Stalin and Pickles

19052019

(NOTE: I am writing this retroactively, the internet on the ship was horrendous so it wont be as fresh)

Tallinn was a sleeper hit. I really wasn't expecting that much, and it turned out to be a really cool city, before we even get to the really cool tour we did.

Our tour wasn't until the afternoon, so we all got off the ship as early as we could to walk around the city. We took the quick shuttle to the center of town and were very surprised. The old part of Tallinn is all enclosed in the old Medieval wall of the city. It reminded me very much of Český Krumlov (https://danswritingsonnonsense.blogspot.com/2012/05/not-vienna-but-still-awesome-medieval.html). We wandered around a little and found a medieval wall to climb into.

Inside the wall they had pictures from the last 100 years of Tallinn's history, it was mostly a climb-up-and-see-the-city thing for 2 euro, but you also got a little recent (as the town has been around for 800 years, the last 100 year history is recent)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallinn

The old medieval part of the city is actually a UNESCO site.

We had to head back to the ship to catch our shore excursion, but not before laura and I grabbed a few bottles of beer, and a bottle of wine. Our intention was to drink the beer before getting on the ship and bringing the wine to our cabin for later, but the beer was so tasty we managed to finish it before the bus even got to back to the ship.

We made it back, snuck on our wine, and then headed out for the tour. I was originally skeptical, as it was pitched as a "Memory of Soviet Times" excursion that felt like it could be hokey. But it was pretty neat. The tour guide was dressed in an old Soviet Uniform and demanded our passports as we got on the bus, and searched our bags for recording devices. and when we got on the old beat up bus he held up a picture of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin as we all did (disappointingly small) shots of vodka and ate a pickle.

He then broke out of the character to explain that he infact hated the Soviets, and then discussed with us what it was like under the Soviets, and how things have changed.

The bus then took us to the naval museum area, mostly to dump us off with a view of the city, so he could point things off, and tell us about the prison that was nearby and how he had friends disappeared at this prison. From here we drove to have a picnic by the marina, here we had kali (which is their version of kvass, which I only now realize is what I was drinking on that homestay in Saint Petersburg way back when, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvass ) and viineripirukas (pigs in a blanket). Really the whole excursion was an opportunity to talk to a local that lived through the Soviet Satellite state Estonia and the conversion to todays Estonia.

As I have discussed before, and may have failed to discuss this time around; cruises are dominated by older people. This cruise being a little bit more premium meant that it was almost exclusively old-moneyed-white Americans. This leads to various issues that I/Laura have with going on cruises, and it will likely be a while before we go on another one. I will try to get into that in my the final cruise day post, as I need to think about it some more.

I digress, being that all of the other people on our excursion *also* lived through the Cold War, they had questions about what it was like, and how Estonia can be doing so well now. The US/West had its own propaganda about how terrible it is in the east/Soviet world, and many of them havent kicked this mindset. I think they were expected ex-Soviet states to be shitholes, and were surprised that Estonia is doing great, cranking out programmers/developers/IT people in general. So it was interesting listening to the questions these people had, and the guide was happy to answer them, but I would have appreciated a smaller conversation over a beer to see what Estonia is really like, and what it meant for him/his family to go through the post-communist transition, and the accession to the EU. But alas, I wasnt going to be that asshole that dominates the tourguides time.

After the picnic the bus took us back to the ship, a little bit late, but not so late they left without us. We climbed the gangplank, and went to the top deck for the sail away ceremony.

Apparently many of the cruise lines other ships actually have sails, so the sail away ceremony is cool as there are actual sails being set and ropes doing things, but on this ship, that burns awful bunker fuel ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_oil its basically what is left when you make all the good petrochemical products, its like one step above raw crude), all they do is fly a little pennant and blare the music.

We had some drinks, we chatted with other cruise guests, and we watched Tallinn fade away. I very much think Laura and I will visit again.

Maybe when I early retire, my Dad and I will take a vacation through Old Medieval towns, Tallinn included.

We eventually ate a good but not great dinner, retired to my parents cabin, drank some of that wine while half-watching On Her Majesty's Secret Service and chatting about the trip.

Planes! Trains! And automobiles! But mostly trains.

04112016

We left our Ryokan this morning.

Those are the tiny stairs leading up to our room, I didn't get any pictures of the room, and the outside of the place on its tiny little street.

We headed to our AirBnB, which is closer to the rail station, but on the other side. Dumping our bags we headed to the Kyoto Rail museum.

The museum opened in April, it is brand new, and pretty great. It was fill little kids, because people love trains, especially in a country that actually uses them. There were also a not insignificant number of kids/young adults in wheelchairs and with other disabilities, in itself isn't surprising, because, everyone loves trains, I mention it because it was the first place in Japan that had true handicap access. It was nice to see such an old and traditional county make attractions accessible everybody.

Anyways the museum is totally worth the 1200yen per person. They have a bunch of locomotives and passenger cars on display outside.

