Gee my titles are getting lazy.
I'm actually really tired. Last night we went out till 4am, then till longer in this dodgey burger joint... but that's only part of the story... to update you quickly on what's happening now... I'm using internet on the ferry again! And they have a CD-rom so I may even upload some photos soon! They have two nearly identical boats, and I believe this is a different one from the last one I was in. They're called the Symphony and the Serenade so the names aren't really that distinct. I kinda really knew this ship is different cos the internet computer is different! :-)
OK... just reading what I've told you recently... In stockholm I went to this (supposedly) famous jazz bar called Stampen. I saw a band called "Knock Out Greg & Blue Weather (found a URL http://www.algonet.se/~freguz/, ohh just looked up the boba jazz band as well). I'm going to have to put some photos up... Greg sang and played the harmonica! They did old rock, really good traditional blues (this guy I met called it "American Melancholy" which is maybe a more accurate categorisation?)... they also did what I call "hyperactive jazz" - like this song about this guy who is lost in the jungle, and his girlfriend is back in the USA. The song stops at many points, and they start with "Meanwhile, back in the jungle", or "Meanwhile, back in the USA" and then say about how the guy might get fried by the natives and how there are other men chatting up the girlfriend. Hyper jazz rocks. At the end, one of the sax players walked off the stage on to the dancefloor, and starts playing his sax horizontally... next thing I saw was the bassist had a double bass and was also lifting it up to be horizonta! It's quite strange.
Helsinki was nice... it didn't feel eastern european, western european or scandinavian. I met up with Matti who I first met in London (check the photos from back then) and he showed me around... it was great! He's doing a masters or PHD in History so he had tons of background knowledge. Thanks Matti!
So, the tour was Friday. Friday night, I met Olaf and Lisa at the hostel, and we ate dinner... was great to meet up with them... knowing people for only a day or two isn't really enough.
On Saturday, it was a public holiday, so tons of shops in Helsinki were closed... so I went to Tallin, the capital of Estonia for a day. A (semi dodgey) return ferry trip cost me €30, but I really enjoyed the visit. I thought the Finns had to put up with being ruled by tons of ppl in the past, but the Estonians had to put up with it in recent past! They became independent (for the second time... they were self goverened between WWI and WWII) only in 1991 or so. I saw a really good museum about the city through the ages. And I got stuck watching this really interesting video about the fight for independence. They sang their way to freedom! Hundreds of thousands of ppl turned up for these concerts... the biggest one (or series of concerts in different locations on the same night) had 1/3 of the Estonian population show up! The national history had been really repressed, so the singing in the late 1980's helped to re-educate the people in their own national heritage. They have a big singing festival every year... 100,000 people sing, and 300,000 people watch!!! It would be really amazing to see! Some other stuff they did was to form a 600km human chan across Estonia, Lituania and Latvia... When the soviets came with tanks to intimidate the people, they put these massive rocks on one of the roads, and the photo I saw had a cute little sign with a picture of a tank with a red cross through it (sim to the no smoking sign)... thought that was kewl. They pulled down this statue of Lennin two days after declaring independence as well... they really have tried to get the soviet influence out of the city... Helsinki on the other hand doesn't seem too bothered about removing some soviet-era statues here and there.
The architecture in Tallin is quite medievil. Some (still standing) parts of the old town were constructed in the 12th century. They name things really interestingly... their high tower has the nickname "tall herman" and this cannon tower which used to be 300m from the sea (and is now a few km from it) is called "fat margaret"... I suppose it's not that different from "big ben"... but somehow at the time seemed kewler... If I remember the name of the weather vane guy I'll have to tell you that story too...
So the partying was after a day in Tallin... I was already quite exhausted (I had only 5 hrs sleep the night before)... I took the guys to this student club that Matti had mentioned. It turned out that we rocked up at 10 to 11 and they opened at 11! Great timing, the music was also pretty interesting... pretty happy stuff, with some finnish songs thrown in which is also nice! I've been a little dissappointed by the lack of local songs that are played in nightclubs and on the radio. Seems like the US has the music market pretty sewn up.
Today I had a pretty slow morning, went to see this fortress that has protected Helsinki pretty well for a long time. Then... 5pm at the ferry terminal, and I'm on my way back to Stockholm!
Hrmm I'm really tired will have to write some more soon. For the time being I think I'll grab some small foodstuffs (not as organised as last time) then sleep and be ready for karaoke at 9:30/10:00pm.
Ohh didn't write about the last boat trip! I met Alex in my room, this kewl hip-hop-loving-sweedish-resident-sweedish-speaking-finnish-phys-ed-teacher (semi in training), and then we bumped into some of his ex students. They were 16 or 17 and really hyper, I sang "Summer Nights" with them... Alex and I walked the boat from end to end a few times, watched the midnight show, and then he slept and I met some students who were on an organised trip... since students turn 18 inside highschool, they can have legal pissup parties, and a 12 hour cruise, two nights in a row sure beats a few hour cruise down the swan :-) Well, completely different kettle of fish really... you can't really blow your budget on a swan river cruise - whereas here they have ridiculusly priced meals and fashions... at least the duty free is cheap. Maybe I should eat chocolate and drink alcohol for dinner ;-) For instance, I saw a €100 scarf... I mean, a scarf! A rectangular piece of material!!! Ohh that reminds me - I ended up finding €1.90 gloves and a €4.90 scarf, so I'm not fashionable, or coordinated, but at least I'm warm!
Hrmm OK this is getting pretty long... been here for a while! Gonna track down some food and then return with my photo CD's! Hope I'm awake enough to sing!
Posted by Sam at November 04, 2002 12:28 AM