Conquering America

In January I will hopefully visit the US for the first time in my life. The country has always intrigued me as it is the source of so many great things (and lately also frustrations). It will be a brief visit to New Orleans and Nashville.

12 hour party

Today I was at my longest party ever. It started at noon and ended before midnight. It involved nice people, with whom I sometimes had trouble finding a common language, but I did play Petanque and enjoyed myself a lot. The food was excellent, and I drank extraordinary amount of Rose wine witout getting drunk.

Visiting the Porquerolles island

Today I visited the Porquerolles island off the coast from Hyeres. In summer, there is a boat that takes you there and back for 22 euros. It left at 9.30 and returned at 18.00, the trip lasted an hour and fifteen minutes. The Porquerolles island is small, and there are about 350 people living permanently there. The main thing you can do there is go to the beaches and look around the beautiful nature. There are four bigger beaches, and some coves. As a rule, the further away from the village you go, the less people are, and the nicer the beaches. And there are all sorts: white sand, black sand, sand with pebbles and just pebbles. There are beaches where it goes deeper quickly, and the ones I prefer, where it goes deeper slower.

If you want to take most of the visit you rent a bike. Mine cost 11 euros for the day, and it was a mountain bike. The selection of bikes and rentals was overwhelming, so I just went to one and rented it. As the island lacks its own fresh water, it is scarce and quite expensive so you are better off taking a bottle or two from the mainland.

You go around, swim, sunbathe, admire the vistas and that will take the whole day. I was quite exhausted when I returned to the boat.

C’est un peu difficile

Il est difficile de comprendre et parler le français. La majeure partie du peuple que j’ai rencontré ici ne parle pas anglais.

Je veux apprendre le français plus rapidement.

Toulon

So my first full day here in Toulon, France drawing to a close. I arrived late last night to Marseille airport with the KLM Cityhopper from Tallinn via Amsterdam. Some notable things about the flight:

• The Air France KLM Internet Check-In computer at Tallinn Airport did not work (I managed to check myself in, but no boarding pass was printed, probably due to lack of paper. There were other machines as well, which the check-in desk girl said would work better, so I do not get why the Internet terminals are there in the first place.
• The girl at the Tallinn Airport shop asked me if Marseille was in the European Union, before sealing my bottle of Vana Tallinn I brought with me as a gift.
• The flight from Tallinn to Amsterdam started with a slight scare, as there was an exceptionally large African-American man waiting at the gate for the flight. As my luck would have it the guy had a seat next to mine. The guy was really large, but somehow he fitted in the seat without totally crushing me. Fortunately there were two seats available at the back of the plane, so he sat there instead. My luck turned somewhat on the flight from Amsterdam where my seat was next to an young girl who looked like a model. She read Italian Vogue and a bunch of other fashion magazines which seemed to be her only hand-luggage.
• The KLM Cityhopper Ecomony class food selection is decent, with sandwiches on both flights. I also asked and received red wine (in a 18,5 cl bottle nonetheless) so I was slightly drunk when arriving in Marseille.
• The planes themselves are quite nice as well (with 2 + 3 seat cabins). The Dutch language sounded nice and service was very good.
• Amsterdam airport is a pretty boring place to wait for three hours. I had make your own salad for 5 euros and a small piece of bread for 0,75 cents. The salad was nice.
• In Amsterdam the traffic between the plane and the airport terminals was with buses.
• I did have a lot of time to kill so anything our of the ordinary was interesting.

Busy vacationing

Vacation is hard work. Today was the first day of my vacation, so naturally I was at work finishing some unfinished business. This evening, however, I will escape from the city and spend a few days in Western Estonia, including Haapsalu and Saaremaa.

I will be back in Tallinn again for the Thrusday evening Estonian pre-premiere of the Dark Knight. Friday will be full of things to do and then I will have again some breathing room next weekend. I try to spend as little time in Tallinn, partly also due to the fact that my new home lacks for the moment some essential things like kitchen, curtains, bed and a clothes closet.

London weekend

Here is why the London weekend was great:

• Seeing my friend Kristjan over a long time, meeting his friends;
• the London Zoo – must visit for everyone;
• sunbathing in Hyde Park;
• Visiting pubs and clubs at Soho;
• Kristjan’s new place and flatmates;
• not going shopping;
• canary wharf in the evening;
• taking 800+ photos (check my .Mac Gallery for a selection);
• fantastic weather;
• milk in a small plastic container;
• chai latte;
• etc etc

City break to London

I will be in London this weekend for a city break. I will also help a friend move there.

Hamburger

So I have been in Hamburg now for a while. The flight was pretty eventless, took 1h 45 mins (less time than to Tartu). In addition to some meetings and receptions, I have had some time to do some shopping as well as getting to know Hamburg again. I really like the city and the people. It is strange to look at a street and suddenly remember when you were there five years earlier. It is nice to get away from the worklife, although having a computer with me does not let me be completely relaxed.

The hotel is really great, it has four stars and singing cleaningladys. The room is nice and I even have a bath. The windows face another building, though. Internet is not for free (but not so expensive either) and there is gym and sauna, where I am headed after I finish writing this post.

Yesterday evening I saw No Country For Old Men at the Abaton Kino and it was superb. This evening I went to a reception at the magnigicent Town Hall of Hamburg.

Tomorrow and Saturday should be full working days. I’ll be back in Tallinn again on Monday.

Hamburg

Five years after I lived in Hamburg for three months I return there next week for some days. It is a business trip, but it is the first time back there and I am very excited about it. The Hamburg stay also kind of started this blog as I wanted to write down my experiences while there. So if you look at the Feb – April 2003 archives of the blog, you will find all this stuff.

I hope to do some shopping as well, but I am currently on a tight budget so I cannot really afford anything big.