Estonia Ahoy!

hey hey!

Well, just got back from a whirlwind weekend on a cruise ship headed to Estonia. 300 exchange students, a karaoke bar, nightclub, duty free shopping and a whole lotta shakin' going on. Combine this with exorbitant amounts of alcohol, and, well... you get the picture.

The adventure began in Stockholm on saturday morning: 4 girls, 2 guys, nice mixture of nationalities (dutch, french, german, finnish, australian), and an earnest desire from all to have an amazing time. We planned to spend a couple of hours wandering around Stockholm, perhaps doing a bit of sightseeing before meeting up with the rest of our group and boarding the ferry. Arrived in Stockholm - windy! Immediately set about getting all touristy in the Swedish capital, and tried to find the main shopping street. Had lunch, and after an interesting incident involving 4 girls, 1 toilet, 5 kronas (when it should have been 20), and a veeery long line of totally busting and unimpressed people, we left, and did a bit of shopping. NB: "a bit" = 15 minutes. Did a little bit of sightseeing with the touristy scenic spots, water, buildings, blah blah blah. You get the idea. Caught the bus to the docks, where we met up with the crew and boarded the ferry.

On the boat - cabin is the size of a shoebox. Thankfully get put with my lovely friend Angela (they chose our cabin mates for us!), right across the hall from my other lovely friends, Kirsi and Petra. Go exploring and see the boat breaking through the ice - it looks and sounds amazing (especially when you're attempting sleep at 3am). Took about a million photos of the ice, then realised that they all look the same, therefore 1 was probably sufficient. Ah what the hell, I'm a total tourist - no point hiding it. Had dinner. Then began the drinking games... I'm not going to paint the picture - needless to say, it was entertaining.

Sunday morning: arrived in Estonia!! Running on approximately 3 hours sleep was interesting, so I was craving coffee as soon as we had passed the initial onslaught of grog shops that surround the docks. I was thoroughly amused at the number of old women selling hand knitted booties (for both adults and babies) on the side of the street, and wondered briefly if anyone actually buys them. Did some sightseeing and exploring of Tallinn's city centre. Visited the Alexander Nevski cathedral, which looks good from the outside, and has a totally breathtaking interior. Gold everywhere, hundreds of candles, chandeliers, pipe organs - and no photography allowed! Couldn't believe it, but i guess you gotta respect the laws...
Went to a lookout point, and had an old guy try to sell us Russian passports. Thought that was totally hilarious, and after checking our bags to make sure we hadn't been robbed, we did some more sightseeing. Second only to alcohol stores in Tallinn are souvenir shops - they're EVERYWHERE! Ridiculous. Crammed full of products made with amber - more jewellery than you can poke a stick at. None of it cheap either.

After buying ourselves some cheap grog, we got back on the ferry to head back to Stockholm. More drinking games, more dancing, more antics. Sooo much fun. I'd hate to work on the boat - the staff must deal with so much shit from the students. I totally got attitude from a bartender who kept trying to charge me for water. Dagnabbit.

So yeah, here I am back in my room. We had a DOMD (this big darts tournament in Linkoping) kravall on thursday, which was great. It had a Miami Vice theme, so we all dressed up in our overalls with 80's accessories to complete the look. Totally great night.

Anyways, off to bed! Am exhausted after a totally fantastic weekend where my passport got stamped again :D yay!

Stay in school kids,

Chloe xx