Hey y’all, the last time I checked in was Wednesday night and I was in Pärnu, Estonia and heading to Tallinn the next morning to play my gig at the Mad Murphy’s Irish pub.
On Thursday morning, I got up and checked out of my apartment and went into town to get a quick bite to eat before getting on the road. I settled on a pizza and it was enough to get something in my stomach for the drive to Tallinn. Below are some pics from the drive from Pärnu to Tallinn.
Entering into Tallinn, I had some time to kill before my 10pm gig that night at the Mad Murphy’s Irish Pub in the heart of old town Tallinn. I decided to stop at the Estonian open air museum on the western outskirts of the city. It turned out to be a really cool place with acres of historic buildings to look at and other interesting things. I could have spent a whole day there, but instead saw as much as I could in about two hours of walking around the giant property. Below are some pics from the open air museum.
After checking out the open air museum, it was time to make my way to the hostel that I’d reserved in the old town. Getting there by car turned out to be quite tricky, as some the roads Google routed me down appeared to be pedestrian only. Either way, I slowly crept my way through people and eventually found it and got parked and checked in. The parking on property was nice, but pretty steep at 22 euros a day. I stepped out after checking in to have a quick look around old town and scout out the bar I’d be playing at that evening.
After a little bit of exploring and chilling in my room, I walked back over to the bar at about 9pm to have a beer and set up for my show. I wound up playing until almost 2am to a full house and the people loved the show. After I finished, I agreed to come back on 4 days later on Monday and play another show on their patio on my last night in town.
As I was making the short walk back to my hostel after the show on Thursday night, I came by two guys with guitars playing Estonian music to some people on a patio. I stopped to listen to them a few minutes and when they noticed my guitar on my back they invited me to play with them. Their names were Raino and Oliver and it turned out I’d see a lot more of them over the next few days.
On Friday, it was time to head back to Pärnu to play at the gig I agreed to do at the City Pub. If you remember from the last post, I got that gig last Wednesday by going in to the bar to trade my coins from busking for bills and got asked by the owner to come back to Pärnu on Friday to play. So when I got up and moving on Friday, I went to get some Estonian food at a restaurant in Tallinn and then got on the road back to Pärnu.
Below are some landscape shots from the drive back to Pärnu from Tallin on Friday afternoon:
When I got to Pärnu, I went and checked in with the bar and then walked over to the hostel where I’d reserved a bed for 20 euros for the night. After checking in, I came back to the bar and set up my stuff for the gig. It turned into a great night of music and I played to a full patio and even had people hanging out in the street to listen to me. When I was done the owner practically begged me to stay one more night and play again on Saturday. I had a lot of fun Friday, so I agreed!
On Saturday, I had lots of time to kill during the day before my 9pm show in the evening. It turned out there was a medieval festival going on in Pärnu that day, so I went and got some food and then walked over to check that out in the afternoon.
After walking around for a while at the medieval festival I was feeling a little fatigued, so I went back to the hostel and chilled out there until it was time to head over to the City Pub and set up for my gig. I met one of my roommates, Leo, who was from Russia and was in town for a harmonica gig that day. When I told him I was playing music that night as well he said he’d stop over and see me after his gig and maybe sit in on some harmonica for me. The gig wound up going great – many people from Friday had come to hang out again and I had Leo sit in as well as several guest singers. It was a special night.
On Sunday, I checked out of my hostel at about 1pm and then got on the road to head back to Tallinn for my gig that evening at the Scotland Yard pub. I got there in time to drop my guitar off and find some slightly cheaper parking just outside the old town, in a lot between the bar and my hostel before heading back for the show.
