I've just got back from the old town having watched the most wonderful Estonian Folk Concert - well at least the last part of it.
So, as I know a lot of my family are more on the arts side than the sport, and some of my football mates are not quite so keen on this kind of thing, I've decided to just post all my videos and photos of the concert here now. I'll do another post tomorrow morning about the rest of the day and, of course, the football.
In England in the Soviet period the Estonian community was the smallest of the three Baltic emigre communities as most Estonians settled in Sweden or Canada. So they never had very big dance groups and had quite a limited repertoire compared to the Latvians (especially) and us.
So it was a real treat to see this.
I caught the last part of this kind of courtship dance.
We then has a sweet lovers dance.
Time for the men to dominate the stage and strut their stuff...
One for the old biddies...
To end with, maybe a wedding dance....
At the end I had to go round and say thank you to some of the dancers.
"That was so lovely." I blubbed.
"I met my wife doing Lithuanian folk dancing in England back in the Soviet period."
"We dreamed that one day the Baltic States would be free again. So to see you guys here, in beautiful free Estonia doing such lovely folk dancing just brings tears to my eyes. Thanks so much!"
Their smiles, I think I can safely say, were genuine.
After 15 consecutive days of watching football I was quite looking forward to having a day off. My journey was planned long before the draw was made (but after I'd got my tickets) and so I knew I'd be in Estonia when this first day off happened. I'd hatched a plan to spend it cycling on one of Estonia's many beautiful islands. The idea was to spend the last night watching the group stages in Pärnu and then I'd have a whole day to go west, probably to the coastal town of Virtsu and then get a ferry across to the island of Muhu and maybe even a bit of Saaremaa.
Estonian Islands
But when I arrived in Pärnu yesterday the girl in the tourist office recommended that I go to another island instead, called Kinhu. She said it was much smaller and therefore more doable in one day and was more interesting than Muhu. I was sold on the idea but the down side was I would have to get up ridiculously early in the morning to catch a bus to get to the port.
Should a gew? Kinhu
To be honest, though, after three glasses of Vana Tallinn the night before I didn't fancy an hour long bus journey at 6:30 am followed by a ferry crossing. So I decided to stick with my original plan, catch a bus to Vitsu and hop over to Muhu and find somewhere to stay. There is a good bus service from Virtsu to Tallinn so it would be, kind of on the way.
So once that decision was made I had a bit of a lie in and then set off for the bus station to catch the next one to Virtsu. On the way, I'm afraid I had one of my Mr Bean moments. I was walking along looking at the map on my mobile phone to make sure I was going in the right direction when, clang! I hadn't noticed the signpost ahead in the pavement and I banged my head straight into it. Ouch! A man noticed it happen and came straight up to help. He was very kind in asking me if I was alright in perfect English and made sure I was going in the right direction. Blady idiot!
I had lunch and caught up on a bit of texting whilst sat safely at a table this time. I noticed, though, that it had turned cold and grey clouds were replacing the beautiful blue skies that were there before.
Blady idiot!
Did I really want to cycle if it was raining? No.
So, I changed my mind and just caught a bus to Tallinn instead. I only had to wait 25 minutes for the next one and so that was easy.
I did my kind act for the day letting two young lovers sit together as the only remaining places were next to other passengers. I sat next to the guy behind me.
"You don't mind, do you?" I asked.
He smiled and shook his head "Let them be happy"
The weather only got worse as the day went on so any lingering doubts that I'd made the right decision were washed away.
Chucking it down in Tallinn
Trouble is, once I got to Tallinn, I had nowhere to stay. My relatively cheap hostel had no more rooms so I used booking.com to book one night in a relatively nice hotel on the East side of town, not far from the Big Hotel Viru I stayed at on my first visit in the Soviet days. I actually also visited it again last time, in 2012. They did a kind of tour of the hotel showing you where the KGB used to sit and some of the bugging devices they used. Scary stuff.
Walk (with a sneaky bit of a tram ride thrown in) from the bus station to the hotel
Hotel Viru - had a whole floor for the KGB
No matches today so I just went for a walk in the cold, wet but still beautiful streets of Tallinn and had a bowl of soup and a nice cup of tea.
English chaps on a Stag do
That's it. Nothing else to report about me travels.
Tomorrow I'll be back on football duty with the first two of eight round of 16 games.
The first, and most exciting, is the clash of the titans between France and Argentina. No idea who will win that but I hope it's a good game.
Portugal then play Uruguay in another big match. I hope Portugal win that one.
Just a stats update on the goals situation which has kind of inevitably tended to around 2.5 goals per game again.
It's great when you lose... well it was last night. For the first time ever, I am glad England lost a match in the World Cup. It means, as long as we can overcome a pretty good Colombian side in the round of 16 in five days time, England will face the winners of Switzerland v Sweden - a match I will watch in St Petersburg a couple of hours before, rather than (probably) a much better Brazil, which will be Belgium's fate now that they beat us 1-0.
Mugs!
Day 31 (58.2% complete), Thursday 28th June was spent getting to the lovely Estonian seaside town of Pärnu and exploring it. What a beautiful place it is too. I'll let the photos do the talking there.
I woke up with a bit of a (3 star) hangover, I have to admit, but all I had to do was pack and walk ten minutes to the bus station and get on the bus and everything would be fine.
I gave my thanks to the owner who was gassing on with the Russian (I presume) cleaner for hours.
The walk was easy as I'd already done it before. I strolled through the markets again, this time enjoying the beautiful flowers on display. I love flowers but they're such a hassle to buy and look after and they never last long enough So here's a celebration of them - just to look at.
