Detouring to the Baltics

In the snow the world simplifies. Fresh drifts even out the contours of the landscape to a bright monotone and colours are thrown into stark relief, light and dark.

In winter in Stockholm it is barely light at all. And this is how I met the city after my flight, the last vestigial daylight ushering in the biting chill of a frozen night.

Christmas market, Stockholm

The binary colour palette makes for some interesting sight seeing. Djurgarden and Ladugardsgardet, the fancy national parks near the city were of a frozen similarity. The old town, Gamre Stan, replete with the ubiquitous northern European Christmas market selling the local version of mulled wine, was similarly white-dusted and amorphous.

The downside of fresh snowfall is when its purity is hard trodden along footpaths to a brown sludge perilous both to footing and the dryness of one’s socks. This, combined with the size of Stockholm and my brief time allotted to visiting it due to the necessity of booking a ferry to Tallinn before the prices rocketed around Christmas rendered attempts to traverse too much of its vast cityscape impossible. Speaking of which, the only reason I was in Stockholm in the first place was because it was cheaper to fly to Stockholm and stay for two nights and then catch a ferry to Tallinn, than fly direct to Tallinn.

Enterprising

I met two Australians, Harry and Tristan, who had just come back from a hunting trip in northern Sweden where it was -28 degrees. They also showed me a picture of a jar of vodka with beaver testicles in it. Apparently it was delicious.

They had a car, so we took the chance to go up to see the Stockholm archipelago, which I’m sure is charming in summer. In winter it is charming in its own way, stark black and white again. Slightly unimpressed, we passed more time letting off the remnants of the fireworks they had bought in a car park earlier.

Ducks

 That evening we went to the ice bar at the Nordic Sea Hotel. Made of super clear ice from the Torne River in Lapland, it is a permanent -5 degrees and they fit you with a special poncho and gloves. Ice-glasses are one use only and have just enough room for some absolut vodka and a mixer, in my case, lingenberries and juice in a quiet homage to The Big Lebowski.

No one stays in the ice bar for very long. Obviously it is cold, but once the novelty of the whole ice thing wears off there isn’t much to do there, so we amused ourselves in the hostel lobby by strolling around the enormous fish tank, only to notice that if one were tall enough it was possible to dangle your fingers in the water. The fish thought this was  an offering of food and would lunge at your dabbling tips, which was briefly amusing, before of course we took it too far and this happened to Harry’s finger:

Harry's finger

In this sort of weather it is easy to understand why the Swedes have an abnormally high suicide rate. One evening at the hostel they had a Swedish movie showing, the existential themes of which—surrounding the return of a woman to her small hometown for her father’s birthday, a day otherwise synonymous with the suicide of a close family friend—seemed to capture the looming despond.

Warehouse

That said, apparently the Swedes have learned to combat this sense of doom by drinking the most coffee in the world, as well as eating the most bananas. Additionally, at Christmas time one can distract from the woes of the day by going to any one of the Christmas markets and picking up some piping hot glogi and some sort of potato and meat combination.

I also had the chance to sample some pickled herring, which to be honest is really tasty. I had it again it was so good.

On reflection, it was also very calming to be away from being on guard against perpetual tourist swindling in Turkey and back to the clear and simple rules of familiar customer-service regulation and mores.

Antique shopping

With my cheap beanie I bought in Turkey coming apart, I was at a loss for finding the means to darn it. I had a minor flash of brilliance and went to the Comfort Inn hotel down the road from the hostel and managed to snaffle, in addition to a needle and thread kit, some free coffee, biscuits and a pack of lollies. I am going to hang out in hotel lobbies more often. When I later sat in the hostel looking confusedly at the needle and thread and my beanie, a kind onlooker generously offered to darn my beanie. It was a successful enterprise.

Harry, Tristan and I also attempted some ice skating, but with the free boots failing to fit my manly feet and their finding being outskated and dodged around by kids a little irksome, we didn’t last long.

 

Clouds

 The ferry loomed, and I anticipated the 17 hour trip to be something akin to the night buses and night trains I have been frequenting, that is to say, full of boredom and discomfort. But then I had someone tell me that the Stockholm to Helsinki ferry, at least, is a floating house of debauchery and excess.

I boarded the ferry with 5 cans of beer, 700 grams of dahl spread across an old cheese container and a box that used to hold pre-cooked prawns, and one protein shake. Somehow, the bed in the 4 man cabin I had booked turned out to be a one man private cabin. It was luxurious.

I had a nap and emerged to find the boat commandeered by severely intoxicated people from the Baltics, Estonia and Sweden. One man with his family hailed me over and insisted we go drinking once he put his child to bed. A group of Lithuanian dudes huddled around me and offered me mystery liquor.

Christmas market, Tallinn

In the big bar area there was a show going on that reeked of eurotrash, and the floating night club areas—which were broadcast live into the rooms on the televisions—became progressively more busy and sleazy. A man in reindeer antlers boogied down and another dressed like a black wiggle with a bum-bag on at one stage started break dancing.

Eventually I was in Tallinn and it was cold. So cold. I made it to the hostel and promptly left to try and catch the walking tour. Unprepared for quite such cold, I lasted all of one hour before I had to leave, my toes threatening to fall off.

I sought recourse in a medieval themed sort of inn that served reindeer pies and elk soup for a euro each, but if you want cutlery you have to BYO or sing for it. It was so dark in here I struggled to find even the counter to order.

Gulag

The order of every night in Tallinn was drinking games then heading out to the various and endless bars. The Tallinn way of drinking is to order shots in trays by the five or ten from a nearly endless list. It gets messy.

Along the harbour line there are many abandoned soviet buildings. Relics of an unforgotten era stained yellow-brown and brooding, the colours of decay all the more stark against the snow. They appear locked in midstep as if all at once their world stopped, the menace of action lingering in futile.

The sky here is perhaps the most incredible. The sun never traverses high above the horizon and from this low position lights beautifully the rippled and uniform and repeating clouds stretching across the sky.

Cocaine shots

The Balti Jaam market in Tallinn is also cool, full of cheap clothes and food. Here I consumed two deliciously evil deep fried apple pie things, as well as traipsed through antique shops hoarding mismatched arcana from the occupation.

Speaking of which, one night I went on a tour of the prison that was used as a gulag during the Russian occupation of Estonia. Built over a hundred years ago, the atrocities that have taken place in this stone ex-fortress are terrifying to hear. Closed only in 2004, we were eventually shown to the kill room. Located next to the showers, those en route would never know if it was a different walk from their weekly shower or not. The floor here is a dusty copper.

  

Swedish archipelago

Miserably hung over from another night’s drinking strange shots—favourites including the coffee and whipped cream hotshots, and the absinthe heavy cocaine shots—I hopped on a bus heading to Latvia, the snow stretching about me in all directions.