On the Prospect of More International Flights.

Pam and Simon, say those with French accents. Even as there is no reason to have to say it, Pam would mandate stating that I forced the picture after we had been up watching films starring Matt Damon or German in them all night and there was no preparation for taking pictures. No point. Second take is some of the Christmas dinner.
I'm tossing around making my credit account feel more seaworthy this spring. I could use a good match at Sicilian cards.

And such.

Shit, today was really difficult! The occasion of me just waking up as evening is covering the city is not the difficult part, sleeping all day was really great actually and I am taking full advantage at least once in every 24 hour period of the non-Soviet bed in which I am stretching for nightly, or today, daily unconsciousness. It is a great step to slowly ease me back to my IKEA bed and comforter winking at me from my closet over there in Minneapolis. The difficulty today laid in departures, the absence of some good people from a good place. There are still great good people around, and more sure to be flowing in and otu of the hostel, though this one flash in and out of faces is strangely melancholy. Pam, the French-Italian, Simon, French-Swedish, and Rogan the Australian, which are actually all of their superhero names as well, all dispersed for varied travels. Pam and Simon are off to the dark land to the east for several weeks, taking them slowly to China and then circling back around through India and NAfrica and such, on this research project they just set up for kicks. Rogan is working down south, somehow to Bucharest and chilling around the Balkans for a bit before back to Aussie, he just finished working around 10 months or so around pubs in the UK. All of this influence around, the brief breath of seeing such possibility lived and living, well, I'll say that I'm starting to save tips straight off after I start working at the 'Buck again. The next time, with a backpack and not these fucking suitcases. Airport handles and wheels over cobblestones, not so much. Even having all of such that I overpacked, the task of actually opening up my suitcases and rifling through the items seems not worth the effort to cycle out the clothes which I have been sporting around for a while. The excuse that I was planning earlier for over 6 months out of the States, settled into a far off frozen city covered in Soviet and buried in East Asia, was shit. So crazy, Pam and Simon are out of Europe though sometime in June, making contacts for this research with NGOs in a semi-professional atmosphere at times, and they still took just a pack each for the travels. Really, I'm just kicking myself now and this rant on it is a bit useless and just going on to counter other things, but that is a recent fresh, more intense minimalist sort of view on things.
Last night was cards, drinks, conversation, and movies to the morning light. Tried going out after the sale of liquor and beer had ceased at 11, though our venture into the spired streets only took off around 3am already after cards, Indiana Jones with that kickass Chinese kid from the Goonies, and finishing the supplies we already had around. It was me Pam and Simon, Rogan was trying to come off on a break from his last, well, close to 10 months of working in pubs in the UK, you fill in the backstory on something like that. The first place we took down into, following a massive group of non-Italian Italian-speakers, was this really dark cavernish underground place, bit overfilled on smoke but promising, until the order from us for a few White Russians was met with blank stares, then offers of either the complicated and sophisticated mixture of gin and tonic, or beer. Tried going into Hellhunt next, which was open, then after an extended conversation between myself and the bartendress where I tried in various approaches to carry across my main point that no, I don't speak Estonian, we found out that regardless of the open doors, sign saying it was open for a while, and people at tables, it was closed. Some more night wandering around found us later with bread, cookies and juice, then a return to the hostel for movies off my laptop, sadly both McGyver and Walker Texas Ranger had already played their time out on the Estonian channels.
So after a day filled with sleep, that catches up to me sitting here now with some coffee and toasted sandwiches, with Dutch and Aussie accents in the air. The atmosphere around ranges from different levels of inability for verbal or communicated description, with both ends of surreal experiences to the warm flowing indescribable conversation and tango track of accent lined interaction.

On nothing, and everything really.

