Finn-Fun in Tallinn + Christmas Market

When life kicks you in the stomach repeatedly for months on end it’s good to keep in mind the wise words of the great thinker, Taylor Swift: Shake it off! Different people have different ways of ”shaking off” all the shit that life has seen fit to pile on your shoulders and mine is spending time with friends.

How fortunate then that one of my best friends arriving for a long weekend visit coincided with so far the worst week of this Autumn! I received a crushing ”Thank you but no thank you”-message from a job that I was sure was mine (yeah, no sign of Finnish humility here) on the same day that my friend cruised to Tallinn and thank goodness for that! I needed her cheering company more than ever. After a quick visit to my local supermarket we decided to make a little curve on our way to my place. The curve had a conveniently situated sushi restaurant on it. There is nothing in life that sparkling wine, sushi and good company couldn’t fix!

Even though I had to work the next day I felt enormously better already. Especially because in the evening we had booked 2 seats for the Savoy Ball operetta in the National Opera of Estonia, which meant that it was time to get pretty!

The play was in Estonian but the English subtitles were surprisingly easy to follow and obviously the singing was amazing. I had high hopes since ballet and opera are very well-renown in Estonia and I was not disappointed: the show was incredibly entertaining and funny, thank you especially to the actor portraying a Turkish ”gentleman”.

On Friday we shopped till we dropped. Well, I could have done much better but getting new jeans and a ’choker’ acted as enough of shopping therapy for me :)

Friday was also the day when they opened the Christmas market here in Tallinn! So, obviously the first thing to do on a Saturday morning was to go and find ourselves some glögi / mulled wine. They had both on offer; mulled wine was 12% strong and glögi 21%. You could definitely taste the difference.

There were all the usual handicrafts and foods on offer and since it’s a small city, the market was quite quick to go through. So, we continued through the Old Town to the train station and the brand new Market Hall beyond.

I really like Estonian architecture; they have taken influence of Scandinavian simple and clean lines and twisted them. The Market Hall is a perfect example with its edgy roof and the little stalls/cafés on the outside area. Inside you can find the meat and fish section, cheese room and a food court with everything you ever wanted street food-wise.

And of course you can’t make a trip to the Telliskivi side of the city without visiting the hipster area just a few steps away from the Market Hall. We made our way to the Finns’ favourite place there, F Hoone, for a quick cup of coffee and a glass of bubbly.

I really liked our Saturday especially because we had no schedule whatsoever. We decided to cancel our table reservation in a restaurant and instead spend the day without having to check the time. This was a great idea! We ended up walking through basically the whole of the Western side of Tallinn and discovered that my favourite sushi place, where we always order take-away to the office from, actually happens to be almost in my backyard. So we got some more sushi, got comfortable on the couch and spent the evening watching Love Island on TV. Seriously, you can laugh, but I can’t think of many series that are as entertaining as that!

On Sunday the reality hit me in the face again after Lotta had left; I discovered that the only heater in my huge bedroom was completely cold. Aka broken. It was like walking into a fridge when you stepped from the living room to the bedroom. Back to reality indeed...