Monday, April 30, 2007

My city is broken




The pics are not mine but taken from the police web site. Can't give anyone credit for them.
I haven’t written anything here. I don’t know what to write. I hate what the vandals and marauders have done to my city. If you can trash your own town like this, it means you don’t consider it your home. So, why are you here?

Hooliganism and stealing is not a way to show your attitude towards the government policies. It’s just bad manners and sheer stupidity.

I hope the Estonians can go on keeping their calm and stay home, let the animals run around, tire them out, put them to cages and when it’s all over – go on with the normal lives.

The city needs a lot of time for healing:(


Friday, April 20, 2007

See post on Eestlastele

For a while I will also be operating on this site www.valior.ee/bacardimojito (sorry it’s in Estonian, aga Eestlased, vaadake järgi!). Because you know I love this coctail.

I will not be abandoning this place either, I promise:)

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Day 3 - saving the Swede

We did some more of “taking it easy” – couple of tourist sights, lots of talking and getting updated on each others lives, good food and coffee and cakes. There’s always something going on in Prague. There was a film crew up at the grounds of the castle. And it wasn’t just some local documentary production, but a Hollywood movie shoot. I’ve found out by now that the movie they were filming was The Brothers Bloom with Adrien Brody, Rachel Weisz, Mark Ruffalo and Rinko Kikuchi, to be released in 2008.

In the evening we decided to not give up of the salsa idea and headed towards another place on our list - Manes. This time we found the place rather easily, however, on the door we were greeted by a androgynous guy with heavy makeup, an inch long lashes, black finger nails….wearing an animal suit. I am not making this up. Guess not a salsa night in this club either.

So we headed downtown. On our way we found a Cuban bar, so it wasn’t exactly a dancing place but they had salsa music. We starting warming up with some mojitos – 5 euros per drink in this bar. The Cuban guy at the door told us that ‘twas definitely the night to go to Tropison. Who were we to argue. Back to Namesty Republiky then:) An yess, this time the music was right and we actually got to dance some salsa. However, let me tell you about the place and the people a little bit. The venue looked like an old soviet style restaurant with a dance floor, it was too light, too big, not cozy at all and really not going along with the real Cuban salsa feeling. There were, however, quite a few people who were very good at salsa. And some really bad. This night all the Prague Cuban guys were in that very spot. And of course there were the Czech women to dance with them.

It’s a salsa place, right, so you expect people to be, if not excellent at salsa, at least have good rhythm and be able to shake some booty. Never in my life have I seen so many women out of rhythm as in Prague:) There was a tall girl who moved as if she were obsessed by some dark powers. Maybe she was high, but would that make you lose rhythm?? It was almost painful to watch her, especially because she kept falling down. And then there was a girl, whose partner was a good dancer and tried really hard to teach her. Hopeless case, I’m afraid. Her hips were not moving and her shoulders were moving too much but in a very wrong way.

The music and many of the dancers were good but the place was getting on our nerves so we moved on at some point, to look for another party. While searching, we found a lost Swede at the verge of old town. God knows how he’d been left behind but all his friends were in some club near Charles Bridge. Boy was he off course. We thought we’d do our good deed for the day and take him to his people. With very lacking info from his side we managed to find the place. It turned out to be a bar/strip club – free entrance for girls but not for boys. So in we went to check whether his friends were there. All we had was the knowledge that they were Swedes and we’d seen a pic of one sleeping friend on the mobile. We see the first group of people…R goes: “Are you Swedish!?” I go “Are you Markus?”. Yes and Yes. You should have seen the looks on their faces! We go: “We’ve found your friend!” The rest of the evening was spent with the Swedes. I did not get any sleep that night before taking my plane in the morning.

It was a good weekend!

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Day 2 - feeling the city

The second day was mostly spent chilling. You know I always say that instead of seeing all the tourist sites you should feel the city. We were feeling it alright. Feeling some shopping, feeling some sunburn on our faces, feeling the cobbled streets, the clock tower, the parks and the Charles bridge (Karluv Most). We also got ripped off by the exchange office. Take care in touristic places as they advertise the Euro selling price (like anyone would want to buy Euros in the middle of Prague old town!) and you see the miserable rate you’re getting only on the check and there’s nothing you can do then. Bad karma to the exchange guy!

