hostel

Stuff to do with Tallinn Backpackers.

Thursday roundup

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That’s right, another randomly timed summary of my world’s events. Are you ready to feel the rush?

Good. Let’s get to it then.

Firstly, hostel related: Viru’s looking rather spic and span, all the rooms are beautifully colour-coordinated, clean and inviting. The sun’s shining brightly through the windows all day long and keeping the place warmer than it should be thanks to the combination of solar radiation and central heating.

The king of the couch is back on his throne, everyone’s checked out for the day and that laundry’s hanging up to dry. Tomorrow we’re getting more guests and it should be a piece of pie.

Nightlife: I can’t recall if I mentioned going out on Monday night. Well, I did. In the manner of all true good nights out it started somewhat spontaneously. Some cheap beer and a half dozen foosball games in the hostel with John kept me occupied for an hour or so and then we went out with Val and Ben while poor old Emily slept on the couch for night shift.

Levist was on the agenda, as always. We stayed there until it closed at around 3am, meeting and greeting some drunk and blind drunk locals. I received the privilege of listening to a 30-something bitterly intoxicated Estonian regale me with his tales of learning kick boxing after being beaten up by Russians and having a tooth knocked out, at least that’s what I think he was saying, since I could barely understand him. He also tried to channel with me telepathically or something by sending out energy from his palm to mine. It reminded me of the guy that tried to hypnotise me then collapsed on the floor and passed out. I’ve gotta keep away from these hippies.

Some girl that lived in a monastery (seriously) also joined up with us for the night. We headed for The Old Club of course, as it was late and it was Monday and we had no other option. As expected, by that hour we were speaking nothing but bullshit. Money got wasted on pissy flaming B52 shots, twice, to no effect. I just couldn’t get decently inebriated. It could have been due to the quantity of food I’d eaten for dinner that dear Emily cooked for me. Probably.

Around 5:30am the slightly toothless Estonian arrived in the bar with, of all people, a recurring hostel guest: Portuguese Miguel. Things felt tense for a few moments as we’d told Toothless that we were going home and we’d had a slightly awkward relationship with Miguel of late so we weren’t sure what to do. We did the normal thing, a pleasant acknowledgment and a civil nod of the head. They were in a group with some others and sat somewhere else and we didn’t have to move. We were happy until 6:30am when we left and wandered home.

Plans: Em and I are going to Vilnius on Monday or Sunday. We’re going to be down there for a few days. Em’s adamant that we have to be somewhere else for our 1 year and I’m too scared to argue. Hopefully Simone will have some free time to show us around, local style. Em wants to check out some little forest cottage that Livijus told us about as well, so if time permits that’d be really nice, too.

Miscellaneous: I read this earlier today. It made me laugh.

Cracking Hollywood’s code.

The system designed to protect next-generation DVDs from pirates has been cracked. Even the hackers are surprised at how easy it was…

Galleries and CSS

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I’ve spent the last 16 hours or so mucking around with my gallery‘s theme. I didn’t like the way the dev-testing theme looked which is fair enough since it’s designed for experimentation rather than aesthetics.

I think it looks rather spiffy at the moment. Nearly seamless, you might say. I’ve barely slept since I started hacking away at it last night. The individual picture pages haven’t been touched yet, so ignore their look for now.

On the hostel front, it looks like we’ll be living in the Viru rooms for at least the next 2 months. I had a feeling we’d end up in here for a while anyway so it came as no surprise when Hugo mentioned it. He’s going back to Holland on the 11th so then there’ll only be four of us looking after both these places now that Valerie’s back.  Well, Ben will be around too, I guess.

I haven’t been to the gym since Tuesday. We were meant to go today but it doesn’t look likely. Not with me feeling buggered from last night and Emily having been fast asleep on the bed for the last hour or two. Damn it, I really could use a shower and a good old scrub of the teeth. What a mess.

Today I caught up with Swedish Martin. He wanted me to see if there was any free WiFi signals that could be detected from his flat in the old town. The building is fantastic, a real Soviet style, scungy dump with dark, narrow hallways and toilets comparable to the one from Trainspotting. His room was freezing as well, I can only imagine how horrible it’d be inside during winter. He shares it with Tambet, an Estonian guy who works in Levist and plays in a relatively famous local rock band. Apparently Tambet has been living there for about seven years. Hardcore.

