TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Friday, May 20, 2005

11:22 AM
Posted by jodi rose

if it's friday, this must be Tallinn.
you know, I and the Estonian capital have never got on well. today is no exception. the weather is far better than last time, wandering lost in the drizzle was particularly depressing during isea. even though the sun is shining now, my mood remains blackened towards this city which I'm sure has many charming features. tried to revisit the caucasian restaurant last night, muuust lamma... but they claimed to be fully booked at 10pm, even though a few tables were still free... maybe didn't want a single woman dining to ruin their atmosphere. so tried the place we didn't go last time, which had horrible pumping banal dance music and average food. was intrigued by the sexual politics going on at the next table though....
something about the eastern europe exchange of sex and power is particularly open, especially for white heterosexual males. friends claim they always get in trouble in riga, and I'm sure tallin is no exception. anyway, this not-so-young-anymore pretty boy english man with rosy cherub cheeks and silver hair was teasing three young (19yr old) estonian girls about their film careers, and coming to london - but they couldn't stay with him because 'she' lived in his house - while they stroked his ego and one of them his foot, which was in her lap. all three were of course fresh-faced and beautiful, although dressed in the predominant mode, which appears to have been culled from smuggled cosmopolitan magazines circa 1985, and takes the maxim 'you can never be too rich or too thin' to new extremes. anyway, I'm sure they are all happy with the exchange, he gets the night with three nubile and willing young lasses and they get a taste of the foreigners power and independence. or maybe I'm misreading the situation completely.
although the tallinn by night section in the tourist info booklet from the airport does warn, after a list of the top nightclubs and pubs, and the famous clubscene alternative parties in abandoned warehouses and factories, that: 'when diving into the nightlife of Tallinn, we still recommend you to keep a part of your head cool, it's not advisable at all to go who-knows-where with complete strangers you just met.' hmm, no not at all.

but, as I said, the exchange rate seems fairly overt. one of the massage places on the main street in the old town advertised: thai, indian, lymphatic, sensual, erotic, swedish etc etc. all only around 300 eek. estonian kroner. I love a currency whose name is eek. totally explains my relationship with money.

quite funny, a woman just mistook me for an official of the tallin city port, standing here in my bad mood and orange t-shirt from seamus, which had an electronic circuitry diagram and the phrase elektronischer widerstand - electoronic resistance, from the freie radio in berlin radio kampagne.

oh yes and the reason I am standing here using the internet and not on the ferry... I'm sure there's a curse on me in operation as soon as I set foot in tallin. so not only did the best restaurant refuse me food, but this morning when I left the hotel to find the ferry, first of all took the tram in the wrong direction, then got off at the stop advised but it was much further away than the previous one from the port, so had to walk for about 20 minutes, then didn't know which terminal, saw the ferry just pulling away, tried the nordic jet line but even though theirs was running late, refused to sell me a ticket, so schlepped all the way back from terminal c to terminal d, found the superseacat had left at 10.20, which if I'd come straight here could have made, but now have to wait until the one o'clock, which cost an extra 7 euro. so I'm as grumpy with tallin as ever.
and they appear to be renovating the building used in stalker, which was its only charm for me.
anyway, enough of this grumbling, life is fabulous, I'm incredibly privileged to be doing what I dreamt of, travelling, meeting people, making sound art...

if I could only get out of Estonia......