Dante's Ferry

« The port of Tallinn with ferries on the left and church steeples of the medieval old town on the right in May. »

Is there a Law of Murphy that describes how that when you leave town for a day or two that all the people you have been waiting for weeks to hear from suddenly fill your inbox and attempt to call you as soon as you pass the city limits? Four of us got a super deal for the ferry and overnight stay in a nice hotel. The master planner among us [thanks, again, Arabella :)] also arranged appointments for hair cuts, manicures and such at a nearby spa which was very nice indeed. I hadn't had my hair cut in almost 2 years so it was good to lose the wookie look. :)

Tallinn isn't nearly as inexpensive as it was before it joined the EU. It's still cheap on some things but, as a rule, I don't think the prices are so low as to justify a trip only for shopping. The Christmas Market in the Old Town Square was a bit unexceptional when compared to the Christmas Market in Helsinki, but they did have a delightful Joulupukki who would ask the children to sing to him before he would entertain their holiday wish list. Totally adorable.

On the return ferry, the sea was quite stormy and I had a Dante-esque vision of hell - Imagine a small ferry filled with old people and their parents doing the tango to a loud live band playing the golden oldies of Finnish tango while being violently tossed around in seas whipped up by 17 m/sec winds while you have an angry stomach and a bit of a migrane. If the thought of freezing to death in the Baltic hadn't been less attractive than sitting in my chair trying not to hurl after the 2nd straight hour of heavy roll, pitch, yaw and tango, I might have considered jumping overboard. :)