Nice flowers but time to go to Pärnu
The bus was waiting for me on Platform 2 as predicted. So after buying a coffee and a big bottle of water I got on board and sat in my allocated seat.
This was the best bus... like, EVER!!!
It had a airplane like TV screen, a power socket, a toilet, air conditioning, a tray to put your drink on, free and fast WiFi, a toilet and, it actually took me from Riga to Pärnu, as they said it would.
I spent the journey blogging and texting and taking some of the photos I'm going post here.
Power socket in front of me
Impressed with the airplane like live map on the screen
Beautiful Latvian countryside rolled by...
Laptop plugged in
Baltic Sea whizzes by
More GPS map fun
River at Satlatsi
Another borderless, hassle-free, Eurozone country. Going from Latvia into Estonia I had to have my eyes peeled and my GPS on to even notice we'd crossed the border. What a sensible, good idea!
Blink, and you'd miss it
I was leaving Latvia for the third time, My first visit was in 1983 when I went on the Intourist trip to the three Baltic States, Moscow and Leningrad. And my last was in 2012 when I visited this part of the world for the European Championship which were jointly held in Poland and Ukraine.
Almost two days spent in Latvia, then, which makes it the 21st country in my list, in terms of time spent there.
As I was arriving at Pärnu I was texting my daughter Rozalija who was just about to make some soup. I pledged that I'd find somewhere to have soup too so we would be soup-connected.
Professor Google told me how to walk to my hotel as two Estonians I asked at the bus stop, who couldn't speak a word of English, were no help at all.
Walk to the hotel
Villa Kateriina - cute place in the middle of a park by the sea
I was starving and asked the ladies if they could recommend me a good restaurant that served Estonian food. They suggested I might try this one...
Soup connected with Roz in Perth, Australia
Väga maitsev!
... twas delicious. äitah!
I did a quick "reccy" of bars to find the best place to watch the football later and then went to the tourist information center to ask about cycle hire on Estonian islands, another thing on my "to do" list for tomorrow. The girl was very helpful and suggested I go t an island I'd never heard of. The only down side was that I'd have to get up ridiculously early and then come back to Pärnu to catch the bus to Tallin the next day. Not sure about that. We'll see.
It's so nice to be back in Estonia. I love the country and their people. The language sounds so pretty.
Just listen to some of this...
I also love their national anthem which I used hear quite regularly at Baltic events...
Next was a bit of site seeing and a trip to the beach. Of course, that included a trip to the local football ground too.
Nice old pub - would return later
Ex-Town Hall, now tourism information office
Sweet Rosie's - would come back for Senegal v Columbia
Bum Bum
Parnu stadium, right by the beach
Cross bow international taking place
Pärnu's stadium is quite pleasant but not great for watching football with it's running track around it. The history of football clubs in Pärnu is ridiculously complicated with mergers, failures, re-establishments going on over and over again. Currently they have a team in the top division (the Maestriliige) called Vaprus. Their full name, in Estonian, is Pärnu Jalgpalliklubi Vaprus. See that? the Estonian for football beings with a "J" not an "F". So it's JK not FC, or even FK.
They look like they might be going down though as they're already five points adrift at the bottom of the table.
Going Down, Going Down, Going Down!
As I said, the ground is right by the beach so that was my next destination.
It's very flat and firm but was very busy the day I was there. I couldn't resist going for a dip.
Changing cabin on the beach
2km long breakwater
Bipedal wading in the Baltic Sea
Wetland walk back to the town
After that it was back to drop off my towel and head off to watch the first match Columbia v Senegal which promised to be a classic but was a big anticlimax in the end. Columbia won, eliminating Senegal who finished below Japan on fewer yellow cards, despite Japan losing to Poland in a scandalous match which both teams apparently played the last twenty minutes at walking pace.
Despite a bit of frantic pressure from Senegal towards the end, the game was largely a farce.
I had to go back to the hotel to recharge my phone before heading back into town to watch England v Belgium.
This was the weirdest match ever. Both teams knew they were through and the only thing in question was who would finish top. England were in that position to start with, based on having fewer yellow cards as they'd both got six points with the same goal difference and number of goals scored.
As the Group G deciders had just been played both teams knew that to win the group would mean that they would face Japan. Coming second and they'd have to play Columbia. So, on that basis, it would seem better to win the group. But, assuming (a dangerous thing to do) England could beat either of those teams, then they'd be better off playing Columbia as then, they'd face Switzerland or Sweden in the quarter finals. If they finished top, and beat Japan, they might end up playing Brazil.
Anyway, neither coach saw winning the match as any kind of priority and both played pretty much reserve sides.
It was a farce, truth be known and although both sides went through the motions there was no doubt that no-one was really bothered about winning.
Anyway, I had a couple of pints of nice IPA to keep me from total boredom. Janusiai scored a good goal to win the game for Belgium but, honestly, I am quite pleased. Boro said that as a result England's odds on winning the World Cup dropped whilst Belgium"s got longer. Says it all.
After that I went to an old pub and chatted to the bar staff about Estonian history over several glasses of the Estonian equivalent of "krupnikas" which, I have to say, was very nice indeed.
Handy head rest whilst taking a leak at Sweet Rosies
Only one bridge crosses the river
Ready for England v Belgium - why did I bother?
At least I got a good view
Estonian Rocket Fuel
Very friendly bar - Veerev Olu
I got back to the hotel but the possibility of an early start and cycling on an island all day quickly disappeared as I nursed another 3 star hangover. No drinking today!
So all the group stages are finished now and we go into the knock out phase after a day off (yes, an actual day without football.)
Final Group G and H tables
The path to the final - better for England this way
