Thundy meets Frunty Part 4: Tallinn Drift
Sept 9, 2018 10:43:07 GMT -5
Huntress, Fraze, and 4 more like this
Post by Thundy on Sept 9, 2018 10:43:07 GMT -5
So this August, I basically decided to do all of the meetups. Having had Celes over to casa del Thundy earlier in the month, I also flew out to Estonia for a week to hang out with Frunty and family. This would be my fourth visit to the country, and because I also wanted to do MORE MEETUPS, I arranged to meet Thorn in London before I headed to the airport.
Aug 28: The travelling
This story, like most, begins with me arriving super sleepy and confused, at Victoria coach station in London, right at the crack of dawn. I wasn't meeting Thorn until 9 AM for brunch, so I took the tube up to St. Pancras station and got some coffee. St. Pancras is a beautiful station and it's pretty good for people watching, so I always hide there whenever I have to wait for long periods of time in London. After a while I rolled on down on the tube to Covent Garden, where I was meeting Thorn for brunch at Le Pain Quotidian.
We were supposed to do this mini meetup the last time I was in London, flying back from Tokyo, but problems with my flights then (that resulted in me being delayed overnight in Rome) meant we could only meet that time for a quick beverage at Kings Cross. But it was well worth the wait! I had a full Belgian breakfast which consisted of a large scone, fried prosciutto, and scrambled eggs. Thorn had a hot chocolate with scrambled eggs and toast. The food was amazing and just the thing I needed to keep me from falling back asleep.
I picked up the tab for brunch and Thorn said she'd comp me back by hitting up some nerdy stores and I could pick something out reasonably priced. When we were at Forbidden Planet, I saw what I needed to get:
It's Prometheus, doin' a slep
We also checked out a neato Harry Potter themed store and a board games store. I was tempted to buy a lot of stuff in both, but my luggage would have been full before I'd even left the country!. Eventually I needed to head for the airport and Thorn had to nap to get ready for work later, so we took a photo outside of the theater showing the Cursed Child and parted ways.
Thorn & Thundy say hello!
A hopped back onto the tube to connect on the Gatwick express to the airport. Gatwick's an alright airport, as far as London airports go. I flew out of there last year when I was heading to Belarus, so I knew there was a place in there I could get a decent bloody mary before wheels up.
Prometheus was on hand to help
Anyway I had no problems checking in and clearing customs. At around 5 PM it was boarding time, and I got a great stroke of luck; nobody was sitting in the two seats next to me. So what did I do? After take off, I put all the armrests up, laid down, and had a nice snooze until we descended into Tallinn.
The view right before landing
We had a smooth landing at around 10:30 PM local time and I was able to deplane and clear border control fairly quickly, fortunately my bag was also one of the first ones off the plane too! I grabbed it and looked up to see Fraze waving at me frantically from the arrivals area, so I quickly breezed through customs to go see him and Hunty for the first time in 3 years, plus their kid, whom I had not yet met before!
We all drove back to their apartment (one of the jokes of these meetups is that every time I visit Estonia, Frunty are in a different domicile, so this continued the trend) and I was able to unpack and distribute gifts. Hunty got a bottle of Scottish ginger cider, Fraze got an imperial tonka bean and coconut stout, the little one got a Litten plushie, and my folks also sent along some homemade jam for Hunty's folks.
It had been a long day and the kid insisted we watch Kung Fu Panda, which we did, with some excellent Mojitos before bed crafted by Fraze.
Aug 29: Inital wanderings
So for the first couple of days Fraze had work related stuffs to attend to, so Hunty and the kid took me on a few wanderings, first to a large market next to the train station. It had all kinds of neat stalls, produce markets, street food joints, and actual sit down restaurants. I had a seriously nice pulled pork and BBQ burger with some Estonian craft beer to go with it (this would become a recurring theme)
Yum!
Afterwards we headed down to the harbor where we secured me passage on the ferry to Helsinki the next morning. Hunty's dad was able to get free tickets for me (mad props to Hunty and her nautical connections) so I only had to pay for breakfast. The only problem? Ferry departed at 7 AM sharp the next morning so I'd have to get up at 5:30 AM, a time I'd normally go to sleep when working.
We wandered around more the harbor area, catching pokemon and trying to do some raids in PoGo, until we met Fraze and walked around a cool district filled with street art and installations before hitting up a craft beer store to stock up on supplies.
That's me on the left
Fraze was very helpful in pointing me in the right direction of interesting ones to try, the Estonian craft beer scene is really impressive for a country that has a population of only about a million. Frunty also picked up a new puzzle for their kid featuring kitties. He absolutely loved it and learned to call me "Thundy"...for all of 5 minutes. He'd often want me to help complete the puzzles by saying "Man, sit!"
