Dinner Guests

This Friday afternoon the working routines were briefly disrupted at the embassy when four dinner guests arrived. Or to put it more correctly, they were “guests” in the sense that they were not supposed to be there, and “dinner” in the sense that they were to be boiled and eaten that evening. For some reason a delivery service delivered four big, blue and lively lobsters at the Danish embassy instead of the German embassy, much to the bewilderment of the chef, who seemed quite sad when the mistake was discovered. So for an hour or so the lobsters scrabbled around in their white Styrofoam box in the stairwell, ignorant of their faith and objects of a mixture of amusement and pity by the rest of the employees.

Architecture in Helsinki

After invitation from the TDA (Tallinn Diplomatic Association) my Danish roommate Laura and my Norwegian roommate Hanne and yours truly decided to go on the announced daytrip to Helsinki, Tallinn’s sister capital on the other side of the Gulf of Finland on Sunday the 24th of August.

We left from Tallinn harbour in the morning, just making it aboard a few minutes before the ferry left. I quickly turned seasick and was much relived when we reached Helsinki one and a half hours later.

After a bus trip around the city, which was very touristy and not very interesting, we were dropped of at the Helsingin tuomiokirkko also known as Helsinki Cathedral. A beautiful and simple cathedral in a neo-classical style by the one side of Senate Square and the end of a very steep stairway.

The hilly and watery terrain and the ether of decay and time’s toll, which old military installations always emanates, made the Suomenlinna naval fortress the highlight of the trip. The fortress lies as a collection of mounds, fortresses and houses on a small archipelago outside Helsinki. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site, and intact because the Finish general who were supposed to make use of it had simply chickened out and not resisted the invading Russians. Bad luck for the city of Helsinki then, good luck for the city now.

On the way back to Helsinki it began pouring down and we spend the last hour in the city in the guts of Stockmann department store, waiting to dry.

On my way back aboard the return ferry named “Galaxy” I was almost tipped over by a stampede of rude elderly people pulling their monthly ration of tax-free liquors and cigarettes after them in small scotch patterned trolleys. They were a species of elderly people which I was already acquainted with from my childhood near the Danish/German border trade area.

The “Galaxy” lived up to my expectations; a floating commune of hotels, malls and entertainment parlours complete with karaoke and piano bars and cowboy themed restaurants. A ship which could be found sailing anywhere in Europe or the rest of the world for that matter. A shining star of globalised bad taste in “travelling”. All in all, the “Galaxy” seemed to appeal to the type of people which did not have the means or the courage or the energy to do something truly exiting, but instead dosed themselves numb on pastel colours and rampart consumerism. At least the views were fine on the observation decks.

And then of course there was the buffet.

The buffet at Galaxy was truly galactic in its proportions, complete with an orbiting fringe of pensioners slowly circling and sampling the dishes as they went along in the queue. After having engorged myself completely on three plates of entrées and one plate of main courses I was ogling quite warily at the cluster of slowly melting desserts, not quite sure I was up for another round. But I was very impressed and proud when Laura and Hanne threw all inhibitions aside and shamelessly grabbed the big plates and filled them with as much dessert as they would hold, ignoring the clever comments from grannies and fellow travellers alike.

All in all a good day.

The Estonian Experience

And so it became that I started a blog as a part of my new strategy to strengthen my online presence. Actually I’m personally against involvements in online communities such as blogs, My Space and Face Book because they are too time consuming. I mean, if there is not enough time to have a life in the real world, there is certainly no time for a virtual life.

But I give in because this blog will be an opportunity for me to stay in touch with old friends at home and new friends in Tallinn. It also seems suitable that I start my new blog now after this eventful summer which has seen a lot of changes for me personally with the movement from Århus to Copenhagen, the journey to China, and now the stay in Estonia for the next six months working as an intern at the Royal Danish Embassy.

Tallinn is fantastic, but my first impression was a mixed experience. When I landed in the airport last Tuesday with a jetlag from China it was very cold and windy, and I had been told that Estonian summers were hot and sunny. The two interns, Rosa and Rune, whose positions we were taking over picked me and my fellow intern Laura up in one of the embassy’s cars and drove us to our new apartment. Build in the Soviet era, the drap functionalism and worn down interior and exterior of this concrete silo will warm the hearth and moist the eye of any remaining fans of communism. But it’s situated a five minutes walk from the embassy and ten minutes from the centre of Tallinn. Sweet.

But as I said, Tallinn is fantastic. This city centre is an almost intact hanseatic merchant town from the middle ages, complete with a city wall, picturesque gothic towers, red tile roofs, steep and twisting alleyways with cobbled stone pavings which is lined with cosy and cheap bars, cafes and restaurants. Denmark may be called a fairytale country, but enchanting Tallinn is the real fairytale city. It feels centuries older than Copenhagen. The tourist economy is evident everywhere, but because of the Estonian Statue Crisis and the rising prices there are not so many tourists as there used to be. A good thing for me and a very bad thing for Tallinn and Estonia.

The embassy is still in holiday mode, so half of my colleagues including the ambassador are still on leave. But the rest of the employees seems nice, and the work interesting, although it’s all very new. The expat diplomat network also seems very good; I have already met people from the Norwegian, Swedish, British, French, Italian, American, and Russian embassies. So until now the Estonian Experience has been great!

Sunset and cocktails at Radisson hotel