When I returned to Scotland Yard for my show, I found the place to be basically empty. There was really nice weather on Sunday, so it seemed everybody was out enjoying the sunshine on patios rather than coming to sit inside a bar and listen to music. My friends from Thursday night, Raino and Oliver, came to the show and since there were only a couple people there we basically took turns doing mini-sets until we’d done our three hours. When I went to get paid, the waitress informed me that no money had been left for me by Karl, the guy who booked me. While I hadn’t discussed payment when I booked the gig (I never ask about money when booking gigs) I was certain that a reputable place like Scotland Yard would be paying me something as a touring musician that they had agreed to book. The waitress told me to come back the next day when the manager would be in and I could get my money then. So I went home and planned on coming back the next day, slightly concerned that I wasn’t going to get paid.
After the show on Sunday, Raino and Oliver and I walked together back to the old town and came across an impromptu fire show getting ready to happen in the town hall square. It turned out to be quite a performance and I was glad we stopped and watched the whole show. It lasted about 15 minutes. After that I popped in to Mad Murphy’s for a few minutes to check out the band that was playing and caught them giving a shout out the USA in honor of the 4th of July.
On Monday afternoon, I set out to do some chores before my final show that evening on the patio of Mad Murphy’s. The first order of business was to go back to Scotland Yard to get my money and then I wanted to knock out my laundry at the facility they had at the hostel and to get a haircut.
After getting my chores done on Monday, I relaxed for a little while at the hostel and then went to get some dinner before heading to the patio of Mad Murphy’s to set up for my show. It wound up being another great time. Lots of people stopped by when they heard me playing, and I was joined again by my new friends Raino and Oliver as well as an Estonian guy named Heike who played twice on my breaks. The only hiccup was when the police came about halfway through my show, but the resolution to that was just to make sure we were done on the patio by 10pm. So at 10pm, we just moved the operation inside the bar and I wound up dragging everybody everybody in there and hosting an impromptu open mic for the Monday late night. It was a great turnout and the owner of Mad Murphy’s told me it was the busiest Monday he ever had. So I was pretty proud of being able to facilitate that.
After the bar closed at 1am, Raino and Oliver wanted to take me to the hipster part of the city to see what was going on and jam some more. It turned out to be about a 30 minute walk and I was glad I decided to drop all my stuff off at the hostel so I didn’t have to carry anything. The crew was me and those two, plus two random girls and a British soldier on a pass named Tom that was hanging around and wanted to make the trek with us. He was a good guy but was completely drunk and with a dead phone and no clue how to get back to his hostel. So after we hung out I guided him back to his place on the other side of the old town with my phone map. All in all, I walked about an hour and a half on Monday middle of the night doing that, but I enjoyed helping out a fellow soldier.
When I got back to the hostel early Tuesday morning, I messaged them that I’d need a late checkout as I was pretty exhausted and needed to sleep a bit. I finally got up and out of there at about 130pm and I was feeling pretty worn down from the late night of drinking and just in general for having performed the last 5 nights in a row. I went to Burger King to grab some quick food and then got on the road to get out of the city. After much thought and changing my mind several times over the last few days, I settled on a route that would take me back to Poland through Eastern Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. I chose this option because I had come up to Tallinn via the western halves of these countries and this route would allow me to see some new territory. I had thought about taking a ferry to Finland and maybe playing there for a week and then heading back, but ultimately decided it would put me on too tight of a schedule going forward. Rather, I’m going to head straight to Poland and have lots of time to see the things there I’m interested in. Wednesday’s plan was to check out the cities of Rakvere and Mustvee and then drive just across the Estonian/Latvian border and stay in a city called Aluksne on Tuesday night. All together, about 4 1/2 hours of driving.
On Wednesday morning, I got up and the couple had prepared me a massive and delicious breakfast that I gladly ate before getting on the road. It was probably the best breakfast of my trip so far. They were so friendly as well, so that was 31 euros very well spent. After I ate and loaded the car back up, I set out to do a little exploring in Aluksne before getting further down the road. The plan was to get as far as I could on Wednesday because I was angling to get to Warsaw, Poland by Friday for a party that I’d been invited to by a guy who’d seen me play a couple of weeks ago and wanted me to come play at his wife’s birthday party in the woods near Warsaw. Sounded like my kind of deal, so I was eager to knock out the hours of driving and be there for that.
