A museum visit

We are now on our last stop in Estonia: Narva. More than 90% are Russian speakers, so it already feels a bit like Russia here. Actually it´s just across the river (which we plan to cross tomorrow...). We spent the afternoon walking around, looking at some buildings from industrial times, a half destroyed lutheran cathedral (most churches we´ve seen so far are completely destroyed and rebuilt) and the fortress. In the fortress we saw some posters for some interesting-looking photo exhibitions, so we went to the "Art Gallery" which is also called "Narva Museum" but the castle is also called the Museum... whatever.
Inside the Art Gallery, a typical museum experience for this part of the world:
We enter. To the left, the cloakroom with space for about 200 coats (at least). There are about 3 coats hanging there. To the right, a door saying "kassa". Inside, the "kassa" with a nice lady. We buy the tickets and start to go upstairs (the lady told us to do so in a mix of English and Russian). Another lady comes with us. She opens the doors to the different rooms, switches on the lights (and switches them off again after we have left the room). In one room the alarm goes off (she forgot to switch it off I guess). When we have finished one room she shows us where to go next.
We might have been the only visitors all day...
The exhibitions... well, they were not the ones we thought (they were actually in the castle museum). But never mind, just the museum is worth the experience!

Tallinn - Kumu

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Originally uploaded by eva_p

We arrived to Tallinn from Tartu, by train in the evening. We were met at the train station by Marion, yet another couchsurfing host, who took us to her home in a district of nice wooden houses close to the old town. For me, quite the perfect location.
In the evening we went to a cafe called "Kompressor", where we had the best pancakes ever, and a huge portion!
The weather was rather fresh and windy, with a bit of rain, but that's actually the best weather to explore a city. One day we went to "Kumu", the art museum. We started on the top floor with the interesting temporary modern art exhibitions, followed by shorter visits to the other floors. The cafe was invaded by finnish seniors who were apparently starving (at least they were very impatient in the queue). This photo is taken just outside the main entrance of the museum.
I liked Tallinn a lot. It's not too big, has a nice old town and a lot of art galleries. It's definitely on the list of cities where I could live.

Simplify your life

I notice that we are used to all kinds of things that are just for our comfort but not really necessary.
The first thing, we are travelling with just a small backpack and few clothes, and we manage.
And then, we see others peoples places and lifestyles and I think we can learn a lot from this.
A few examples...
- One can actually manage without a fridge if there's a market close by and one can just buy everything fresh when it's needed.
- It's possible to live with just one sink for everything (dishes, brushing teeth, washing).
- If one has a shower at the work place, one doesn't really need a shower at home.

Think about it...

Regarde le ciel...

Look at the sky!
I will say this a lot of times in the weeks to come I guess.
We are in Tallinn (Estonia) and the days are getting longer and longer. Last night we walked home after midnight and the sky was of a very special blue colour, I had never seen this before. The horizon was even still a bit greenish from the sun! This is as dark as it gets now.

Body Combat - Tallinn class

Wednesday night, as it was usual in Geneva, I gave with Ulla a Body Combat team-teach class in Tallinn. It was great, I could already learn two BC39 songs and show up my special BC12 stretching choreography. But yesterday and today... oh my muscles! Thanks a lot Ulla!

In Estonia

We are now in Estonia. First was Parnu and now is Tartu. Next will be Tallin. It is cold, minimum 2 and maximum 12, but there is lots of light. Sunrise at 4:40 and sunset at 21:40! and here after the sunset there is still good amount of light until 23:00...