LEAVING RIGA BY BUS

1^st June 2010

Today as I woke around 5am I could hear the rain pouring down. Good I thought, at least I will not have to pack my rain coat. However by the time we did leave the rain had stopped and the coat was packed.

Breakfast in the little downstairs Russian run cafe was again bacon and eggs. And as usual it beautifully cooked. And as usual, Robyn was able to get a second cup of coffee. Then upstairs again to pack and we were ready to check out around 11am. But there was no sense in leaving for the bus as we had 90 minutes before the bus departed. So we spent the time in the hostel lounge doing email and Internet tasks. Finally we headed off for the bus. The walk through the market to the bus station took about 5 minutes all up.

The Euroline bus was dark colour with a glassed off lounger at the rear. There were 16 seats st out in groups of four around a table. The comfortable adjustable seats were the best I have had on a bus so far. When we borded and showed out tickets we got given a b otle of water and a bag of nuts and dried fruit.

The interesting thing about the trip was not so much the scenery as this was somewhat similar to what I have been seeing on my trip so far. No the interesting feature was the Internet connection which held up for at least half the journey. I was able to send some photos up to my blog page and edit a page. I even worked on my email settings and at last have been able to send a message out using Windows Mail. That is a first for the trip as well. Just a simple thing to do but now I can actually see the buttons at the bottom of the page and save the settings. Now that has made the trip worthwhile and will be such an advantage.

On the bus, during the Estonian passport check, Robyn noted that the mane in the back corner had a NZ passport, a grenstone pendant and a matariki tee shirt. Sure enough we got chatting and he turned out to be a New Zealander working for a NGO working for nuclear arms reduction. We had a good chat and he knew some of the people either Robyn or I knew. He was visiting the area to speak to local MP's about the issues. He had trained as a kindergarten teacher, so Robyn and he could talk on a common level.

Soon we arrived at the Tallinn Bus Station and after a visit to an ATM we got a taxi to the hostel. The hostel calls itself the 16 EURO Hostel as it maintains its prices at that amount. Despite that we still pay the hostel in local currency Here we are dealing with a currency where transactions are in big amounts. The taxi was 87EKK and most likely we were over charged a bit but not by much. We have to devide the amount by 8 to get a comparison with NZ. The hostel account was 1800EEK for four nights.

The hostel is a friendly place. We have a large room with ensuite on ther first floor. A small kitchen is near by. The TV set can pick up BBC tv news. Great. However that is the only English channel out of the eight or so we can pick up. No English radio on FM as far as I can assertain.

Quite soon we wandered out and found an near by supermarket in a shopping centre. We bought a mixture of items for dinner and were interested to find a range of NZ wine on sale at a price. We bought a cheaper bottle of Italian red. While the supermarket was not the largest I have found on the trip, what was noticable was the amount of ready to eat meal food. Lots of choices to take home for a quick dinner. On the way to the shopping centre we passed by a small srall with table and chairs selling a range of two or three curries at what seemed a cheap price. Perhaps tomorrow will be a curry night? The price seemed to be 30EKK which would be around NZ$4.

The rest of the shopping centre included a kitchen store which Robyn considered 'international' and thought that it could easily have been in Botany Shopping Centre. I found some interesting Estonian DVD's in a music and film store. There was a camera shop with the most extensive range of Lomo/Holga cameras I have ever seen. Now that was an interestering discovery for me.

We are on the edge of the Old Town in a new modern area. There are some interesting modern buildings intermixed with some older buildings. I am looking forward to checking the city out over the next few days, subject to my painful ankle area improving.