THE MAGICAL JOURNEY TO ESTONIA

IMPORTANT BACKGROUND INFORMATION (a prelude if you will)

According to the Xenphobes guide to the Swedes, “Becoming rich in Sweden has never been easy. As Ingmar Bergman found out, even millionaires can have difficulties making ends meet when income tax is levied at 102%”

However, becoming poor in sweden is not such a challenge when even Ikea has upped its prices. Alex and I where wandering around looking for a mattress until finally I thought I'd found a thin fluffy mattress cover that would suffice for under one-hundred dollars. When we asked the clerk to go pick one up for us, she laughed and said the price we were looking at was for the twin-sheet!

Bus ticket for a 10 min ride to the city = $5
Coffee and a biscuit at a cafe = $10
Parking in Stockholm for 5hrs = $45

You must keep these prices in mind when I tell you that Alex and I booked a 2 day, overnight ferry, round-trip to Estonia for $60 each. And these were the private, two-person room prices - it got way cheaper the more people you crammed into your cell.

You can only imagine the horror stories that were running through my head as we booked two tickets to cross the Baltic sea aboard a ship belonging to a former USSR satallite. Images of 10 hour African bus rides & overnight Vietnamese trains flashed before my eyes, as I contemplated whether or not there would even be a proper toilet seat on board.

But as Estonia is on my "top 10 must sees before i die" list, I gladly handed over my debit card, while my friend witty friend Dave recollected his not-so-fortunate experiences aboard Romanian trains.

THE EXPERIENCE (now we're getting into the thick of the plot here)

We reach the port: myself, Alex, Dave(US), Alana (Australia), Min (US) and Adam (US).
I peer past two huge cruise ships trying to get at glimpse at the inflatable raft that's about to ferry us across, when I realize that according to my tickets those cruise ships are actually there for US!!!

This comes as sheer delight as I realize that for the next 42 hours we will be subjugated to all the classic cruise ship lore - bad renditions of the YMCA, limbo, and Abba tunes, gambling, martinis and the world's most disgusting & overpriced fast food. Seriously 3 words: over the moon!!