And then inside they have more engines/passenger cars on display, with ramps and walkways giving you better views.

That's one of the first steam engines produced entirely in Japan. In the up until the very early 1900s Japan was importing their steam engines as they didn't have the expertise to build them, most came from the United States. Japan went from never having seen a train in the 1860s to building their own steam locomotives and over 5000 miles of track by 1906.

The other picture is one of the new ultra modern high speed rail cars. Capable of 200kmh. One thing I never really thought about with electric trains is the potential capacity, especially for passengers. Because every car has motors on it, which is how they go so fast, and they can chain as many together as needed without eating up hundreds of feet with locomotives. Also the front cars are very much like in airplane, in that the conductor/engineer sit in cockpit, with passengers behind them, on This same car.

They also allowed you to walk under a diesel and an electric engine. And of course being a museum mostly for children there were lots buttons to press.

They had an elaborate model city with all kinds of trains running through it, and a 15 minute show with narration, following various trains through the model city that we skipped out on, cause there were too many kids in there.

Outside there was a stream locomotive maintenance facility.

Also the 60 ton crane used to lift the locomotives.

After the museum we got some quick food and checked into the AirBnB to figure out what to do next.

Almost all the shrines, which are effectively the parks in Kyoto close at 1630-1700 which is when most people go back to their hotel for early dinner, and watch crazy Japanese TV and go to sleep early.

We wanted more than gameshows (Also we don't have a TV). I found the Yasaka shrine.

It's near Gion, which I'll get to in a second, so an area we haven't been to, is open all night, and renown for its lights.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasaka_Shrine

The shrine is 1400 years old, with nasty additions in the intervening centuries. It was pretty cool.

All those lamps have the names of businesses that donate money to the shrine. Basically it's a giant ancient advertisement, with some faith thrown in.

From here we wandered into Gion. The main street.

Had a bunch of modern and tourist oriented stores and restaurants, the side streets had all the machiya and ochaya, inns and tea houses. It is in these inns and tea houses that the geisha, or more accurately geiko entertain the travelers and in MKE modern times businessmen.

The streets were very narrow and very old, with the occasional geiko outside, and tufts of drunk Japanese businessmen.

As you got closer to the river, you saw more modern bars and the hostess clubs, which are modern geisha places, where the hostess can get a bonus for repeat costumers. As I can imagine these hostesses have to work pretty hard to earn these bonuses.

And then across the river is thy bar/club district for young people. Here we saw drink girls puking and passed out in the streets, with their friendss laughing and smoking and dragging them to the canal so they can puke in the water.

We got shwarma, it was an interesting experience, there was no one around that seemed to be from the land of "meat tornadoes" as my good greek friend would say. the little restaurant, and more importantly cooking aparatus was manned by a large Japenese young guy, i mean, this guy knew how to eat. He layered the meat and cabbage and onions and sauce in the pita just right, so you always had the full maelstrom of flavors in your mouth in every bite.

We ate while people watching, and trained home.

sandwich of the gods

17712 another rather boring day, had spanish class, then a movie. the highpoint of the day was lunch, which i will get into in a second. i like this spanish class a lot, it is much more conversation based, and he corrects me as i go, which helps me more than any grammar chart ever has. today we started to talk about why there are differences between the United States and Argentina, as far as development is concerned, and i found it was easier for me to convey my ideas about this in spanish, than making up sentences about how i went to the store, or what i buy a good friend for their birthday. after class me and evan found a restaurant that served grilled stuff. you need to understand, this place was basically a step above a street cart (if we had found a street cart we would have gone there), there was no front wall, there was a huge grill with sizzling meat on it, a counter where you pay, a refrigerator with drinks, and a handful of tables and chairs, the place was kinda grimy but it only lent itself to the character. we had choripan, which is chorizo en pan, sausage on bread, the grill a sausage, slice it lengthwise (which i do to any sausage i eat anyways) grill it a bit more, and slap it in the middle of a half a loaf of bread. all of this for 12ARS. they hand this to you on a small plate, and i proceeded to cover it in diced onions and tomatoes, and some kind of salsa which i have yet to identify. it was absolutely fantastic, one of the best sandwiches i have had, and probably the best meal i have yet had in the country. i plan to go here as frequently as possible.

(not my picture) after this orgasmic gastronomical adventure, we returned to school to watch a movie, Valentin. ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0296915/ ). it is a story of a boy being raised by his grandmother, with parents that are all messed up, and how he copes. the movie was cute, and in spanish, though it took place in Argentina, i did not feel like it was particularly "Argentine" but i appreciated it none the less. after class we made our way to a pub to have a drink celebrating one of the girls twenty-second birthday. i cut out of this early, as i was defeating the tail end of a cold, i went home, read my book, and fell asleep early.