To which I'd point to myself "Thundy, I am Thundy."
And he'd go "No Thundy. Man, sit."
Making me the 'Forumer formerly known as Thundy'.
We had dinner and polished off the beers while watching Deathly Hallows Part 2. I lost count of how many jokes we made about Neville being swole.
Aug 30: Finland
I woke up super early and went to go catch my cab to the docks. The cab was running a few minutes late and when I got in the driver apologized and said "We will make up time."
Frunty had already told me about what to expect when riding with "Boris the friendly taxi driver" but I don't think I was ready, the guy certainly did make up the time, mostly by driving super fast down the opposite lane with my mind conjuring up images from all those dash cam crash footage shows from Eastern Europe.
In any case I arrived on time and boarded the ferry. I haven't traveled by ship in nearly a decade, so it was a nice novelty to wander around the decks, explore the thing, and take plenty of photos from over the rails. After the wind and spray got too much for me I headed back in to make use of the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet and stuffed myself silly. I also grabbed a quick beer and worked on some drawings in my sketchbook until we docked at the harbor in Helsinki.
We're not gonna need a bigger boat
DID I MENTION SOMEBODY BROUGHT A KITTEN ON BOARD?
Helsinki was absolutely beautiful, and super easy to get around. I picked up a metro card and hit the tram downtown and walked for ages along the various harbors, plazas, and areas around the central train station. I rode around on the metro for a bit before becoming HORRIBLY lost. At one station I got off I tried looking for the exit, and some how ended up deep within the bowels of a library.
Now I like libraries, but this hallway looks like there's some eldritch horror hiding down it
I mostly just did what I normally do when let loose in a city I've never seen before, I disregard all the maps and guide books and go searching down side streets for weird and cool places. I found quite a few nice pubs to sit in and watch people go past. The weather was quite poor so I avoided most of the rain this way. Then I remembered something. Helsinki has a pub onboard a tram. I looked up where I could board it and it turned out to be around the corner, in 10 minutes.
This is my kind of commute
A little on the pricey side, but it was a nice way to see a lot of the big sights downtown. After I got off, I joined in a PoGo raid with some Finnish people, which was pretty hilarious, then caught a regular tram back to the docks to board the ferry for a night time crossing back to Tallinn. I sat in the karaoke bar onboard the ship and continued to work on art and listening to Finns performing various songs until we docked back up.
Fortunately to save me another taxi (near death) exprience, Frunty came to pick me up, which was around 11 PM. We got home and I totally crashed out after eating a toastie for sustenance.
Aug 31: TV Tower and Seaplane Harbor
Today was the day we went all over! We started off heading back to the old area where Frunty used to live when we all went over for the wedding in 2015, as it now boasts the best coffee and pizza in the Tallinn area. We got a couple of pizzas, and I purchased a half-kilo of coffee beans to take home.
Then we drove to Tallinn TV tower, a large 300m tall transmission tower with an observation deck that offered impressive views for MILES, thanks to the clear weather that day.
It's a tall boy
Panoramic view from the observation deck
There was also an exhibition on life in the Soviet era, complete with an entire fitted out apartment filled with the normal every day items you'd find. They also had a mockup of a soviet era bar.
I got a new bartending gig
From there we headed to the Seaplane Harbor museum! I'd wanted to go to this since Frunty had told me about the maritime days, and of course seeing the photos from last year's meetup, so I knew it was going to be a treat. They've got all the things that make a great museum. A diesel-electric submarine you can just walk around inside, games to try your hand out at anti air gunnery and flying a biplane (I disregarded all the rules in the flight simulator, was texting while flying, and made an unauthorized landing at TLL because hey why not)
Trust me, I've done this before.
"Just a little light turbulence folks."
Hunty took this photo of me and it might be my favorite
If you guys ever visit them in Estonia, have them take you here 'cause it rules.
That evening we returned home and ordered hot dogs, all in all, a super awesome day!
Sep 1st: Street festival
The next day we hopped a bus to large street festival going down not too far away, mainly to track down a food truck that Frunty highly recommended called Hungry Carl's. And oh man were they right, those burgs were excellent.
There were plenty of stalls selling stuff here and there, I picked up a jar of cloudberry jam for my folks, drank some kvas, and ate some smoked cheese strings. There was also live music and I happened to run into this pretty kitty:
A good catto
Sep 2nd: Old Town
Hunty's mum came over to look after the kid while Frunty and I hit up the Old Town for a big wander. I needed to get some sick reference photos for Odysseus (I'm basing Olivine City off of Tallinn and the harbor). I had to stop basically every 30 seconds to take more photos because EVERY street just looked so pretty.
