Tallinn – Once again the fatbritney boys have been off around the world causing mayhem in foreign lands. This time we went to Tallinn. This no doubt poses 2 questions: Where & Why?? As for where, it is the capital of Estonia which is in north east Europe in the Bay of Finland. Why we decided to go there is trickier to answer as there is no real reason we decided to go here other than it is somewhere different and not particualrly expensive. So we hopped on a plance on Friday and made our way to Tallinn for what promised to be a surprising holiday given that we didn’t have much of a clue as to what was going to happen or what we were going to see!
We landed around 8.30pm which was perfect for us as it meant we could dump our stuff in the hotel and get straight out and get on with what we do best…drinking!! However, before we got to that we were met with two very plesant surprises at the hotel. Firstly the hotel itself was a 4 star hotel, right in the middle of the city and it was really nice!! This is something of rarity for the fatbritney boys as usually these short breaks involve staying in rather more cost effective hotels! So this was a nice surpirse but the better surprise was behind the desk at reception…the woman on reception was UNBELIEVABLY FIT!!! This led us to asking needless questions just so that we could stand in reception a little longer!! Eventually she showed us to our room and after some rather impure thoughts had raced through our heads we moved onto the city centre to see what was going on.
We walked up the street and round the corner and found what appeared to be the city’s main square that was flanked with lots of bars all with tables outside them and lots of people out dirnking. So we pulled up some chairs at one of them and were got off to a poor start. We asked for beer but were told rather bluntly that the beer wasn’t cold!! So we went for the G&T instead which tunred up but was warm, lacking in Gin and pre-mixed. This was a poor start and the waitress who served us looked like she was on death row rather than in sunny Tallinn serving drinks to happy customers. The weather was condusive to outdoor drinking which was good news because it meant we could “watch the world go by” while drinking. Regular readers will know what I mean when I type that!
We were once again armed with, the now essential, drinking map and decided to head over to a cigar bar that we had mapped out before arriving. Once inside we were led into the massive humidor downstairs where they had every kind of cigar a man could ever want. So we grabbed 2 Romeo y Juliet Churchill’s and went to sit down upstairs in the bar. It was excellent, chilling out in comfortable chairs, puffing massive cigars and drinking cold beer. Nice. At the same time Australia were playing Pakistan in the world T20. I checked my to get the score and found that the Aussies had pulled off an unlikely victory and upon telling Ben this the owner of the bar turned round and we struck up a conversation about cricket. He was a really nice bloke and his Asian descent meant that he was a huge crciket fan as well and so we talked cricket. Then he called for his whisky which he had been sent by an Irish bloke who had been in the other week. The fatbritney boys were offered a glass and of course we didn’t turn it down and I’m gald we didn’t because it turned out to be a very nice and very smooth whisky. During the course of the next hour or so various other people came into the bar including an ex-Russian Army bloke and an American-Irishman…it was an eclectic mix indeed and started to look like a Benetton advert! Eventually another bloke arrived wearing pink trousers, white jacket, cravat and a very loud shirt. It turned out he was the owner of a few bars in the town and was a bit of a playboy!! He was headed to another bar and the cigar bar owner was going with him and extended an offer to the fatbriney boys which we duely accepted. We grabbed some more cigars and made our way round the corner to another bar where we meet the owner and then sat outside at another table full of various other nationalities including some crazy Danish people and some less crazy Spanish people. After a few more G&T’s and some suitably crazy conversation the playboy lead us all to a club round the corner. After he had a quick chat to all the bouncers we were inside a very opulant club with a nice bar, ringed by bed with coushins and loads of stnning women. We bought the playboy a drink, it was the least we could do, and he was drinking Calvados and orange juice…which was weirdly in keeping with his look and style. Not long after he had broken open the champagne and was handing out the glasses to everyone and the FB boys got in on the act to. One of te crazy Danish blokes was heading out to another club and recommended that we join him…so we did. By this point we had managed to sink a load of G&T, beers and 2 free glasses of whisky and some free champagne. It was going well!! The Danish bloke along with the owner of the sigar bar took us to a strip club they knew that was good, so we joined them. Inside beyond the obvious naked women there were loads of shisha’s as well and seems as how it was in keeping with the evening we decided to grab one and then site back in comfort and luxury puffing away on a shisha while sipping on more whisky. At this point it’s time for some honesty…we spent a while in here as we were very comfortable and very happy!! After a while the clock struck 6am and we had to leave but the night (morning) wasn’t over yet….Ben had been chatting to one of the ladies inside who said she was off dancing afterwards and said we should go, so we did! We went to another club called Dusk ’til Dawn…a tiny little underground, early 90′s, sweatbox of a rave club. We grabbed more champagne on entering and enjoyed the freedom of the entire place as there was no one else in there at all!! We danced for a bit and drank our champagne before running out of steam at around 8 am and headed back to the hotel. Unfortunately the really fit bird on reception was no longer there so we crashed in bed instead, pleased with our crazy first night efforts!