I walked to the end of the world yesterday. Following the line of the coast west, weaving through shipyards and spurts of visible economic growth, I made it. Started off the journey a bit lateish in the day, so my time was limited from the dispersing of the sun around 5, though it was already a bit scarce from the thick sea clouds. There is a part in the bay which Tallinn sits on, the left side stretches up and portrudes out into the gulf, constantly shrinking until it winds into the waves in a single point. I was followed by a swan for a bit, walking down the shore. It was sort of surreal until I realized it was probably just waiting for food from the likewise dispersed crowds of varied European tourists. Further up the point as the land shrunk in width and the sands moved into rocky outcrops for the crashing waves, one dirt trail interwoven with imagined paths over the tundra. A few abandon buildings rose and crumbled farther in, one rising hill covering half-submerged stone arches. The end of the point submerges into stone and sea and wind. Waves come in from all sides save that which you emerge from. It feels like the end of the world, waves in front and to all visible sides washing over your perception.
Unmitigated tiredness has been carrying me today, my nights extend to early morning conversations from over the world, hopeless flirting, followed by sleep and reemerging in coffee.

Between glögi and fruitcake.

From Spires and Sidelight.

Brisk morning, clear glowing skies over Eesti and myself making love to a cup of real coffee. Spent a while talking with a middle-aged Australian guy here working in some sort of stock exchange deal out of London, ranged from the ridiculousness of Russian visas to the crazed wave riding of Finnish ferries to stag parties and their participants. Christmas Eve could not have been expected to resemble such, and the realizing of such hasn't begun to surface as yet. Travelling really takes away from awareness of holidays, if the travelling is not holiday based. To start off, Russia doesn't really celebrate Christmas at all, so even as ёлки, yolki, the Russian New Years trees, were arising suddenly with their decorative strobe lights, fucking strobe lights, nothing else had the coming holiday feel. There was one chain of cafe I used for wireless that randomly would start running a collection of some Western Christmas tunes, though this was interspersed with angry shouting between people in Russian and with techno-remixes by Russian girls, paid for production from their fathers working in one of the state-controlled energy fields. Digressing though, it is sort of a sudden hit for me to feel that it is the day before Christmas now.
Estonians have a bit quieter, more subtle approach to decorating for the holiday than in the States. Given, I haven't been around much as yet, though my expedition to the market for food yesterday was layered in such Christmas tunes playing overhead. In the main square of Old Town, which is the medieval part of most Baltic, Scando, or European cities, ringed by the same walls and filled with the same winding cobblestoned streets, right now is a massive Christmas tree surrounded by wooden booths with people selling Estonian scarves and woolen such, I'll try to prop some pictures up of that later. Walking through that on my refreshing evening stroll yesterday from the bussijaam where the bus came in, dragging along everything I brought for an expected 6 month stay abroad, over cobblestones, in complete and totally planned disregard for the shortest path to the hostel as I 'remembered' the shortcut, the one thing that really caused me to stop for something other than my map was that view. With torches burning on the buildings around and the sharp air encasing the view, I felt like I was in some crappy holiday greeting card bought in cases of 30, and it was fucking grand. Some sort of tradition is placing a candelabra in windows with I think 7 candles on it, in the inverted non-Hannaukah way. That's the official name for that, remember it. While it is all really sudden, it is sinking in smoothly and probably in just the right way. After my Return Stateside I'll be over at Sam's for a few days, drinking wassail and playing Euchere in the Wisc, so the extension of holidays should play out to a decent length. I am finding a lack of solid piano- or just traditional Christmas music as I look through my iTunes, so some Brad Mehldau is carrying what it can of the holiday atmosphere. Not even Vince Guiraldi Trio appears, and me butchering the name suprisingly does nothing to make it appear, I'll deal though. This is what my worries revert to, which is fucking great to realize. There are mounted showerheads with hot water, drinkable water from a tap, connection to the outside world, transparency and democracy, and I'm shagging on about Christmas tunes. As my full comprehension of all this incredibiliciousness comes around I'll be dropping some recollections from the dark land to the East, the coffee in my hand and the view from the window lined with empty wine bottles calls first.
Shower, sauna?, BBC!, a bit of time facing the rushing waves from the Baltic. Tere, onward.