This was an awesome looking square
We also hit up the medieval tavern, which was so atmospheric! It was lit only by candlelight, and we all had a hearty broth, and I had a nice flagon o' ale. I also tried my hand at spear fishing pickles, which was great fun.
I'm 'bout to roll some nat 20s up in here
There were several places of interest we hit, a couple of cathedrals, and the Merchant Guild musuem. There were plenty of interesting artefacts in all of them, showing the rich history of Tallinn (man York really needs to step it up a little)
We also broke for coffee at Tallinn's oldest cafe, which was very picturesque. Fraze and I picked up yet more beer at a small craft beer shop before we headed back.
Later that evening we went for a walk down by the beach, and I caught a shiny Wingull. I also snapped a bunch of shots of the sunset
Who doesn't love a good sunset?
Sep 3rd: The Park
The weather was real nice today, so we all headed down to the largest park in Tallinn for a nice walk around. The park is home to a couple of nice looking art museums, and the Presidential Palace (which coincidentally happened to be a Pokestop, I was half tempted to throw down a lure). On one side there's a nice Japanese style garden with a large fish pond, which I really enjoyed walking around.
Pretty scenery
Following the wander we went to a buffet called Lido where I stuffed myself with blin, cold soup, and porkchops. They even had a tap from which you could pour your own beer. Just when I thought I got out of the game...they keep pulling me right back in </thousand yard stare>
Sep 4th: Heading home
My flight was in the afternoon so we first hit up the market by the train station again so I could blow the last of my money on gifts (read as: candy and smokes) and then Frunty drove me to the airport. It had been a real blast of a week! I can't wait to go back (hopefully not after 3 years again)
Prometheus had a nice flight, at least
All meetups gotta come to an end I guess. BUT NOT FOR THIS GUY. I hastly made plans to meet Thorn when I landed before she went to work.
I hopped a train back to Central London and got on the underground.
This is where disaster struck. I didn't hear the alarm for the doors closing on the tube train and they closed on my backpack, ripping off several of my badges. Most of them landed inside the train, but one landed on the platform. Thankfully a rando commuter forced open the doors and gave it back to me. Phew!
I met Thorn outside the Disney store for what was the fastest meetup in history at under 5 minutes, gave her a bag of candy and some marzipan before she started her shift and I made my way to get my overnight coach back to York. I finally arrived home at my house at 5:15 AM. A super fun and eventful week! Roll on the next one!
Aug 28: The travelling
This story, like most, begins with me arriving super sleepy and confused, at Victoria coach station in London, right at the crack of dawn. I wasn't meeting Thorn until 9 AM for brunch, so I took the tube up to St. Pancras station and got some coffee. St. Pancras is a beautiful station and it's pretty good for people watching, so I always hide there whenever I have to wait for long periods of time in London. After a while I rolled on down on the tube to Covent Garden, where I was meeting Thorn for brunch at Le Pain Quotidian.
We were supposed to do this mini meetup the last time I was in London, flying back from Tokyo, but problems with my flights then (that resulted in me being delayed overnight in Rome) meant we could only meet that time for a quick beverage at Kings Cross. But it was well worth the wait! I had a full Belgian breakfast which consisted of a large scone, fried prosciutto, and scrambled eggs. Thorn had a hot chocolate with scrambled eggs and toast. The food was amazing and just the thing I needed to keep me from falling back asleep.
I picked up the tab for brunch and Thorn said she'd comp me back by hitting up some nerdy stores and I could pick something out reasonably priced. When we were at Forbidden Planet, I saw what I needed to get:
It's Prometheus, doin' a slep
We also checked out a neato Harry Potter themed store and a board games store. I was tempted to buy a lot of stuff in both, but my luggage would have been full before I'd even left the country!. Eventually I needed to head for the airport and Thorn had to nap to get ready for work later, so we took a photo outside of the theater showing the Cursed Child and parted ways.
Thorn & Thundy say hello!
A hopped back onto the tube to connect on the Gatwick express to the airport. Gatwick's an alright airport, as far as London airports go. I flew out of there last year when I was heading to Belarus, so I knew there was a place in there I could get a decent bloody mary before wheels up.
Prometheus was on hand to help
Anyway I had no problems checking in and clearing customs. At around 5 PM it was boarding time, and I got a great stroke of luck; nobody was sitting in the two seats next to me. So what did I do? After take off, I put all the armrests up, laid down, and had a nice snooze until we descended into Tallinn.
