Talinn

Hello from a very bumpy coach, just back inside Russia!

Well, this has been a week and a half with a lot of travel. First we went to see the ancient town of Pskov, a 4 hour coach ride away from St Petes with a group of students, and now we are on our way back from Talinn. It is odd how much more bumpy the road is as soon as you cross the border.

Of course, that is not the only way that you can tell that you are going across – this isn’t like the civilised sleeping you can manage between France and Belgium, with the only difference being the colour of the road signs. Here, you are all turfed out of the bus, no matter whether it is 2pm or 2am, while the bus is searched. Inside a building you queue to go through border control. Then once all that is done, and you are all comfortably settled on the bus, the control on the other side get involved. Specifically to get into Estonia, a lady came on the bus, takes away your passport, and disappears with it. Thankfully she does then bring it back. Going the other way the other night, we spent 2 hours at the border, as someone didn’t have the right insurance so had to pay a “fine” of £1.50 and buy more from them there, and another girl had another problem or some kind. This time, we have gone for a record 45 mins, although we have gained 4 Russian women in border control uniform onto the bus. Not entirely sure why, but maybe they wanted a free ride.

Before you come to the conclusion that buses here have wireless internet, I’m only typing this on the bus. I will post it later. Something very exciting happened last week – we actually got the internet at home. Granted (There go those women – must have just been their lift home) we did ask for wireless internet, and were told that we wouldn’t need anything extra for it, and we have only got normal until we go and get another box, but at least we do finally have it. 3 weeks before we have to go away for Christmas…

Talinn was really beautiful. It was a huge contrast to St Petes. First, there were hills, which, resulting from being at Durham, I really miss. St Petes is as flat as a pancake. Then there were cobbles in the old town, and everything was just so clean. I love Russia to bits, but it is just so dirty – people coming to your flat wash their hands often when they arrive, even if they are not going to eat. Lots of people spoke English, which was good as we don’t speak any Estonian. Also, everywhere was decorated for Christmas, most notably the Irish pub which we went to to get an English breakfast, and also to try out their Sunday roast. That proved not to be so popular given that they had never even heard of Yorkshire puddings, and it was only going to be chicken. They also offered to give us chips with it, which we declined.

They had a Christmas market, which was full of tourists, particularly on Saturday, when we reckon the Easy Jet flight had come in… I tried on loads of hats, as I am trying to improve on the tea cosy look, but I couldn’t find any that were the right size and didn’t make me look like an idiot.

Hopefully the blog site will now be accepting photos again, so I will put a selection up. It will now be time to come back to earth, for the final 3 weeks before the Christmas break – there is still lots of hard work to do, not to mention Christmas shopping!

Lots of love

Sarah

xxx