Living on a Lai.

The air flows smoothly into my perceptions, the lights glowing and soothing my waves of conscioousness. Water is from a tap, I drink Saku between. My visa is done, this is a Return to Westish. More sharpish.

This really is, nothing in the faraway.

Far, far to great a length between these posts, though I comfort that with the thoughts that in a bit over the span of a week I'll be overloading whoever still finds their way around this dusted blog listing to the side off of some shoal with plotless, pointless, prepositionless, and obscure posts on the subcultures of various comprehensions regarding Russian national identity and affirmation, not even touching on the glowing views of Tallinn which I will be carrying across. Shit.
I've started on the insomniac phase of realizing the small amount of time I'll endure in these parts. That sort of thing has happened before the day before a journey for possibly an hour or something like that, or if I finished draining 12 shots of espresso over some jumbled paper regarding the theory of time in post-modernist impressions. This is a bit strange, I really am tossing around for a few hours on the Soviet relic of a sack strung between two bits of wire. Thoughs half in another language and usually horribly conjugated, ending up repeating some irrelavant phrasing which I will forget in a cloud of fog given any actual direct conversational contact with someone speaking the language fluently. There is a striving to lock down all of these words and constructions, and I can comprehend close to most of anything, save really horribly done dubbing, which is about all dubbing and the integral concept of dubbing itself, though when it comes around to replying or stating positions my grammatical intricacies and expressive phrases turn into shit. Really aggrivating, that is. A few minutes after walking away from the situation I find around 4 or 5 other possible ways I could have put things, or brought up other debatable concepts, though for that span of a few minutes silence is the best revertation, letting the other person air out their xenophobia or reasons why their culture trumps any other conceivable because that is what they have been worked into thinking and fully hold true to themselves.
Really stoked to return, to step away from such for a very extended time to return to everything that makes sense in civilizational aspects because it is not based on the principle of contradiction, stoked to sort it all out and be surrounded with good people, the skyline and the clear air and sound waves surrounding it, decent beer, a sight of the horizon in the day. Cкоро.
The holidays approach, along with views of a deserted glacier strangled land of blue and gray below as a transatlantic flights rushes me to there.

I'll show you a sissepääs!

Some takes from Eesti.

Reaching in with the outt of onn in Eesti.

Focusing and shifting shades of reconsciousness in time with Eesti electro vibes from the radio cause the comforting gray skies to shine in ecstisity. This is a place where I can be.
After drawn out unsuspected? battles with the Russian transportation system, I let off the plans for circling around starting in Helsinki for this break we are on now. I'll elaborate more on that in another post, one where I am fully indulging in the Russian tragicissity again under that sort of martial law. Now, here, is Tallinn and only thoughts and expressions of such.
This is the first time I have spent in a hostel, and from words passed around I hear that the ones here in Eesti trample most other definitions of the like. The one I am lounging and living in is completely revamped, few offs like a broken sink and loud doors, but the price in krona is low and the people are great, and, a sauna?! Coming in in the late afternoon with the new shifting faces settling in and residing ones comfortable under the glow of VH1 Euro 80's hours just presents the full amalgation of imaging that engulfs you in the space. I had a few Estonian Saku darks and some hardcore 10% beer in another hostel sort of party last night, that one was greatly larger and more of the party type, great to go to and then return. Great to spin through the winding, rising and falling medieval cobblestones and courtyard walls in the lit, sharp night Baltic air in transition between the spaces.
The chilled out sort of strut through life that carries the scarf clad faces of Eesti through those streets only makes a sharper definition between This and the Russian East. Lack of any smile, hostile emotion showed if any, drunken brawling in the streets, and shifty out of place interaction is a strikingly harsh sign of most Russians in the city, taking a few days out of spending roubles on Russian vodka to somehow landing a visa and spreading their flavour of havoc around the peoples and hills on this shore. Again pause off of that, I feel myself pushed to find and voice that negation too often of late. There are, and have to be a selection of the population of Russians that are contrary to such, it is just incredibly tiring experiencing it as a possible majority and standard of that population. There are some negatives to the Eesti, there are in every culture and peoples. These seem to fade with the tolerance showed however, and the positive of direction and action which follows from Eesti.
The constant thick fall is invigorating. The strong winds from the sea inspiring. Kohvi and stressed first syllables intensifying. The waves setting a rhythm of sponse and response.
Eesti electro is going to make shambles of the krona in my hands, check out kohviradio.com for lines to lay over studies or papers or cartographing or whatever is taking the tone of your concentration.
So off for a bit to balance the city walls, breathe in the swirling such. Palun.