The view right before landing
We had a smooth landing at around 10:30 PM local time and I was able to deplane and clear border control fairly quickly, fortunately my bag was also one of the first ones off the plane too! I grabbed it and looked up to see Fraze waving at me frantically from the arrivals area, so I quickly breezed through customs to go see him and Hunty for the first time in 3 years, plus their kid, whom I had not yet met before!
We all drove back to their apartment (one of the jokes of these meetups is that every time I visit Estonia, Frunty are in a different domicile, so this continued the trend) and I was able to unpack and distribute gifts. Hunty got a bottle of Scottish ginger cider, Fraze got an imperial tonka bean and coconut stout, the little one got a Litten plushie, and my folks also sent along some homemade jam for Hunty's folks.
It had been a long day and the kid insisted we watch Kung Fu Panda, which we did, with some excellent Mojitos before bed crafted by Fraze.
Aug 29: Inital wanderings
So for the first couple of days Fraze had work related stuffs to attend to, so Hunty and the kid took me on a few wanderings, first to a large market next to the train station. It had all kinds of neat stalls, produce markets, street food joints, and actual sit down restaurants. I had a seriously nice pulled pork and BBQ burger with some Estonian craft beer to go with it (this would become a recurring theme)
Yum!
Afterwards we headed down to the harbor where we secured me passage on the ferry to Helsinki the next morning. Hunty's dad was able to get free tickets for me (mad props to Hunty and her nautical connections) so I only had to pay for breakfast. The only problem? Ferry departed at 7 AM sharp the next morning so I'd have to get up at 5:30 AM, a time I'd normally go to sleep when working.
We wandered around more the harbor area, catching pokemon and trying to do some raids in PoGo, until we met Fraze and walked around a cool district filled with street art and installations before hitting up a craft beer store to stock up on supplies.
That's me on the left
Fraze was very helpful in pointing me in the right direction of interesting ones to try, the Estonian craft beer scene is really impressive for a country that has a population of only about a million. Frunty also picked up a new puzzle for their kid featuring kitties. He absolutely loved it and learned to call me "Thundy"...for all of 5 minutes. He'd often want me to help complete the puzzles by saying "Man, sit!"
To which I'd point to myself "Thundy, I am Thundy."
And he'd go "No Thundy. Man, sit."
Making me the 'Forumer formerly known as Thundy'.
We had dinner and polished off the beers while watching Deathly Hallows Part 2. I lost count of how many jokes we made about Neville being swole.
Aug 30: Finland
I woke up super early and went to go catch my cab to the docks. The cab was running a few minutes late and when I got in the driver apologized and said "We will make up time."
Frunty had already told me about what to expect when riding with "Boris the friendly taxi driver" but I don't think I was ready, the guy certainly did make up the time, mostly by driving super fast down the opposite lane with my mind conjuring up images from all those dash cam crash footage shows from Eastern Europe.
In any case I arrived on time and boarded the ferry. I haven't traveled by ship in nearly a decade, so it was a nice novelty to wander around the decks, explore the thing, and take plenty of photos from over the rails. After the wind and spray got too much for me I headed back in to make use of the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet and stuffed myself silly. I also grabbed a quick beer and worked on some drawings in my sketchbook until we docked at the harbor in Helsinki.
We're not gonna need a bigger boat
DID I MENTION SOMEBODY BROUGHT A KITTEN ON BOARD?
Helsinki was absolutely beautiful, and super easy to get around. I picked up a metro card and hit the tram downtown and walked for ages along the various harbors, plazas, and areas around the central train station. I rode around on the metro for a bit before becoming HORRIBLY lost. At one station I got off I tried looking for the exit, and some how ended up deep within the bowels of a library.
Now I like libraries, but this hallway looks like there's some eldritch horror hiding down it
I mostly just did what I normally do when let loose in a city I've never seen before, I disregard all the maps and guide books and go searching down side streets for weird and cool places. I found quite a few nice pubs to sit in and watch people go past. The weather was quite poor so I avoided most of the rain this way. Then I remembered something. Helsinki has a pub onboard a tram. I looked up where I could board it and it turned out to be around the corner, in 10 minutes.
This is my kind of commute
A little on the pricey side, but it was a nice way to see a lot of the big sights downtown. After I got off, I joined in a PoGo raid with some Finnish people, which was pretty hilarious, then caught a regular tram back to the docks to board the ferry for a night time crossing back to Tallinn. I sat in the karaoke bar onboard the ship and continued to work on art and listening to Finns performing various songs until we docked back up.
Fortunately to save me another taxi (near death) exprience, Frunty came to pick me up, which was around 11 PM. We got home and I totally crashed out after eating a toastie for sustenance.
