snowy

Ah, London. Took off from Gatwick. You can't see my house unfortunately. This is looking west down the Thames. Our flight was at 9:30am. I hate Gatwick Airport.

Arrive in Tallinn, Estonia.
The outskirts of the city are madness. Driving in a new car was no easy feat, especially the gearstick being on the wrong side of the steering wheel! We were trying to cross a road in the new car and then from the left, a tram came along and me AND my mum thought it was going to hit us so we braked, and this lady bumped into our car. Ooh, it wasn't fun. I was shaking uncontrollably like a leaf. We had a rented car and she had a rented car (a Chrysler ... who rents nice cars!?). Luckily she was really nice about it as it wasn't a huge bump, but we still had to go to the insurance place with her. She had the same name as me, Karolin (I'm Caroline).

Anyway, we looked around town. It was cooooold!



Here we had a really awesome meal in this medieval-style restaurant called "Olde Hansa". The food was interesting and I had this honey beer. I hate beer, but it came in such an awesome tankard that I had to get it:

Just visited the insurance company ERGO with Karolin. Interesting. VERY interesting.
We then decided to drive south to Parnu (which was cold and crap) and kept on goin' towards Latvia, and RIGA. Lawl.
We had trouble getting over the Latvian border.

For some reason, the boy (!!) who was working at the Hertx car rental company at Tallinn Airport stamped our car papers "Driving in Estonia Only" which was a lie as we were driving to Lithuania. Stoopid boy. Anyhow, the guards were like, "NOPE. You can't cross the border, it says you're driving in Estonia only!". After much aggrivation, we mangaed to get someone to ring the Hertz office at Tallinn Airport and they confirmed it was a mistake.

SO LONG, ESTONIA!


Later on we drove along the Baltic Coast and stopped at the beach for some fun. How super warm it was:


We stayed in this nice town called Sigulda in Gauja National Park. Yes.

Wondered around in Riga, the capital of Latvia. There's more Russians in Riga than there are Latvians. What an interesting little pub-quiz fact.
Goosesteppers:



Lovely autumn trees in Riga:




And BOLLOCKS WE LOST THE RUGBY. DARN IT TO HELL!

Arrived in Vilnius. Yes yes yes. VILNIUS, Lithuania. We drove around the city for SO LONG trying to find a hotel (signs in the Baltic states are crap *grumble*). We saw a sign saying CROWNE PLAZA 500m so we parked on a street and walked towards it. Hold up - FIVE STAR HOTEL! Screw it, let's stay here. WEEOO!
Our 8th floor view from our room:

Walked around Vilnius a lot. Here are some more autumnal trees:




As it was our last night, we thought we should go to the Skybar at the Revel Hotel Lithuania on the 22nd floor. We got there and I had a cosmopolitan, a sex on the beach and chilled and gazed out over nighttime Vilnius:


Oh, and here's the entrance to the bar. Ooh, I love coloured lights!

Home!