After coming back from Bosnia I spent a bit of a mad 48h, which consisted of: manic work-salsa-pack-sleep-shower-manic work-russian lesson-more work-airport-London-repack-sleepabit-taxi-Stansted-easyjet again-Tallin!
I have come to Tallinn to take part in the IYDU Council Meeting, which has proved to be interesting so far in many ways.
Arrived around lunchtime yesterday after taking the red-eye over from London-about 1/10th of the price of flying from Amsterdam!
It was pretty nice weather here yesterday afternoon, clear skies and not too cold (just above zero) so after lunch, I headed into the Old Town with Donnie to have a bit of a look around and do a bit of shopping. I really regretted not taking the camera as some of the houses here are pretty colourful and the afternoon light was lovely.
Had a mooch around for about an hour then headed back to the hotel to check in, unpack, have a nap and a shower before kicking off the conference. The first event yesterday evening was a meeting with the (Mrs) Speaker of Parliament, who turned out to be a rather interesting character: phD in astrophysics from Moscow University about 30 years ago, very outspoken in her opinions against dictatorship/pro democracy (celebrating Chavez defeat-hear hear!) and ordering us to get drinks! The snacks were a bit sparse so some of us headed out for dinner at teh Beer House, which serves a range of Estonian beers (including honey beer-yum) a nice local fayre. After which we headed out to a club-bit of a late night.
Today, sessions started at 10am with a presentation about the e-stonia and how and why the country is so advanced in the computer age (wi-fi everywhere, all business incl cabinet meetings conducted using the internet) - interesting and very positive in a way, although the Big Brother aspects of this made me rather uncomfortable. And the vulnerability of relying entirely on the internet for business was recently showed up by Estonia's beloved neighbours: Rossiya...
Must go now, reception to celebrate Finnish independence being held at a former political prison-more tomorrow.
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