Kaberneeme, Palmse, Rakevere

Kaberneeme

A little beach shack/summer house town high on the Estonian coastline, Kaberneeme is one of those typical fishing village type places which look fabulous when the sun is out, and utterly miserable when it's raining. It started raining shortly after I got there (mercifully after I'd stopped riding for the day), and kept doing it on and off for the rest of the afternoon/evening. The next day the sun was out, the weather was glorious and the place looked brilliant... well, except for the huge mounds of stinky mud created by the construction site.

The Kaberneeme Guesthouse is this weird contradiction. On the outside, it doesn't look terribly inviting - especially as it is situated between a shipping yard, a construction site and a dumping ground for assorted large pieces of oddly shaped concrete. There are some bits of beach that have been left to look pretty, but generally speaking the outside of the place is not a good look. Inside, however, is a lovely, funky little hotel/restaurant which plays lovingly with the nautical theme. Very comfortable, very intersting. Quite nice, really. Oh, and there are lots of birds dancing about the place - quite nice to watch in the early morning sunshine.

Palmse


Palmse hotel is situated in the old brewery behind the Manor house (now a museum), and the whole complex is quite possibly one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in all my life. They're fixing up the grounds and some of the buildings at the moment, so it was a bit of a construction site as well, but you can tell it's going to be magnificent when they have finished. It was a wonderful place to spend time, and I felt truly recharged and edified just by being able to walk around the grounds.

The hotel itself has been refurbished recently, and everything was so new it squeaked. The food was unbelievably cheap, considering how good it was, and the service was very friendly.

I'm going to go back there someday.

Rakvere

Rakvere is not so pretty. I think the town is slowly dying, and their response to the death is to basically shrug their shoulders and say "eh, whatever". The area where I'm staying has a lot of derelect buildings, and the local kids have been having fun rebuilding them in their preferred image.

The local kids are quite amusing, actually. They're trying to do that "I'm so tough, wearing hoodies and hanging out with my gang late at night" thing, which looks weird when "late at night" is still quite a lovely afternoon. The whole hoodies-and-bmx after dark thing doesn't quite work when it's still light.

At some point, during the 80s, someone decided that apartments didn't have to be beautiful, and so they created some of the most soul destroyingly ugly buildings in the world. A lot of them seem to have been put here, in Rakevere. I've never seen so many ugly apartment buildings in the one place.

All of this, right nextdoor to a large stretch of parkland with the ruins of an old castle in the middle of it. Quite a strange juxtaposition.

Also, I couldn't find a laundromat. Three different people told me to go to three different places, and there wasn't a laundromat in any of them. It doesn't bode well for the town...

So far, so...

Well, Singapore was warm. Very, very warm. I thought it looked like an interesting place, and part of me wouldn't mind spending more time there, but I'm not sure I'm interested in returning to that climate.

I've decided I hate 12 hour flights. Especially when they are followed by another six hours spent variously waiting in airports and taking even more flights. I usually fly fairly well, but by the end of that I was willing to stay here in Estonia simply to avoid getting on another plane.

I like Tallinn. It's a nice looking place and surprisingly easy to get around. I successfully found a laundromat and "achieved laundry" (hey, it felt like an achievement) yesterday, so I felt pretty good about myself.

I woke up yesterday feeling strangely depressed. I think it was a combination of the flights and the hostel (hostels always depress me. If it wasn't for the sake of expedience - the tour and the hostel are run by the same people - I would have gone fore some place without the "s"). By the time I had achieved laundry, walked around for a few hours and bought some things I didn't need to buy, I was feeling much more positive about it all.

The cycle tour of Tallinn in the afternoon was great. It took me places I probably wouldn't have gotten to on my own, and I saw a lot of very pretty sites. I'd recommend it to anyone.

However... I don't know if I've eaten something that's disagreeing with me, or if I'm coming down with something, but last night my stomach started playing up. I was up almost all night with the rotten thing, and I'm starting to freak out about the idea of being sick on a bike in the middle of a strange country. I start the "grand tour" today, but I may have to rethink some of my plans.

Damn physical realities. Always getting in the way...

Just a handful of days to go

Come Friday I'll be heading to Brisbane. Come Saturday I'll be leaving the country.

Yep, the great "Estonian Adventure" begins at the end of this week. Not long now before I foolishly embark on a cycling tour of everyone's favourite small European country.

It's just a short tour, with no more than 75km in any one day, but that 75km is about the limit of my endurance, so hopefully I won't drop dead before I reach my destination.

I'm going to try to remember to bring a camera with batteries, and maybe a USB cable so I can upload photos here when I get the chance.

Stay tuned, I'll try to make sure I keep everyone informed of my continued existence.

Hopefully I won't get eaten by a bear.

Picture of the Week

Felt like uploading some pictures I've taken.

This one is from Bells Parade - a lovely little park in a Tasmanian town called Latrobe. It's just down the road from Devonport, and has one of the best toy shops I've ever seen (Reliquaire).

It was taken last year, at about this time.

2:25

That was the time the Sister finally got around to jabbing a needle in my arm.

2:25

It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that I had a 1:30 appointment.