There were only secure wireless networks available so I was unable to help Martin out. Instead we had a beer and listened to some music while he told me some of his crazy stories. It would have been nice to kick back and relax for a few hours but I had to get back and clean the toilets.

No vote for me

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I’m not going to be voting in the next Federal election back home. I just have to fill out some form and fax it back to the Australian Electoral Comission. I’ve never sent a fax before. I hope it looks pretty.

So, the gym’s still good. I haven’t been able to go as often this week due to work and other distractions. It’s only going to get even harder to find the time soon as there’ll only be three of us working here within the next week or so. Hopefully Emily and I will be able to at least go separately whenever we find the time. I’m considering taking up morning sessions, as in 9AM to 11AM. I’m generally awake at that time so it shouldn’t be a problem, particularly when the hostel is also quiet during those hours.

Yep, three staff members for two buildings. We’re going to need more volunteers soon. Anyone feel like visiting?

Going away for our one year anniversary is sounding like a difficult achievement. With a bit of luck though we should manage. Either that or just delay it. I don’t know. I’ve got a feeling Em won’t be too impressed regardless.

Stupid head cold has come back to piss me off. I couldn’t even breathe when I tried to go to sleep last night. Fascinating, I know.

Speaking of fascinating, geez it was good seeing Ireland thrash England in the Six Nations last night. The local Irish were dancing whilst the local English could do nothing more than shrug their shoulders in embarassment. After the match we caught most of a groovy little gig in one of our favourite underground bars by a young Swedish band that was touring Tallinn for one show. They played a very catchy, up-tempo cover of Oasis’ Wonderwall that really impressed me.

The band actually stayed in the hostel that night. That happens a lot. We’re cool like that.

We had a little bash for Hector on Friday night. He’s one of the staff members leaving soon. I’ll put some pictures up later when I can be bothered and share them with you all. :) The sangria was good.

Happy birthday to me

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Yep, 24. Thanks.

It’s good to be alive. I’m not sure about being older, though. Well, I guess 24 isn’t so bad. I’m approaching the age now where people start taking you more seriously and don’t consider you the bad kind of “young adult”. I hope.

There was no party. There never is. We did have cake, though. Pizza too. I went out with some kids from the hostel the night before and it turned into a quasi-birthday celebration after midnight, then Hugo came around on the Saturday for a beer and the aforementioned pizza and cake.

I’ve been plowing through my salad sandwiches with Emily these last two weeks. Quite nice. Especially with mayonnaise and mustard. We were planning on joining the local gym this week to really kick up our “healthy lifestyle” binge but we’ve been too lazy.

I have to admit, I really miss going to the gym. I really miss exercise, basically. True, I haven’t actually lifted any weights for about 7 years. Since high school, in fact. I enjoyed it a lot at the time though. Still, I’d give it all up for a new season and team of action ball.

Hostel life is continually surprising. Just when you think it’s a really boring period a weirdo will check in or something else will happen. It’s always got you on your toes. Emily’s enjoying it as well and she’s still doing some networking with the locals in an attempt to get work somewhere.

Snow’s still falling. Gradually. My fingers nearly freeze off every time I go outside because my gloves are crap so I don’t bother wearing them. It’s only a few more weeks of coldness though so I should be able to cope. I’ve gotten this far.

I have to think of a place to go for Valentine’s day, or for our anniversary. Choices, choices.

Tallinn trapped

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Yep. I’m back.

Got my visa. Emily and the boys never made it to Riga. They barely even made it out of the hostel. Lazy buggers.

So, I’m here until July. Well, I’m allowed to be here until July. That’s not a bad shake. Maybe we’ll leave earlier, I dunno. Don’t really care at the moment because it just feels so nice to be back in my chilled out little place.

Rob’s gone, the German bastard. We have some new kids volunteering here for a while now. It won’t be long until Hans leaves as well. I’ll miss his warm hugs.

There’s still no fucking snow. It’s ridiculous. I don’t really mind that much though because it makes it easier to get around outside. Speaking of which, I still have to pick up my clothes from the post office. That should be tedious enough to last me a few hours if I ever get around to it.

