The Tõnis Mägi evacuation plan was carefully formulated, the renowned singer enabling me to say goodbye to Tallinn, and Estonia, for a fourth time.

Suur-Karja puddles

Rainy night, Voorimehe Street, Tallinn Old Town

Nimeta Baar, Tallinn.

We traded in our morals for a livelier, busier Nimeta Baar (Pub with no Name).

Italian League football followed by tits and music on wide screen TVs. An old man buying drinks for young, tattooed Finnish girls. At least they kissed him in return. Tourists.

We will be forgiven for going into this watering-hole, for two reasons:

1. Katrin works there ( = staff discount).
2. I am an English bachelor (well, sort of) so I pretty much belong in there with all the other foreign losers. 

If you were wondering, it’s Dagne in the photo. Actually, I really enjoyed being there with two good friends. The rest didn’t matter.

So I arrived in Tallinn and it was late, and it was raining bucket-loads, and I had an early plane to catch the next day. I thought it would be best if I would just go to sleep at Dagne’s place. She was kindly lending me her couch overnight.

But Dagne thought that I should experience Tallinn again, because I have not been there often enough. So she called Katrin, a good friend of mine who I knew from an “Estonian” house in Crumpsall, Manchester, whose inhabitants I met up with quite a lot. Katrin caught up with us and we took at taxi to Noorus.

Kohvik Noorus (youth café) is basically a shot bar (other beverages available of course) with comfy seats, interesting, creatively painted youthlike interior. Its emblem depicts a small child urinating into a shot glass. I’m not sure what that is about but it’s not the only infant nudity I am confronted with in Estonia- Tartu’s town centre exhibits Ülo Õun and son ‘au naturel’, in statue form thank heavens.

Noorus was absolutely empty, we were alone there. I guess it was partly because it was late (but it’s Tallinn?!) and also because it was raining so much. The lack of custom was a double-edged sword. On one hand it meant we could spend forever deliberating over which shots to take, on the other hand the barstaff watched eagle-eyed as we did so. The atmosphere fleeted between us and the exit out of Noorus.

15 incomprehensibly named shots of 3 different flavours and colours, I don’t entirely recall the tastes now. The whitish one had lime and was probably my favourite, the orange one was exotic-refreshing-juice-you-know-whatever, though we contemplated whether there was any alcohol in those at all. The last was something Jäger-based.

The shots came in a tray with circular holes for the shot glasses to sit in. Either the glasses were too big for these holes or miraculously expanded once inside, as we found it near impossible to force the glasses back out of the tray without spilling pretty much their entire contents. It felt like being the dumbest ever kid on Sesame Street:
“The cylinder goes through the circle! :D” ..
“BUT ELMO, IT NO FIT THERE! ME NO UNDERSTAND :((((
…………. oh gosh, Sesame Street drinking game - am I on to something?
Anyway, this resulted in us having to drink some of the shots with the glasses still in the tray.
Hilarious!
Not.
Yet skillful. 

Vabaduse väljak, Tallinn, Mai 2012

Mulgi Kõrts

“Sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs before you find your prince…”
Ma armastan SIND =)))))))

DON’T LICK FROGS!

Tree sap is tasty Katri tells me, however I did not wish to sample it on this occasion..