Just shy of one hour for a task that took her all of two minutes.

Medical professionals of the world, I have a simple request: Improve your time management skills.

We make appointments based on what time we can come. It would be nice if you made appointments based on what time you were able to see us.

What I never knew I always wanted

I did buy the banjo that week, if anyone was interested.

It wasn't on the weekend I had hoped, due to a lack of advertised opening hours, but I did have the banjo in my hands before the next weekend.

It fits.

I know that's a strange comment to make about a banjo, but it's true. Something about the thing just fits me - or I fit it, I don't know. The tuning for the Irish tenor banjo just sounds "right" to my ears, the neck fits in my hand comfortably, the chords are where my fingers happily fall on them, the fingers on my other hand just seem to find the strings without my having to think too much about them... the body is just a little bit too round for comfort, but I tend to forget that once I start playing.

The sound is a revelation to me. It's like it fills the whole space. I know that doesn't make much sense, but most of the other instruments I play carry the melody - they don't really have much "body" to the sound. The banjo has “body”. I have to say there's something in the sound of the strings that sings to me - a quality I wasn't expecting to find, but love.

It amazes me that this is the first time I've actually thought to try the banjo. Looking back on it, I think I've wanted this my whole life.

I remember once, when I was in school, seeing an advertisement on the wall of the school office offering guitar and banjo lessons. I distinctly remember, at the time, wondering about the banjo - wondering if it would be something for me.

This was a few years after the guitar lesson thing - and, I think, during the piano lesson thing.

I have a slight problem with musical instruments. I suppose, in the long run, it’s cheaper than drugs, but it still leaves me short of cash and in possession of several instruments I never play.

Part of my problem is I always seem to be searching for some quality, and I end up finding things that are close – but not quite right. I bought a melodeon, a piano accordion and a cornet* when what I really wanted was a concertina. I thought things that were close to a concertina would fulfill my desire for one, but they didn’t. When I finally bought the concertina, it’s like something inside me said, “Yep, that was it,” and my quest was kind of over. I wouldn’t mind owning a better concertina one day, but I don’t feel compelled to find anything that’s “not quite” a concertina.

I think all of the stringed instruments I’ve encountered over the years have been on a similar path. Something inside of me was looking for something in particular but, unlike the concertina, I didn’t actually know what it was. The guitar really didn’t fit. The ukulele didn’t really fit. The ukulele-guitar hybrid was closer, but I ended up breaking two of the strings and found that it fit much better when it was broken…

And then, it fit much better after I tuned the remaining four strings to Irish tenor banjo tuning…

And then I bought a banjo.

The banjo fits.

It’s like something inside me has said, “Yep, that’s it,” and part of the world has fallen into place.

*Yes, I know a cornet is nothing like a concertina. That was part of my “well, who needs a free reed instrument anyway?” reaction to the piano accordion, which really didn’t fit.

No Great Shining Light

I was reading Kristopher's post on the deportation of John Demjanjuk, and it put me in mind of another article I read some weeks ago on Guantanamo Bay. It seems there have been a lot of things coming out of America which all seem to be pointing to the same conclusion.

It's over, now, you know? America, I mean.

It's no longer the "great shining light" it tried to be for so long. For four centuries the American people stood up and swore black and blue (or, at least, red-white-and-blue) that they were the greatest, best and most noble nation in the world.

They were never right about that, but they were trying - and that meant they were close. The dream of America was the dream of a group of people who were always striving to be the greatest good.

When they fought for independence against the British Empire, they set themselves up as the great champions of freedom. Even their own Civil War (although having many non-freedom related factors and causes) became linked to the fight for freedom - the freedom of slaves.

Every big and great movement that has happened in America over the years as been a step closer to a better, freer, nobler, more enlightened society. Every victory in their history has been a victory for the "better man"...

Or, at least, that's what the "press kit" they've been issuing in their popular culture has been trying to say for the last few centuries.

Like many people who aren't American, but have had the American culture ladled into their lives in great doses thanks to films, television, books and other sources, I've always had the opinion that Americans "think more highly of themselves than they ought".

I've always thought they weren't quite as magnificent and shiny as they like to think they are, even though I've always liked the fact that they tried.

But... I'm not sure the people who count were ever really trying.

When you look at what the government actually agrees to do to people (through it's various agencies and policies), you realise they aren't quite so shiny when it comes to the crunch.

Truth be told, they're no better than the Germans/Russians/insert-country-with-unsavory-period-here, and they're just as likely to do something incredibly unjust.

You look at what they are actually doing - how poorly it fits with the image of the "great good", and you realise the Americans could easily become the things they claim to hate most - and they probably wouldn't even notice they were doing it. In fact, they'd probably still think they were acting as the "great shining light".

After all, the Germans/Russians/insert-country-with-unsavory-period-here-s thought rather well of themselves during the first years of their worst periods. Heck, the Russians still think rather well of themselves.

I hate to say it, but I think at some point the big "rogue state" is going to be the United States - they aren't as far away from Germany just before the Nazis or Russia just before the Soviets as they think.

I only hope it doesn't get as messy as I think it probably will.