Москва.

Incredible. I'll expand on that in a bit.

Tere!

Palun. Ilmtingimata.

Awake, asleep.

Europe. I haven't fully informed myself if the sort of ecstatic state I resided in last weekend was from mounted showerheads, Euro espresso, clean streets, maintained buildings, facial expressions, multiple languages, personalities, smooth roads, cars that stopped in crosswalks even with more emphasis than in the States, or a lack of being in Russian. Tallinn is a city I could live in. It would be fucking incredible to carry out the rest of the program in Estonia, and I sort of wanted to misplace the Russian visa for a few months. Border controls took a bit, there is a stamp out of Russia and another into the EU, and the two bits of ink took around 3 hours. The price of a steady standing and a smooth skyline. The drive in resembled a sort of Scandinavian Ireland, the ruins of castles and such in the shape of Soviet retreat. The difference is striking between the ageing monuments to suppression in the two countries It still comprises some sort of life in Russia, on the last shakes and unending. The few Soviet ruins, ruins and not buildings, flashing past the bus did not grind at the eyes as in the daily encounters in SP. Everything about the ruins seemed almost maintained, a reminder instead of the desolate crumbling masses spilling over the Russian soil. Nothing was forgotten, only held in the past to allow the years to do the washing away of its traces. There are other Soviet sort of ruins along the road, though tragic ones, signs of strain felt under the system. Structures which were comfortable and alive, then probably caused to disappear of any activity through purges and control. Held.
Tallinn encompasses everything that is possible of Baltic Europe. Scandinavian in ways, though infused with its own elements and Balticness. I am going to take on speaking Estonian. The language sounds a bit Scando, emphasizing the first end of every word and creating unending strings of characters with dots and õ over them, all creating a sudden lack of lefsa. Some of the words are transposed Russian or Slavic, though few. The language is sort of the same as Magyar, no solid connection to anything else. Then there are the 14 fucking cases of every word. I'm still taking it on. Estonia and Russia sort of seem to resemble a cute, intelligent and witty Baltic girl and the dirty sort of creepy husky guy at the bar trying to get a bit closer and intimate than either end really need.
Russia carries on reaching and justifying its influence and the subordination in response to such. Given the Baltic states made the smoothest and speediest transitions to EU standards following release from the clutching grasp of the Soviet structure, and most explain such as the inherent Europeaness of its people. The other post-Soviet republics are possibly the same, the constant pull of multiple identities sometimes with an underlying, residing identity comprised of these other varying elements. These characteristics seem to key Russians off to a sort of right to the qualities, a bit ironic in what is a pirate cove of DVDs and music. Seriously, you can purchase 8 or 12 films on one DVD, and all with horrible Russian dubbing which is inseparable from the original language. Elements of cultural travel to Russians are not only a few words or ways of taking alcohol that can be passed off, they take on an unspoken cycle of domination and acceptance in the Russian view. These bits of Slavic culture have a significant sort of tax stamp which should be collected, even as those on the other side of the 'deal' have moved on and looked inward if they ever realized and took in the elusive agreement itself.
The drive is around 6 hours, including the strenuinity at the border. There are no Russian-Estonian books around these parts, and few have ever seen the country. Visas are a bit difficult and when Russians obtain these, it is evident on the streets of Tallinn and in the stores selling the vodka. Most of the population in Estonia no longer even speaks Russian, and the number of Eesti speakers around SP are probably lower than the number of decent places to get salads and Pumpkin Spice Lattes, nonfat 5 pump PS .5 pump cinnamon 4 shot light whip with a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg sprinkled on the top. Think about that for a bit.
As it always is, I'll stream off some other bits in time. Sharpish if I land some tickets to Eesti or Vilinus this weekend, set myself in a bit of calm and raise a collar to the Baltic sky. The government flying fast to a few people for the clearance and such, cheers Jancsi!, fly off in conversationon me as you want just hold back if they call you comrade with a thick Russian accent and reference this post between shots.
For this, a rise of a mug of trance.en. Jah, hoian end poliitiliste arengutega kursis.
See sobib mulle hästi.

