Scary stay in Estonia....

So... the ferry from Stockholm to Tallinn was pretty good. The ship was old, and kind of smelly in the hallway, but the room was clean and comfy. I thought I was going to share the 2-bed room with someone, but it turned out that I had it all.

The food on the ship was great--it's the first time I tried Smörgåsbord. My friend disliked the herring, but I found it quite interesting :) I especially like their lightly smoked salmon. I asked for some beer too that I thought it's free, so I walked out the door after the dinner. And then this morning, when I was having breakfast, the same waitress traced me down and asked me to pay :p She's super friendly though.

The sail was pretty smooth. The Baltic sea was covered by broken pieces of thick ice block. I got up at 5 this morning to catch the beautiful sunrise.

I stayed at the Hostel Vana Tom, which is a pretty weird hostel:

1. There's a strip club right above the hostel.
2. I got to stay on the second floor alone in a 12-bed room. Other rooms on this floor were empty as well. Yup, I'm the only one staying on this floor, using a huge bathroom..... ALL ALONE!!!
3. The guy at the reception was very friendly and provided very useful information--especially when I told him that I'm going to take the helicopter to Helsinki tomorrow morning he said, with a scary expression, "Don't you know there was a crash four months ago?"..... (note: no one, including two Amercians, survived. Reasons for the crash remained unknown.)

Oh well, that is good.... at least I may have a chance to sit on a brand new one :)

I went to this microbrewer Beer House to drink beer (you know, I need to blend into the local culture :) and tried their deep fried pig ear! It was really good!

I met a guy from New York at the pub, and he happened to be on business to Finland. He told me that Helsinki wasn't a city that worth more than a day.... but the coolest thing you could do? Walk on the frozen Baltic sea.

I'll give it a try tomorrow-- if I survived after the scary night and the helicopter didn't crash.....