neo-classical? I'm probably getting this wrong) architecture, and a mostly ruined Gothic church, featuring a no entry sign saying 'Caution! The building may fall down!' :D Around the cathedral as a beautiful leafy park full of big old trees (To Nic and Sarah, and various other rude people - No, I haven't hugged any of them yet ;P)
I bought some bread, cheese and beer for dinner and went back to the hostel in time to watch Thorpe and Hackett win gold and silver in the 400m freestyle

Breakfast at the hostel, so I pigged out, and made cheese sandwiches for later in the day Then I went into topwn, spent an hour or so at the botanic garden, got on the net and wrote a blog entry then went to the town History Museum. It was in a lovely old manor house, and told the town's history from a Hanseatic League trade centre (more about them here http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Hanseatic_league) thru the founding of the university (which looks a bit like the Parthenon in Athens) by the Swedish king who was in charge in the 1600s) and some major events, including hosting the signing of the treaty with Russia in 1920 which first gave Estonia its independence.

I wandered back across town, and happened across the literary museum - it didn't seem terribly interesting, but I didn't have much else to do so I wandered in. There didn't seem to be much literary stuff, but they had a display of photos, letters and stories about Estonians who fled after WW2 to escape the Soviets and went to Australia. A lady who spoke some English came and explained to me about people's lives and what they had done in Australia to keep their language and culture alive, and how they felt visiting the independent Estonia. It was wonderful to get a personal insight into the lives of the people who lived the history I read about in the other museums.

Wandered thru town a bit more, and found a menu in English at a Georgian restaurant so I ate there - great food and very reasonable prices

Then back to the hostel to pack up for an early departure to Riga.

Amazing, h2g2 is such a huge community. Only now I found out that a fellow has been in my corner of the world.