Typing on this laptop keyboard fucking rocks. I feel like I’m burning it up. Sick.

Hi Heli.

Sup, Suomi?

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It’s good to be back in Finland. I forgot how expensive it was. I always feel like a real tightarse wherever I’m paying Euros.

So, I caught up with palmy and Dylan again and they even brought Heli down to Tallinn with them. That was fun.

Emily’s been having a good time in the hostel, too. She even does a little bit of work, thank goodness. She likes Finland, too. I think.

Back to the present, though. We tried to get the working holiday visa in Helsinki but the silly bitch at the embassy didn’t even know what I was talking about. I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a real hassle to get back into the country if I want to stay for a long time legally.

It even seems mandatory to get travel insurance, for God’s sake. Bah. Either way, I have to get back in there because all my possessions are there and I’m meant to have more mail arriving from Benecke, too. I hope it fucking shows up.

For now though, I’m just going to try and enjoy Christmas and probably New Years now, as we’ll be kind of stuck unless I just go back to Estonia like a ferry ninja and overstay my 90 days. I could probably get away with it but I’d prefer to be legal. We’ll see.

Yes, I'm still alive (and dancing)

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Ok, so I haven’t really been using this thing much and I know no one really reads it anyway, regardless I’m going to write a bit.

What have I been up to? Well, the run down is something like this:

  • Left Finland at the end of September
  • Loved Tallinn (Estonia) as soon as I arrived
  • Visited Riga (Latvia) with some kids I met in the hostel
  • Came back to Tallinn and started working in the same hostel
  • Visited London for 15 hours a month later on a stopover for Amsterdam
  • Complete inability to recall my time in Amsterdam apart from knowing it was fun
  • Visited Vilnius (Lithuania) to take a photo of the Frank Zappa statue
  • Bussed back to Tallinn for another few weeks
  • Went back to London for 5 nights to visit palmy and Dilly and some other buddies
  • Came back to Tallinn and kept working

Of course, there’s plenty more to it than that, but they’re the kind of stories where you really had to be there to appreciate them anyway, so bugger that.

One thing I should mention is how cool the hostel is. Well, I think so. Unfortunately the website doesn’t seem to display properly in Firefox but it’s fine in IE, Tallinn Backpackers.

I never want to leave Estonia! It’s scary. I really dig it here.

Another thing I dig is listening to music off the Internet because I’m too lazy to keep pulling out my iPod. I started out on BlogMusik but I prefer Radio Blog Club. Enjoy it.

Prague.

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Ok, because I’m too lazy to update my travelpod at the moment, here’s an email I just sent to work (yes, I’m still attached).

Hello all,

yes, it’s been a while. This email will be a bit shorter as I’m on the verge of being physically ill, mainly because I’m in Prague and have been savouring the $2 pints.

I hope everyone is well. I am too (apart from my current condition) and I’ve been meeting people from all over the place (as one would expect, I suppose).

In the tradition of my last email, here’s yet another run-down of my travels:

Dubrovnik: as I said, cool. Worth visiting. Nothing really of great notice apart from the old town which got shelled in the early 90s and rebuilt. I think I mentioned this before. I can’t really remember. Anyway, definitely tick it off if you consider visiting Croatia (or Hrvatska, if you want to be down with the local language).

Kolocep: an Island near Dubrovnik (or Dubbo, as I like to call it). We visited here for a day, nothing extraordinary but it was nice. I hiked for about 3 hours and took the odd photo here and there of the views. Yeah, amazing, I know.

Mljet: Nice, foresty island. Pronounced Mil-yet. I got eaten alive by ants because I slept outdoors in a campground (too proud to rent a tent). The bites have only just disappeared (after about 3 weeks, I had scary black spots on my fingers and everything). I swam in Odysseus’ cave (ask Homer) and literally nearly had a heart attack because I was terrified of the fish in the water. I then had to climb back up a cliff in wet thongs, which is impossible if anyone’s ever tried it.

Split: Goran Ivanisevich (?sp) is from here. Cool town. I liked it better than Dubrovnik. We actually stayed in an apartment owned by a guy called Goran. One day he confronted me in his tight white underwear and a singlet asking for money for the other nights that we’d be staying. It was dirt cheap, though. About $15 a night. By the way, beer is disturbingly cheap in Croatian supermarkets. They even sell their own brand (Konsume is the store, K-Plus is the brand. 2 litre plastic bottle go for about $2.50 Australian). If anyone’s even heard of Gregor of Nin (or his “famous” statue), I’ve rubbed his toe (for luck).