Following our heroic efforts on Friday night, Saturday didn’t start until late in the afternoon and thankfully we didn’t have to think about what to do because we found a bar showing the FA Cup final so we set up shop in there for the afternoon. Drinking recovery juice and watching Chelsea and Portsmouth give a great exhibition of how not to score a goal! But it was very entertaining because both teams had great chances to win it and it should have been about 17 – 4 to Chelsea and the various Chelsea fans in there couldn’t believe what they were watching. There was also a weird looking bloke in there with a really fit bird who was studying and he kept stroking her hair…he had the look of a serial killer and the hair stroking only furthered this theory….odd. We grabbed some food from one of the places in the main square and then went back and got changed for another night on the tiles.
We haeded out and drank our way around the main square, sampling the G&T’s from a few of the bars which varied in quality. At one point we were sat at one bar while a pub next door had live music…I use the term music in it’s loosest term possible! They were awful…it prompted us to have a debate about the merits of cutting off our ears but we decided moving bars was a better idea…but for a short period it was touch and go!! We moved to another bar for some more G&T while looking out across the square. All day long there had been some sort of medieval tours going on and there were still a fe of them kicking around dressed in all sorts of stupid clothing…how low does your selft respect have to be to do that?? Waste your saturday dressed like a reject from a Monty Python skectch…no thanks! Still, we decided that the next port of call would be another cigar bar that we had found out about and as luck would ahve it we were about 5 feet away from it. So in we went got smoe more cigars, G&T’s and sat down in the rather nice club and….wait for it….played chess! Fatbritney had her most sophisticated night out ever!! Instead of the usual haevy drinking, womanizing we sat calmly playing chess while drinking G&T and smoking on Monte Cristo No 4′s. Nice. To be honest dear reader, neither of us are any good at chess and the game lasted for an hour and a half and there was no winner. Ben was probably closest to winning but realistically the quality of chess playing on show was pretty low…Following this we were in the mood for some cocktails which are part of a staple diet of an FB holiday. The place to go it turned out was the bar owned by the Danish bloke from Friday night, which conveniently was just round the corner. We rolled up in there and sampled the cocktail menu before eventually settling on one called Pink Kamikazee…it features strawberries, syrup, vodka, sugar and something else…as always we paid no attention as to what was in ti and simoly drank it and loved it!! After being in there for a while and sinking a few cocktails the evening came to a close at around 3 or 4 am. I realise this sounds a tame evening and in comparison to Friday it was but it was a great evening and we still got through a fair few drinks.
Sunday we were heading home so all we really did was drink recovery juice and watch the Gran Prix and then as much as we could of Englands glorious World T20 victory over the Aussies…the best moments were when Shane Watson was out early followed quickly by Brad Haddin, who has one of those faces you just want to hit…with a shovel….that’s on fire…and has rusty nails sticking out of it…and salt. The bar we were in also had the added bonus of having a barmaid who was once again fit and had fantastic legs! At one point in this bar we were surrounded by cricket, 2 different games of Spanish football and some golf. It was a good way to recover from the hangover…so was the bar maid and there were various converations had about her…I’m afraid none of which I can blog about…some things that happen on holiday have to stay there. I’m afraid there was little else on Sunday other than watching sport and discussing the bar maid. So we got on the plane and haeded back to blighty again.
All in all Tallinn was really good. The place is tiny, like postage stamp tiny, which meant we could get lost and never had far to walk!! We were really jammy with the weather as well because when we landed the temperature was 22 degress even at 8.30 pm. The women were fantastic, the town is small and easy to get round and we loved it…but neither of us learned a sinlge word of Estionian…guess we’ve got an excuse to go back!!