Espresso grinds of grey.

Who didn't tell me that it was going to be a bit cold in Russia? They should buy me a beer in a lit, smokeless US pub on the return to the New World. Not that it is anything past my ability to take, it is actually nothing at all. Takes me to feelings of late November in the Cities.
Metro in the delayed light of the early Russian days sort of captures any sort of interest and disuninternonest which I hold for the country. The selling into the iPod generation was a great, great fucking idea and monotony would take hold far more intensely with the hour long escapades. The masses of people flowing through the system are incredible, and cause feelings of disgust and concurrently a lack of such. Crazy. Every train is stacked and smashed with residents of varying levels of hygeine and appearance, and no acceptance is displayed for the weak. Seriously, MTV and the Real World bit, send all of them through St. Petersburg metro каждый fucking день. I take three transfers in the early hours surrounded with sounds of Miles and John or Moby and Thievery, and iintake the tradeoff of rushing and hanging on the edge, momentum withheld. Although the greatest part is the tunnels, shit. There are these long, white curved tunnels between some of the transfer points where cascades of commuters pick up motion towards the varied ends, and I ride it like a rapid every time. It's sort of like MarioCart, less explosive objects that I can drop for people to trip over and get to the slamming doors of the trains a bit slower, though cutting off and tripping up is the central spark of satisfaction in the experience. In and out and along and aside, sort of a rush. The lights of the previous bomb shelter architectural integrity flash and slash past overhead, as collectivized individuality fights and breaks through the waves of рано direction. Incredible, though the sort that you need a few showers after the experience and feel immesurably more comfortable with intimate airport security encounters.
The skies have clouded again, the espresso is decent. Descent?
Следующий скоро.

Antarct,ic.

An hour in the process, and all replaced with a line of various Russian phrases with an unmitigated strike of a key. Fuck.

Scandinavian tensions, floating through morning masses under Moby and Thievery, the Cold, and the sidelight of the sun to follow in time.

Ещё.

Off of anything необычно.

Sitting in the one US cafe in St. Petersburg, almost feel a bit low for sinking smoothly into the atmosphere though it is the sort of place I would frequent in the States. Across from the US consulate, bit of Miles Davis and a rough Brooklyn owner, and some strong тёмное in a half liter. And not even touching on the free wireless opened up today, the second ever in the city. Top fucking notch, and a sort of weakness I can fit in.
Registered with the US consulate here a few hours previous, actually all within a few blocks of the ostracized university buildings which the ridiculously low level classes are held in. After four separate checks of my documents, partial as my passport is still being processed for my second of a 3-part visa, and a few close experiences in various areas with Russian US consulate guards, I made it through to the area of US State Department employees separated through bulletproof layers of glass and steel from the Marines, still processing the alcohol from the consulate party a few days past. Carries over an intense, seriously intense, excitement for spring and the vibes from such. If I had higher levels of USD and some select personalities from the States around, nothing against some select people on the trip, this would be intensely incredible. Classes are slow so I picked up some Russian book with a great cover, figured out it was written under a Russian pseudonym to avoid government strands and the roubles were flat on the always present plastic changeholder deals. I'll start that off in a few hours, possibly with a Балтика 3 тёмное on the side.
One for the Baltic waves.