Not Vienna, but still an awesome medieval town

18512 well, i was mistaken, apparently we are stopping in Český Krumlov, it is a really cool little town, surrounding a castle. the Castle is up on the hill, making it very very hard to assault. technically the castle covers much of the surrounding area so the town and the castle kinda blend together, including a brewer, the town dates back to the 800s, the houses around go back to 1200s, the town is named after meandering rivers.

This used to be a jesuit brewery, the jesuits manage to burn down the the surrounding area while brewing, however now, it is a library. You can see the arch connecting the church to the brewery, there were iron walls installed to protect the church from the conflagration of the breweries the fires.

Church goes back to 1300s, to st vladislav, like many of the churches round here, it has frescoes that date back to 1400s unfortunately i have only one crappy picture, as there were no pictures allowed in the church. The schwarzenburgs buried their hearts here, to emulate the hapsburgs burying their bodies in disperate parts (they would bury the heart in one place, the body in one place, the intestines? in another.

Princiess elanor is fully buried here, other than that, thats the only info we got from the tour guide ( http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&profile=default&search=princess+eleanor&fulltext=Search ) we then wandered through a Gothic church it had a baroque alter which, according to our tour guide has a good story behind it, the rosenburgs wanted a new alter in the church, they pulled out the gothic alter, and then they built an alter with a horse on it, and they worshiped it (im not sure what she meant by this, did they pull some idolatry and worshiped the horse? or they worshiped the alter that had the horse on it, and it wasnt sanctioned by the supreme pontiff in Rome, or what, but the jesuits didnt like it so, after the rosenburgs died out (see previous post about copulating cousins) the jesuits got rid of the paganesque alter and replaced it with the baroque one not seen in any pictures as we got yelled at, but it was there, ill see if i can dig up some pictures. our guide also pointed out that originally the town was two, split accross the river, cause back in the day that happened, towns developing within earshot of eachother, they had different privelages and writs according to the Hapsburg empire, and the Catholic church, including brewing practices which is obviously a big deal around here, they were ultimately united in 1555. and now they have only one town beer that i know of, Eggenburg beer, i had the light beer of theirs, and it was quite tasty. we wandered into the Castle area, the moat was filled with bears, let me type that out again, the moat was filled with BEARS... allegedly it was a symbol of the Rosenburg connection to Orsini ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orsini-Rosenberg ).

the top of the hill of the castle, has a Baroque theater, it is apparently largest castle theater in europe, one of two with exetensive sets and costumes recover, the other being somewhere in Switzerland. the stage dates back to the 18th century, it ultimately closed in 1898.

after this we found an italian place to eat at, i had some kind of alfredo pasta dinner thing, and we found a medieval restaurant bar pub thing. they had mead and grog and porridge, and all that great stuff. I ordered the cinnamon mead, the light eggenburg beer, and then the almond mead, others in our group had the moravian mead (which had moravian wine mixed), and one of the ladies of my friend group had grog, which was much like rum, but not as sharp, as its cut with water. the waiter was really cool, and recommended stuff to us, and it was an all round good time of conversation with kids from our trip, and the drink. going to sleep shortly, and TOMORROW heading to Vienna, hopefully i can snipe some interwebs to post pics

Thursday 14711

on this day we visited Radovan Bigovic, a orthodox priest, Mladen described him as some kind of televangelist time guy? he seemed alot cooler, and more down to earth than any televangelist ive ever seen...

anyways he had a very neat perspective on the state of the church today and its relations with the people and politics. he recognizes the secularity of the state, but sees that many politicians have a good relationship with church communities. Bigovic claims that interrelgious dialogue is prevalent despite the divisions caused by the wars. of note that surprised even me was the inclusion of faith studies in state school, in that everyone learns some about all the primary faiths here, and that that educational program has to be okayed by the various faiths to ensure accuracy/fairness. this will certainly help to prevent violent divisions like those of the past.

he is worried about what will happen when the west pulls out of Kosovo. Kosovo is the cradle of Serbian Orthodoxy, and now the region is dominated by Albanians, and though many of the monasteries and churches still function it is only under protection by Western forces.

also during the wars he claims to have had a number of dialogues with religious leaders across the Balkans, and helped to lead their appeals for peace, but being religios institutions in secular states there wasnt much they could do.

he also commented on how he doesnt blame the Vatican for supporting the Croats, while the Orthodox church got support by Russian orthodoxy and to a lesser extent Greek, and the Muslims got support from "Muslim" nations, in that each faith supported its own kind, which was to be expected.

he ended with saying that he thinks religion should be independent of national identity, because it can and has led to atrocity, reaching back into history beyond the atrocities of the 90s to the Crusades and whatnot.

after this even we chilled out some, and eventually went out to a vary cool swanky nightclub on a boat, lots of loud music and bright colors and beautiful people. again those of us able to enjoyed drinks of various kinds in a (no sarcasm here) responsible way payment was another matter, my niceguy syndrome kicked in and i end up picking up a large...very large portion of the tab, but all is well, im with these people for another 2 weeks, ill be able to get my money back. all told it was a great time.