This blog has been deserted for a few weeks because of too much action in our lives to be able to write anything online. Sorry for that.
Ok where were we.... leaving England? Through the Chunnel on a train we headed for our first transfer Belgium.
Ok where were we.... leaving England? Through the Chunnel on a train we headed for our first transfer Belgium.
An overnight layover in a train station in Brussels. Everything in the station is closed. The building is mostly vacant, save for a few fellow travelers who are there for the next 6 hours as well. Before the doors locked we all went in differing pairs to check out the area near the station. A giant carnival fun park full of lights and rides and ugly toys on one side of the station and a "drug sales center" aka dealers row on the other. At one am we're all locked inside the station. A patrolling gang of armed and frightening cops, the glare from their eyes like prison searchlights march past. It would be a bit creepy to see this force with guns marching in formation if they weren't actually necessary. Thieves, perverts, and junkies are tucked away in the shadows waiting quite literally for the chance to commit some crime unseen by the Belgian guards. Parts of the station resembles a bad movie set about a post apocalyptic reformation and the smells of urine and trash wafting around reinforce this vision. Also you can get beer from a vending machine here too. Classy.
We take turns on watch to make sure the stuff and each other are safe. We are also desperate for sleep as are two young fellow musician travelers from Holland. So like all good people trapped in a somewhat spooky scenario we circle the wagons or in this case three of us sleep on the floor in a semi-circle around the instruments and while the other two guard from an upright position.
At dawn just as we head for our train the creepy pervs and freaky people are slowly replaced by fellow passengers just as we struggle to get our monds onto the platform. To Berlin we go.
After a fairly uneventful train ride highlighting the differences between first class train cars and all others since we accidentally got on first class most of the ride we made it to Germany. Due to our gear we had to take two cabs to get to our place in Neukölln. The place we stayed was great, right next door to the Communist party headquarters funny enough and very near Karl Marx Straße. We found it on Airbnb and of the places we have stayed from Airbnb it was the best. Exactly what it seemed like in the profile which on Airbnb is not usually the case.
What door do you choose? Door number three!
We stayed in Berlin for about a week and experienced just a bit of its culture, practiced tunes in parks and met a few nice people there as well as visiting our friend Holger who lives near.
Our pitstop in Germany was too short for Gregory and too long for Nate and just right for Bianka. Nate had his fill of Germany in the recents years when lived there. Bianka was happy to rest there in the pleasant little apartment listening to thunderstorms and sometimes singing Turkish men but Gregory was eager to see the city's other performers and artists which in Berlin could take a lifetime. But on we had to go to Estonia and the getting to Tallinn is half the adventure, well at least the way we go.
We boarded another train that gets on a boat and got us to Stockholm. We actually sat where our tickets told us this time which turned out to be the one car on the entire train without working air conditioning. We joked with a lovely family from Eritrea that it was the sauna car. Couple that with a very drunk Swedish man who decided he had something to prove to Bianka and the train ride was rather uncomfortable. Still it was wonderful to get to talk to a beautiful articulate woman from Eritrea and hear about her life, the changes and sacrifices since she had to move to Sweden on the long sweltering ride. Bianka ended up having to use her trusty umbrella at the final station to swat at the drunk Swede who decided he'd hover about trying to scare her.
Staying in a room with drunk travelers this is not the sort of thing you want posted on the wall.
After staying in a fairly crappy hostel filled with the typical drunk traveling Australians and what Bianka thought was a pretty sexist atmosphere we were happy to at last take the Tallink Cruise to Tallinn.
This cruise ship, the Baltic Queen, which Gregory and Bianka have taken before is pretty notorious for drunk Finns and Russians partying and carting off with shopping carts full of alcohol essentially like a sea bound liquor store. But it's actual quite wonderful and fun in other ways. There's a sauna on the boat which is an Estonian and Finnish standard and there's even a little pool. The pool we swam in shows a view from a camera on the ship deck so we could see the sea as we splashed. The cabin is better equipped than many hostel/hotel rooms in Europe... as Nate documents here.
This ship rides through the archipelago which so beautiful and makes the onlooker wish it made stop offs. No picture can even rival the way it looks so why try.
There are several floors of entertainment and bars having bands like Indigga to delight or at least amuse a mixed crowd of onlookers some there to dance some just to stare. There's a super nice karaoke host who had a good time with Nate and Gregory trading songs with him and they nearly charmed the pants off some Finnish ladies who believed they must be brothers. Then it's off to the top deck disco to fend of Russian singletons and hear an crazy mix of typical club tunes combined with some decent choice dance tunes. We luckily had the company of a lovely Estonian lady, who had offered to help Bianka when boarding the boat since she had so much luggage, who we later saw and pretty much pestered her all night with questions since she takes this boat a lot now that she lives in Sweden.
After a night of sauna, swimming, singing and dancing we arrive in Tallinn at 10 am ready to disembark for our final leg of this trip. Eesti! And that is one long chapter. More to come very very soon.
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