On a Boat

Today, I think I had the longest 2.5 hour trip of my life.

Given that it's only a 2 1/2 hour ferry journey from Helsinki to Tallinn, I decided to boat across the sea, rather than catch a plane. I figured a ferry is a nice way to travel, quietly drifting along, gazing out the window at the water....

Totally not what I got today.

I boarded with the throngs of foot passengers, and managed to make my way up past the cabins (which seem overkill for less than a 3 hour tour... a 3 hour tour!), to the first deck of general seating, which could either be had in the dance club or the casino/bar. I preferred neither, nor did I want to sit outdoors for the whole trip, so I chose the deck with 2 small restaurants. Since most of the tables were reserved for diners, I took up residence at one of the unreserved spaces, and started reading the newspaper.

Not until the person dressed as a giant sailor cat -- evidently named Viki Viking -- appeared, did I notice that the seats around me were filling up with families with many small children. I frantically scanned the room for an open unreserved table elsewhere, but it was no use. I was stuck with them. For two and a half looooooong hours.

I spent the time with headphones on, music turned up, making use of the free wifi and/or reading, trying to pretend they weren't there. But even with all that, it was amazing that I made it off that boat without killing one of the little buggers.

While screaming children are equally annoying in any tongue, it's amazing how freeing it can be to spend time in countries where you don't speak the language. I've talked about this before, but it's worth mentioning again. At first your brain uses extra energy searching every word around you for one you recognize, but soon, it just gives up. And then you realize how much mental energy you waste on the bullshit of strangers in a given day. At least I do. So it's really quite calming for the mind to just completely tune it out.

Of course, the downside is that then I also fail to hear when people are speaking English, either directly to me, or on things like ferry announcements, and end up lost or confused.

Even so... it's worth it.