Life through a Crowd of Transitory Flows

The techno backbeats spread through the post-Soviet scenes is great for the long, incredibly far distances I have been covering on foot and stacked in place within the Metro. Things are far smoother in this end of Russia from those in Kiev. The contrast pervades everything, but in a less powerful and more Baltic sort of air. The atmosphere is rough, and the people fall within the same sort of expanse. Again there is the other end of things and incredibly high possibility of the other end, though that isn't something to expect.
The apartment which I am in takes the crumbling 5-foot Soviet expanse in Ukraine down with no comparison. The apartment is close to the centre, a bit underkept though the Russian language lacks the words 'fun' and 'maintenance'. The other people in the apartment are high on travelling, I just met the hostess yesterday as she and her husband were in Germany for a wedding in a castle. The 27 year old daughter and her 5 year old half-Egyptian girl have been living in the place with me, decent English and a bit of class.
Dealings with foreigners are still incredibly closed from attempts to hold Russian cultural cohesion. The reach of the West is visible everywhere in the stores, особенно in the smart part of the city I am in, but the force of it is restrained. The first run I took on metro, I was roughed up by militzia for my passport and a lengthy fucking рассказ on my presence out of the States.
Few things are possible for foreigners without a passport or the copy of such and my visa I have now while it is being processed for my long term visa. The Russian culture is the only thing available to people, anything else is legally distanced. Response to Western visa restrictions and such, or just the enigma of Russia lengthening its lack of possibility for definition? The multiculturalism of the city is around every end, though it is covered through layers of distrust and straight hostility from some sources. Foreigness is taken in and spread, and feared.
The lights of the city splash over the waves of the canals and the Baltic waters in the West, it is dark and cold, and deeper in fathoms than the extent of expression.
И так.

Скоро и так.

The sky is darkening, and the cold is pressing in. Sort of excited for the full atmospheric resonance of the city complemented with the tossing waves of the Baltic. Settling into the culture was a bit smoother, less constantly distracting this bout. It is progressive in differences from Kiev, and any emerging connections are usually Soviet based. Everything is старый, a few сто лет. Complexity. Intensity.

Всё сейчас, всё скоро. Это же просто так.

Ну, так.
Things are resounding incredibly, immersing into the north of Russia and everything such. The clouds which press inland from the Baltic are of a type only possible over a sea. The air is fresh, the people speak solid Russian, everything contrives in contrast, and drinking Балтика 3 Тёмное is fucking smooth.
Half of the week after flying into LED я проводил в Репино на береге Балтика. First words with some of the people in the group inspired some alternate of great feelings, most of them are shallow tools. Deeper into the group, around 50 something, and there are a few of those which provide some great feelings to cover the loss and then some to float. Exchanged some cash into roubles, the rate has sort of thrown me into disarray with the currency. It is complex, 27 some roubles to fill each dollar, and inflation has thrown prices into some completely distraught level of randominity. Most things are over 100 roubles. and pulling cash out of ATMs is dealt mostly in thousands. Intense.
My квартира lies blocks from the center, and I am assuredly pre-Soviet. Contrasts emitting into my stretched eyes are mostly dealing with the Eastern Europeanity of Kiev striking against the красивая, intensely Russian and Westernish Санкт-Петербург blurring into focus.
Finland appeared from some sea fog over the Bay of Finland, and the shrouded scenes were drawn into focus with 4 люди, the waves the wind and some пиво. Всего пока.

Dialectics and Dionysos

Месяц с половиной, а тогда.