Terviseks, Kippis and Magic Dancers

Its been a while since my last post so there’s lots of updating to do. Some people like to bring back souvenirs from their travels. My backpack is far too full to buy anything so I will be collecting memories and words. I could simply search the net for the way to say cheers in other languages but I prefer to learn them from locals as I share in a pint of brew. So far I have collected two words: kippis in Finland and Terviseks in Estonia. Terviseks also happens to be the name of the hostel I stayed at in Tartu. This fine establishment is owned and run by a fellow Williams Lake, Colin Wenger. I had a great time there and ended up staying a day longer than originally planned. An extremely friendly student town and a great collection of hostel guests made for an enjoyable few days. The fact beer is almost free (less than 1 euro for .5 L) and bars are open until 5am paved the way for some late nights. One of the hostel guests was a great cook, so the rest of us pitched in for some ingredients and he cheffed up some tasty meals each evening. The city featured a historic main square and was much more modern/western than my ignorant imagination would have thought. It was only a few years ago when I learned of Colin’s business venture that I looked up Estonia on a map. I was bunkered down in my dorm at 4am on Saturday evening (I guess it was actually Sunday morning) taking part in my annual hockey pool draft when I mentioned my current location. I’m pretty sure there was a brief spike in internet traffic trying to find where the heck Tallinn is. Good thing for google maps! My two days in Tallinn were spent seeing the sights of old town and a long walk to see the palace/government building. Given the fantastic buildings and sights of old town I was definitely disappointed in how plain and uninteresting the gov’t grounds were. Two more nights of hostel employee led pub crawls, beer pong and other foolishness and then I was on my way to rendezvous with the Calgary ladies for our overnight cruise ship voyage to Stockholm. The ocean waves were much kinder than my previous voyage across with Baltic which made my stomach happy. The ship was amazing and I’ll be writing BC ferries to inform them of where they can take lessons on how to make time on a boat more enjoyable. The boat was more than a ferry it was a luxurious cruise ship. The evening’s schedule was filled with magic shows (more about that in a minute), musicians and all kinds of entertainment you couldn’t possibly see them all. It was more of a floating city than a method of transportation. The promenade featured a wide range of restaurants and cafes to go along with the duty free and tacky tourist shops. My favourite part of the night was spent in the English style pub listening to cover songs played by a talented Swedish lady on her acoustic guitar. When prompted as to my country of origin she followed up the question with a Neil Young classic Keep On Rockin in the Free World. Being that it was a Monday night the pub wasn’t very busy so we were able to get in more than 1 request. Natasha taught me some fancy two step dance moves a while ago during our Shuswap houseboat adventure. When our Swedish songstress played a country tune by Keith Urban it was the perfect chance to test them out. We had our 4 minutes of fame and were given a round of applause for our efforts.

And now for the stories about the magic shows and their performers…

We decided to fit two of the night’s scheduled magic shows into our itinerary. The first show was possibly the worst thing I have ever sat through in a theatre. The magician loved to mention that he was from Hollywood and over the course of the show performed 2 tricks! 2 tricks in an hour! I’m pretty sure Hollywood is glad he left. To fill time between the lame illusions and even worse jokes we were “entertained” by a dance group named the Magic Dancers. I will admit they were talented performers but the routines were over the top and jam packed with cheezy smiles and strange cheers of excitement.  We left the theatre uncertain we would return for a 2^nd helping later in the night. We realized that the 2^nd show would not be the same performer so we decided to give it another run. Round two was much improved. The Spanish illusionists had some stage presence and crushed the previous record of 2 tricks by performing at least 5 times that many tricks during his routine. The Magic Dancers once again filled the time between tricks and were just as ridiculous as before. The show ended and we rode the glass elevator up to the New York night club on deck #13. The massive club was sparsely attended but that didn’t stop our dance party. After a late night of dancing the tradition back home is to indulge in some late night food, but that tradition was in jeopardy as all the restaurants on the promenade had closed for the night. As we were about to head to our quarters I spotted one of the Magic Dancers and asked him if there was anywhere we could get some food. He felt bad for us and snuck us into the crew cafeteria to fulfill our need for a midnight (actually 4am) snack. Several others from the dance group joined us for the meal but a major language barrier between Russian and English meant the once dancer with a solid handle on both languages because the translator for the conversation. It was at this point in the night that my bed was calling too loudly for me to ignore. Our kind hosts invited us to join them for a late night sauna, but I decided to part ways with my Alberta friends and the Magic Dancers. Their adventures continued further into the wee hours of the morning and mine took me off to sleep. The girls and I toured Stockholm on foot for the day before they headed back to the ship for their return voyage to Helsinki. I said goodbye and ventured out into the Swedish evening solo. It was great to have company of familiar faces in Colin, Michelle and Natasha over the first portion of my trip, and now I look forward to having some adventures on my own. I haven’t planned my Stockholm escapades and I’m not going to even start that process tonight. I will be heading to sleep early so that I have plenty of energy to get a running start at Sweden in the morning.