Well, it’s a new year, and it looks as if my long-running feud with London Energy may finally be drawing to a close, after I finally managed to convince them to charge me for the correct meter, only a year after moving into the flat. Funnily enough, all it actually took to solve the problem was one quick email to Energywatch, the independent energy regulator, which achieved what 9 months of phone calls to London Energy’s “help” line could not. Now that they have adjusted the meter reading, somehow forgotten about the first couple of hundred units on the meter, and given us a hefty “goodwill payment”, it turns out that we’ll be paying just £40 for a year’s worth of gas. Which almost makes it all worth it. Almost.
Sal and I saw in the new year in Tallinn, which is well worth a visit if you can survive checking in in time to make EasyJet’s only departure of the day, the 6.45am from Stansted. Once you get past the smattering of grim Soviet architecture around the outskirts of the city, Tallinn is all beautiful medieval old town, full of cobbled streets and (mostly) friendly locals, who haven’t yet suffered the inevitable onslaught of post-EU accession British stag parties, and are thus still quite pleased to see tourists in their little city. In fact there were surprisingly few English-speaking tourists in town at all (most of the people staying at our hotel seemed to be Russian), but the locals are clearly prepared: when we asked our taxi driver how to say a few useful words of Estonian, he produced a tatty Lonely Planet Baltic Phrasebook and handed it back to us, and we then proceeded to spend the rest of the journey from the airport saying “Yes”, “No”, “Hello”, and “Thank You” repeatedly in unison. Which probably sounds rather funny if you’re an Estonia taxi driver.
New Year’s Eve itself was strangely quiet, but despite this our plan to hop around a few bars before settling in one for the run up to midnight was thwarted somewhat by the ticketing policy adopted by almost all the bars in town: on several occasions our group would troop into a half empty bar and find a table before being asked to pay a couple of hundred Kroon to stay. Bizarrely, at one bar we were told that we could stand and drink at the bar for free, but would have to pay up to 900 Kroon (around £45) to sit down at a table (although in fairness, this did include food). Funnily enough, we opted for the bar (although not before incurring the wrath of the staff for putting out coats down on a chair without paying). For some reason, most of the (small number of) paying customers looked thoroughly miserable, and we left after just the one drink.
Our final new year destination was also strangely quiet, but they only charged us 100 Kroon (about £5) to stay, and that included free champagne at midnight and seemingly limitless plates of cheese and grapes.
I approached Saturday night with some trepidation, but not because we might have to repeat the previous night’s quest for a venue. On the contrary, that was already taken care of, as the rest of the group we met up with had already booked us in for a meal at a restaurant called Old Hansa: a medieval banquet-themed tourist restaurant in the centre of the old town. Surely it couldn’t be as bad as the venue for my work’s Christmas party, could it? Well, actually no it couldn’t–the food was actually nice, interesting and different (although the Bear, sadly, was off, and I wasn’t too sure about the bowl of “Bird” that was passed around), the beer very drinkable, and there was no pathetic attempt at providing themed entertainment. We even ended up having a drink later on with our friendly waiter in “Estonia’s first pub”, Hell Hunt (established 1993).
Oh, and it snowed.