After spending a little time looking around in Aluksne, I got on the road towards the next town I was interested in looking around in called Rezekne. It was about an hour and a half south and it rained the whole way. Here are some pics from that stretch of road:
After a short stop off in Rezekne, I got back on the road towards the next city I wanted to check out called Daugavpils. Daugavpils is a majority ethnic Russian city near the Lithuanian and Belarusian borders. Before WW2, it was 45 percent Jewish (about 16,000 people), but the Holocaust left only 100 Jews alive there at the end of the war. You can the link below to read about the Daugavpils ghetto if you are interested to learn more about the messed up stuff that happened in this city during the war:
I was interested in seeing the Holocaust-related sites there, as well as some unique architecture that I’d read about. Below are some pics from the drive there and from the city itself:
After checking out the downtown and fortress area of Daugavpils, I drove a little north of town to where the executions of the Jews took place to see the memorial there. Luckily there were no supernatural experiences this time, although I was once again alone there and it was once again creepy feeling.
After paying my respects at the memorial, I got back on the road and headed for the city of Ukmerge, Lithuania – 2 hours to the west. At this point I was getting pretty tired of driving and started looking for any hotel along the side of the road but didn’t find anything where there was someone actually on duty. I was starting to think I’d be crashing in the Fiesta until I finally rolled in to Ukmerge about 10pm and found a hotel downtown that was open for business and had a room for me. Here are some pics from the drive between Daugavpils and Ukmerge:
After I got checked in to the Big Stone, I checked my phone and was disappointed to learn that the party in Warsaw has been postponed due to my friend there finding out today that he’s got to get surgery on Friday. So now all of the sudden, I had nowhere in particular to be. So I reached out to my buddy Edgar in Vilnius (1 hour south) and he told me he thinks he can get me a last minute gig there tomorrow night. It’s funny how things can work out sometimes…
So that’s pretty much it for this update you guys. I’m relaxing in my room in Ukmerge and I’m going to book myself a room for tomorrow night in Vilnius. I’ll either play the gig that Edgar can line up for me (if that works out) or I will busk in the old town there as an alternative. After that my plan will be to go to Poland and start hitting the cities there that I’m interested in seeing. Right now I’m leaning towards beginning in Gdansk. Oh yeah there was one more thing..
Thanks again for following my travels and I’ll talk to you guys soon with another update!
The fire show was a real standout to me ,never saw anything like that. As always enjoyed all the pics of food, people, and scenery along the way. So sorry you had the bad experience with that little man, Karl. You are always so kind and generous with people and it’s a hard pill to swallow when someone deliberately cheats you. Live and learn, I guess. Take good care and stay safe.
Zeb South
All is good from here, every other experience has been great 👍 . Thanks for the comment
Frank julian
Great story telling
Zeb South
Thank you Frank!
William Schwab
There’s a lot going on this time. Scenery is great. There’s a reason why Scotland yard has low business, he’s a slickster. Keep it up, traveling with you is alot of fun.
Zeb South
Hey thanks Bill! That’s a good point about their business 😜 Their beer is extremely overpriced as well. Glad you enjoy the blog 👍
linda South
The fire show was a real standout to me ,never saw anything like that. As always enjoyed all the pics of food, people, and scenery along the way. So sorry you had the bad experience with that little man, Karl. You are always so kind and generous with people and it’s a hard pill to swallow when someone deliberately cheats you. Live and learn, I guess. Take good care and stay safe.
Zeb South
All is good from here, every other experience has been great 👍 . Thanks for the comment
Frank julian
Great story telling
Zeb South
Thank you Frank!
William Schwab
There’s a lot going on this time. Scenery is great. There’s a reason why Scotland yard has low business, he’s a slickster. Keep it up, traveling with you is alot of fun.
Zeb South
Hey thanks Bill! That’s a good point about their business 😜 Their beer is extremely overpriced as well. Glad you enjoy the blog 👍