In Split we met a French Canadian girl (Quebec) that I’ve ended up travelling with. My group split (pardon the pun) from her when we returned from Hvar (another Croatian resort island, apparently popular with Paris Hilton [yawn]) and we went to Sibenik.

Sibenik: small but has the largest stone cathedral built without wooden support (or whatever else) in Europe. Sounds amazing but it’s really just a small church. Still, I took photos (ask me if you really care). I also scored free Internet here because no one was around to charge me (even though I looked for someone to pay) and I walked out. Yes, I’m a rebel.

Krka national park: people swim under the waterfalls (they even made it a hydroelectric plant, thanks Mr Tesla). I didn’t swim because I was too scared of the fish.

Zagreb: the capital of Croatia. No one knows that. Well, barely anyone. It’s a nice place, reminds me of Melbourne but about 4 times bigger and with 1/4 of the people. The nightlife was pretty lame (ie, Sydney’s sad, lonely clubs are basically more popular on bad nights compared to a busy night in Zagreb) but I didn’t care that much as I can’t dance and don’t really like much beyond cheap beer and good company (hi, Andrew).

Ok, this is getting a bit long. If you’ve made it this far I thank you for persisting with my writings. If you’re still interested I pity you, but for the sake of sympathy I’ll continue with my journey.

Budapest: Massive, masive city (two cities in fact, which I found strange and didn’t learn until about 2 days before I arrived). Monuments are spaced out everywhere and I bought an AWESOME Spider-Man t-shirt in a supermarket there, then started wearing it as I sat around the Danube. Apparently the night-life is really fun there but my trio failed to discover it. We still amused ourselves and I met some other Aussies, which is always nice. Most are from Melbourne though, which is always a little depressing. ;)

Krakow: Nice, nice city. I had two nights here in a really good hostel, unfortunately there were a big group of Americans staying so I didn’t bother socialising (I had early mornings anyway). I went to Auschwitz, which I thought was very… interesting. It’s very touristy now, unfortunately, so it lost (at least, I felt) a lot of impact. Still, I’m glad I went there.

Olomouc: Billed as “Prague without the tourists”, this place is about 5 hours west of Krakow by train, in the Czech Republic. I loved it here even though I only had 1 night to explore it. An Australian couple ran the hostel I stayed in and although they were somewhat inexplicably timid they still gave us some good advice, so I ticked off basically everything in town within 6 hours. One day I’d definitely like to return, though.

Prague: This is were I am now. I’m staying in an Anglo-friendly hostel called the “Clown and Bard”. Mainly it’s Canadians and Americans but it’s not so bad. ;) The Quebec girl I’ve been travelling with is leaving for Berlin tomorrow so I’m going to have a few nights alone (ahh!). It’s a nice enough city, I guess. I’ve heard so many stories about it but I certainly think there are better ones out there. I’m probably going to end up knowing it better than Paris, as I have to stay here until Wednesday as I’ve booked a flight to Helsinki that evening (for only 120 Euros!). Hopefully I don’t get quite as frequently inebriated as I have tonight.

Well, that’s about it so far. Thanks for reading. I’m sure you haven’t. If you have, you’ll probably have been given a warning for not doing enough work (I’ve heard the rule have gotten a bit strict lately, you poor folk).

As always, I’m delighted to hear from anyone that can be bothered emailing me (but no, this isn’t a desperate plea for attention, even though it may look like it). Don’t be shy! :)

Bah, I’m still dizzy from all my cheap beer. I haven’t used the spell checker on this email so if I’ve made mistakes forgive me. If I haven’t made mistakes it’s simply testament to my meticulous spelling and typing ability. Hurrah for me.

Ok, I’ll stop now, this is getting ridiculous.

All the best!
Ollie. :)

Plush in Parugia

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Our hostel in Parugia was cheap, massive, had an amazing view of the town from its balcony, was immaculately clean and had a funny old man running it (that took 40 minutes to check the four of us in as he checked our passports and stuffed around doing something that I’m sure he thought was important but only seemed to make everything slower). It was also strict, with a cleaning lock-out from 9:30am until 4pm, the kitchen open from 7:30pm until 10pm, the balcony and upstairs area closed at 12am and a lockout at 1am. We called it the Hitler Hostel.

