You know how parents tell their kids to never get into cars with strange men? This is exactly what I did in Estonia.
The strange man in question was the Nice German I met on my first evening in Tallinn. Long story short, as a result of making this acquaintance, I abandoned my original plan for my last day in the Baltics — a day-trip to Helsinki by ferry — in favor of exploring Estonia’s countryside, courtesy of the Nice German himself being on a road trip through northeastern Europe, and thus having a car. He also had a portable grill in that car, which meant a proper shashlyk picnic. Sold!
What was supposed to be a 45-minute drive to a recommended rest area turned into five hours of getting lost on unpaved roads, confusing the hell out of a German GPS navigator (I now know about ten words in German, and eight of them are directions for turning left or right), checking out a museum inside an abandoned estate along the way, taking two hundred photos of trees (it took the Nice German all of two days of knowing me to sarcastically remark “oh no! you missed a tree! you must make a picture!”), a bit of mushroom-hunting, almost making it all the way to the Russian border, quietly freaking out that I might have gotten into a car with a maniac and WTF was I thinking?! (as it turned out, all the while the Nice German was kind of thinking the same thing), nearly losing all hope of eating ever again, eventually discovering the most gorgeous lake in the middle of the forest (thanks to directions from dirt bike-racing Russians), and finally making the most wonderful lakeside picnic, grilled shashlyk and all.
Oh, and also I got to watch the sun set over the Baltic Sea, with Tallinn’s skyline on the horizon.
Without further ado, I present to you the stunningly beautiful and pristine Nature of Estonia, which I got to enjoy for a whole day because I was crazy enough to get into a car with a Nice German.
Home & Away 
Gorgeous landscape pics.
Thank you! The landscape itself was gorgeous.
Beautiful! Btw, quite a different beauty to the winter wonderland that I can see now 🙂
Is there snow in the Baltics now? We still havent really had any in Moscow.
or rather, it fell once and melted 2 days later
We got about 15 cms of snow in Helsinki but I am not too sure if Baltics got any, I think the snow clouds continued North East so they may not have any? For our part, great timing for a white Christmas 🙂
Goooooorgeous! The Nice German can suck it, those are some goddamn beautiful shots! The one with the mushroom is super cute!
If we ever took a trip together, we would never get anywhere, with the two of us stopping every couple of minutes to take photos, hahaha!
Thank you, I got on my stomach to take the mushroom shot. I bet at that moment the Nice German was thinking, ‘what a crazy Russian…’
Or probably “my mother warned me not to get in the car with crazy Russians!” 😉
He was TOTALLY thinking that 😉
Btw, that’s him in the second square photo, standing on the coast.
I asked for mushroom photos and I got them…. btw yor photography skills are impressive
Thank you, though I think here the nature itself – and the insanely perfect weather – did most of the work.
These are so so so gorgeous. See, sometimes it’s the journey! Even if it’s a bit winding and unpredictable.
With a crazy, hungry stranger… WHAT WAS I THINKING? 🙂
We both later admitted that we were just waiting for the other one to freak out in some way – but neither did, and then we had shashlyk!!!
It’s always about food with you;)
Not always. Sometimes it’s about Nature and pretty pictures. But these weren’t sustaining me at 4 in the afternoon, having not had any lunch or proper breakfast.
It’s always about food with you 😉
No tree-bashing comments from you-know-who yet, I see… absolutely love that second photo.
I think there are too many trees and she’s grown allergic 🙂
I thought she´d built up sufficient resistance in Latvia…
So. Much. Nature. I think I just had a little orgasm…
😉
WHO. ARE. YOU?!
What the hell???
What has Germany done to you???
OMG when I visit you in Berlin we’re going mushroom picking, aren’t we?
Nah, I still hate mushrooms. Creepy little fuckers 😉
I am going to sit right here and wait until your dad shows up to comment on this, young lady.
And those shots are gorgeous, btw
Nah, I’m not saying anything bad about the Balts or the Americans, so he’s evidently not nearly as interested in chiming in 😉 Right, dad?
Your photos of the Baltic Sea (Gulf of Finland to be precise) are stunning. Your ability to let the Nature speak in your pictures is beyond praise; it’s magical. May be you should quit your day job and devote yourself to travel and photography. A disclosure: I have spent several summers living on the Gulf of Finland’s shore, and I have never seen this kind of beauty that you saw. Probably, the Lord was very kind to you on that day after all.
It’s really camera + nature, I just happened to be there 😉
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