In the evening we started off by having some drinks with friends and then headed for one of the 3 salsa places I had previously searched out from internet. This one was called Tropison. I can not believe the bad luck we were having with the salsa places! Finding the place was a challenge on it’s own. With the address being somewhere on Namesty Republiky this would be a great spot for orientation tracks. I think we saw the friggin Namesty Republiky from all it’s angles and for about 34 times during the whole weekend. So we finally found the place, took a tiny shaky lift upstairs (sounds promising, right!), entered the place…to be greeted by Turkish music. No salsa that night!

Searching for another club for partying we bumped into some Spaniards who took us to a place called Double Trouble. The place reminded me very much of that place in Ljubljana, where people were touching your ass. Anyways, the mojito was only 3 euros, which is very cheap for a place in centre of town, the music was good and we were having fun. Strange thing about the club was that half naked guys were dancing on the bar and on the tables, though it wasn’t a gay club. They weren’t dancers either, just random guests, some of them unaware that their six-pack has been ingeniously hidden under a thick bolster for years. The awful thing about the club was the non-existing ventilation, which forced us to leave the club at some point as the smoke was really starting to affect breathing and vision.

On our way home, avoiding taxis, 2 guys were helping us figure out the night transportation system. Generally, people were extremely helpful to us in Prague, we were constantly asking about things and even if some of them were the worst in giving directions, they were at least trying:)

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Day 1 - The CSG meet again

We made it happen, the Cherry Sensation Girls finally met again. This time, in Prague. I last saw R in June 2006 when I visited her in Spain and Nk I haven’t seen since, what…September 2005 in Slovenia? Could that be? Yet, when we meet, it’s like it was 2 weeks ago since our last get-together. It’s easy and fun, we don’t need many words to make ourselves understood and we don’t need to baby-sit on one another. It’s all just natural and easy. You can imagine how many times we had to explain why an Estonka, a Slovenka and a Spanka meet up in Prague:)

So, Prague, I think it’s a nice city and has a good feeling about it, kind of cozy and homey, a bit like Tallinn with all the red roofs and the old town, only it’s about 4 times bigger. Someone once said in an article that Tallinn is the new Prague, god, I hope it will never be getting as many tourists as Prague. It’s awful, they’re everywhere! I’m pretty sure all the locals are staying away from the old town, at least during daytime. However, the perfect weather made it all good. It was like summer, we actually got sunburned, can you believe it, in the beginning of April. And they have an excellent public transport system, the trams go everywhere, even during the night. When you’re not staying like really in the outskirts, you won’t even need a metro and we didn’t take a taxi once, which is probably good cause from what I’ve heard you get ripped off by the taxi drivers.

The hostel we staid in, Sir Toby’s, was a perfect choice – cheap, yet clean and comfortable and very friendly and easygoing and obviously attracting the same type of people. That’s actually where most of the first day was spent. Just chillin with Nk, waiting for R to arrive, sipping some beer, the one and only bottle during the whole weekend. See, I don’t really drink beer, which is a pity as it was really cheap. We did go to an art museum in the neighbourhood, but it was a waste of time and money.

In the evening we started drinking some Vana Tallinn and The Cherry Sensation drink. Sharing some stories with a French and American guy. When it got dark, we moved from the yard to the kitchen and met the Kiwi gang. I keep saying New Zealanders cause I was never sure if kiwi was offensive or not. I thought it’s like calling a black guy nigger. Guess I learned a lot that night. We ran out of booze so we moved on to the pub downstairs. Then some of the friends of the kiwis showed up and so we had the aussies and a brit in our company. I was the first Estonian the aussies and the kiwis had ever met, so I hope I made a good impression. Aaanyway, it was a very entertaining evening and lasted long, thanks to the excellent company I was having;)

Monday, April 09, 2007

Reamonn concert

The story of a great concert experience a.k.a. how I ended up chatting with the bass player.

So I got the tickets to go and see the German-Irish rock-band Reamonn. Tallinn was the last one on their new album tour list. Since I got the tickets rather on last minute and all the friends I asked to come with me had to be somewhere else, I ended up going to this amazing event alone. However, I think that actually allowed me to enjoy the concert to the fullest. Some of my friends were a bit in darkness about who Reamonn is, but if I told them they’re the ones singing Supergirl and Tonight, they went like, yeah, sure, now I know. Some of them, and now I mean the ones groping in total darkness, were still perplexed and only after I played them one of the 2 songs they went like, oh, yeah, sure, of course I know them.