Aug 31: TV Tower and Seaplane Harbor
Today was the day we went all over! We started off heading back to the old area where Frunty used to live when we all went over for the wedding in 2015, as it now boasts the best coffee and pizza in the Tallinn area. We got a couple of pizzas, and I purchased a half-kilo of coffee beans to take home.
Then we drove to Tallinn TV tower, a large 300m tall transmission tower with an observation deck that offered impressive views for MILES, thanks to the clear weather that day.
It's a tall boy
Panoramic view from the observation deck
There was also an exhibition on life in the Soviet era, complete with an entire fitted out apartment filled with the normal every day items you'd find. They also had a mockup of a soviet era bar.
I got a new bartending gig
From there we headed to the Seaplane Harbor museum! I'd wanted to go to this since Frunty had told me about the maritime days, and of course seeing the photos from last year's meetup, so I knew it was going to be a treat. They've got all the things that make a great museum. A diesel-electric submarine you can just walk around inside, games to try your hand out at anti air gunnery and flying a biplane (I disregarded all the rules in the flight simulator, was texting while flying, and made an unauthorized landing at TLL because hey why not)
Trust me, I've done this before.
"Just a little light turbulence folks."
Hunty took this photo of me and it might be my favorite
If you guys ever visit them in Estonia, have them take you here 'cause it rules.
That evening we returned home and ordered hot dogs, all in all, a super awesome day!
Sep 1st: Street festival
The next day we hopped a bus to large street festival going down not too far away, mainly to track down a food truck that Frunty highly recommended called Hungry Carl's. And oh man were they right, those burgs were excellent.
There were plenty of stalls selling stuff here and there, I picked up a jar of cloudberry jam for my folks, drank some kvas, and ate some smoked cheese strings. There was also live music and I happened to run into this pretty kitty:
A good catto
Sep 2nd: Old Town
Hunty's mum came over to look after the kid while Frunty and I hit up the Old Town for a big wander. I needed to get some sick reference photos for Odysseus (I'm basing Olivine City off of Tallinn and the harbor). I had to stop basically every 30 seconds to take more photos because EVERY street just looked so pretty.
This was an awesome looking square
We also hit up the medieval tavern, which was so atmospheric! It was lit only by candlelight, and we all had a hearty broth, and I had a nice flagon o' ale. I also tried my hand at spear fishing pickles, which was great fun.
I'm 'bout to roll some nat 20s up in here
There were several places of interest we hit, a couple of cathedrals, and the Merchant Guild musuem. There were plenty of interesting artefacts in all of them, showing the rich history of Tallinn (man York really needs to step it up a little)
We also broke for coffee at Tallinn's oldest cafe, which was very picturesque. Fraze and I picked up yet more beer at a small craft beer shop before we headed back.
Later that evening we went for a walk down by the beach, and I caught a shiny Wingull. I also snapped a bunch of shots of the sunset
Who doesn't love a good sunset?
Sep 3rd: The Park
The weather was real nice today, so we all headed down to the largest park in Tallinn for a nice walk around. The park is home to a couple of nice looking art museums, and the Presidential Palace (which coincidentally happened to be a Pokestop, I was half tempted to throw down a lure). On one side there's a nice Japanese style garden with a large fish pond, which I really enjoyed walking around.
Pretty scenery
Following the wander we went to a buffet called Lido where I stuffed myself with blin, cold soup, and porkchops. They even had a tap from which you could pour your own beer. Just when I thought I got out of the game...they keep pulling me right back in </thousand yard stare>
Sep 4th: Heading home
My flight was in the afternoon so we first hit up the market by the train station again so I could blow the last of my money on gifts (read as: candy and smokes) and then Frunty drove me to the airport. It had been a real blast of a week! I can't wait to go back (hopefully not after 3 years again)
Prometheus had a nice flight, at least
All meetups gotta come to an end I guess. BUT NOT FOR THIS GUY. I hastly made plans to meet Thorn when I landed before she went to work.
I hopped a train back to Central London and got on the underground.
This is where disaster struck. I didn't hear the alarm for the doors closing on the tube train and they closed on my backpack, ripping off several of my badges. Most of them landed inside the train, but one landed on the platform. Thankfully a rando commuter forced open the doors and gave it back to me. Phew!
I met Thorn outside the Disney store for what was the fastest meetup in history at under 5 minutes, gave her a bag of candy and some marzipan before she started her shift and I made my way to get my overnight coach back to York. I finally arrived home at my house at 5:15 AM. A super fun and eventful week! Roll on the next one!