Parugia’s another university town. It’s beautiful and has a vibe similar to Bordeaux. We went exploring up and down the main street on the Saturday night when we arrived, nearly drowning in the sea of young people who seemed to only be walking up and down the road, eating gelato or sitting on the massive set of steps in front of some building that I never determined the purpose of.

We decided to treat ourselves to some pizza and beer on our own set of stairs before we practically crashed in our beds from travel exhaustion. It was probably a good thing that the curfew was 1am as it meant we made the effort to get to sleep earlier than we had been for the last few nights due to partying in Riomaggiore.

Kate’s Lonely Planet had a few suggestions for activies to try in Parugia for the next day. We ignored them and spent time sleeping in the shade by a church while a wedding went underway, then Al and I shared a big fat pizza then had a quiet beer from a vantage point overlooking another part of town. We thought the drunken South American we’d all met on the bus during the day who continued to try speaking to us even though we told him we couldn’t understand him would be the only oddball we’d run into. To our delight, Al and I got to witness an older man who’d come to the same overlook for a peaceful read in the shade. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t begin without a cigarette. He cheerily walked up to every single invidiual that passed by and did his best to beg for a freebie but time and time again he was refused a nicotine hit. Eventually, after spying two young girls who’d just sat down and lit up, he snuck up towards them using trees as cover until he casually walked past them and asked for a cigarette like it was sheer coincidence that they’d ever met. A little scared, the girls gave in to his request and lit him up. He sat down and contently read, never again bothering to move the whole time we were there.

That evening we all ended up drinking beers on the balcony in front of the amazing view. More people from the hostel ended up joining us and by accident we’d started a mini party. We chatted away the hours with more Americans, Swedes and Brits until midnight when we were kicked off the floor. I’d polished off the perfect amount of 660mL, 0.90 and 1 Euro beers so I walked up and back on the main street to clear my head and made it into bed before the curfew.

The Cinque Terre

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Our train out of Nice was one of the few dozen that were affected by the Italian train strike. We had to wait a little bit longer for our first train, wait three hours just inside the Italian border in Ventimiglia and then wait again in Genova but we finally made it to La Spezia around 8pm.

Still lacking accommodation, we managed to randomly bump into a guy that Kate had met during her last stay at Riomaggiore, the town we were intending to stay in. He called ahead for us and organised the infamous Mamma Rosa to meet us at the train station. She led us to one of the hostels in town and took us up to what we called “the cave”. Most of the other rooms in the hostel were quite nice and clean, even newly renovated. Ours was like a remnant of the old world but it at least had that flea-ridden, rustic charm that people like to read about but not actually experience.

It turns out the hostel was actually great fun and was packed with other young folk. We met Aussies, Canadians and Americans from all different areas and made the most of the cheap wine whenever we could. We even scored some email addresses to keep in touch with a few lucky people.

The Cinque Terre is made up of five towns running along the coast and Riomaggiore is one of them. It’s quite popular to hike from one end to the other, so we did. Well, we kind of did. Jibby, Kelly (a girl we met who tagged along with us) and I stopped at the fourth town and didn’t feel like progressing on foot after we felt the effects of pizza and gelato at lunch. The three of us took the train and looked around the fifth town before returning but Kate and Alex soldiered on for another 2 and a half hours on foot. The weather was swelteringly hot and the walk was damn hard work. This, of course, means that it felt rewarding, sweaty, dusty and gross reaching each town.

After four nights we decided we’d visit Parugia, a town inbetween La Spezia and Rome. Trying to be sneaky as it was only one stop, we hopped onto the train without a ticket and within 2 minutes had a ticket inspector enter our carriage. We tried putting up a bit of resistance and playing the confused tourist card, but he fined us 50 euros (even though he wanted 100 originally) then pocketed the cash.

Confident our terrific train karma would continue, we reach Florence and had our connecting train cancelled after we sprinted to our platform from the other end of the station. It took another hour before we were on our way to yet another train swap and finally we arrived in Parugia.