The venue was Rock Café, which was perfect, because it’s big enough for a loud enough crowd and small enough to still have the more intimate concert feeling. For the whole concert I was dancing right in front of the stage and I could have literally grabbed the singer by his leg, had I wanted to make a total fool of myself. I’ve liked the band since their very first single Supergirl and to tell you the truth I’d have gone to their concert even if Supergirl was their only hit ever, the song has such a power over me. But of course there’s more – Star, Alright, Only when you sleep etc. And I must say, their latest album Wish may be their best ever, at least for me. My favs are Starship, Seprentine, Tonight…

OK, back to the concert. Like I said, great experience – good vibe, good connection to the audience and I guess it doesn’t hurt that they’re as good or better live as on the album. The comments I heard from the audience after the guys finished playing were all superlative: “The best concert ever!”, “I’m definitely buying the album now!”, “Where’s their next gig?” etc.. As for me, I was really getting into the whole feeling starting from Starship, reaching the top of the emotions when Rea made the whole crowd sing along to Tonight and Serpentine and climaxing by Supergirl.

After the concert I lingered for a while, trying hopelessly to reach my friends by phone when all of a sudden Phil, the bass guitarist came back from backstage and I got a chance to thank him for the concert. And that’s how it happened that we ended up chatting for about half an hour. You know of course that the bass player’s always the coolest one in the band, right? We talked about the band, their best concerts, our lives and hobbies and nicknames etc. Sounds like a perfect first date, doesn’t it:)? The only thing missing was a dinner and a couple of drinks.

No more sleep

Now, the situation is following – I have to do whole week’s work in 3 days, plus write a couple of articles AND I definitely need to write about my great weekend here. So the thing is, I’m gonna have to start pinching from my sleeping time. Unbelievable! Bring on the caffeine!

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Multitasking

Multitasking – the wonderful ability of doing several things at once. I think nowadays absolutely everybody is multitasking. We probably do it to save time, or at least to have the feeling we’re making the best of the limited 24 hours we have at our hands. Right now I am writing this post, at the same time downloading data for my work, chatting on MSN, eavesdropping on my colleagues’ brainstorming and listening to the radio. Oh, I forgot, I’m also drinking coffee and answering to my other colleague’s questions from time to time.

They say women are better at multitasking but I think men also have to be able to conform to it. I have actually seen a man writing an email and talking on MSN at the same time, however, when I tried to talk to him as well, he was lost. But, I keep on testing how good the men are at multitasking and whether there’s any further development.

Some of the older generation insists on multitasking being ineffective, and that the work results are actually better when doing one thing at a time. I beg to differ. I know that with normal work things I am more effective doing several tasks at once. When there’s something that demands my uttermost concentration, then I turn out like half of the distracting multitasks, put on my headphones, turn the volume up and bang, at least three of the distractors are gone, but I’d still be doing at least 2-3 things at the same time.

In the morning, multitasking’s also a blessing – drinking my coffee while doing my make-up, or brushing my teeth while putting on clothes. I need to do all the things simultaneously coz I’ve pushed the alarm clock further one too many times to pinch some more of the sleeping time. Sleeping and multitasking do not go together, I must admit there aren’t many things I can do at the same time as sleeping. Well, watching my dreams, of course, but that’s about it. Just chilling and being lazy also demands my full attention – no multitasking there. You know, the kind of “just-being-lazy-and-not-doing-s*it”, laying on the couch, watching TV, not even bothering to read, because that actually demands some thinking. I think that during the day I spend all my energy on multitasking and then need a lot of recovery time just being lazy and sleeeeeping a lot. But hey, is there any other way?!


Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Let the competition begin

Guys, you know i'm competitive! Now my blog can be competitive too. There's this blog competition going on and i thought i'd enter my baby too. If you feel like voting for me, feel free to do so by clicking on the banner "Hääleta minu poolt" on the right side.

Monday, April 02, 2007

The kind of shopping i like

This is what I bought this weekend. I also bought a suitcase and some clothes but the latter are only slightly relevant. Prague is my next travel destination, jipiiii. I’m gonna meet up with R from Spain and Nk from Slovenia. As you can see, I have worked my way through the booklet and marked my favs already. A little something I’ve picked up from N. The Cherry Sensation girls will meet again! Too bad there’s still some waiting to do….