Marseille - Too much seafood

Monday 23 April 2007
The The World's 50 Best Restaurants 2007 were announced today. I had previously set a goal to dine at all of the World's 50 Best Restaurants in London and thankfully for our bank account, there are only two on the list that we haven't yet been to, being the The River Cafe and St John. I booked the River Cafe for June so only one more to tick off the list!

Tuesday 24 April 2007
Still in the marathon spirit, I joined the British 10k London Run on 1 July. I've decided to raise some money as well so if you feel like sponsoring me, please go to my Donations website. Thanks, and special thanks to everyone who has sponsored me already!

Wednesday 25 April 2007
Yang and I had dinner at Kobe Jones following a suggestion from Loreen some time ago and we were really impressed with their sushi...it was a lot more creative than any other Japanese restaurant we have been to so far...their volcano roll (oven baked scallops layered on top of California roll) and their Number One Special (crab salad with avocado wrapped in snapper and nori baked with cream sauce) were absolutely delicious...it's making me crave to go there again just writing about it.

Following dinner, we headed to Ronnie Scotts, the most famous jazz venue in London, to listen to Nigel Kennedy, a classical violinist who was the protege of Yehudi Menuhin and who also studied at the Juilliard School in New York, turn his talents to jazz. Ronnie Scotts had my approval from the moment we stepped in as it has a no smoking policy...yay! The concert was enjoyable but we had to leave before the encore finished as it was midnight and we didn't want to miss the last tube home...the joys of not having a car.

Friday 27 April 2007
After work, we met up with Alli, Aaron, Tammy and Linus for dinner at Busaba. Then we all moved onto the Moose for Happy hour drinks. It was another celebration for Jason's birthday. Unfortunately we couldn't stay very long as Yang and I had to wake up at 4am the following morning to go the airport. Alli and Aaron also followed us back because, as from Thursday, they are the newest tenants to 9 Lowry House, albeit only for 2 weeks.

Saturday 28 April 2007
We had a really early start this morning so that we could make our way to Marseille, the oldest and second largest city in France and the capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur région. Our sightseeing started at Vieux Port, the hub of Marseilles with its daily fish market, anchored fishing boats and yachts. From there, we caught a ferry to Chateau D'If, a prison built on the smallest island in the Frioul Archipelago. The island and its prison were the setting for The Count of Monte Cristo, the novel by Alexandre Dumas. Then we went back on to the ferry to cruise around the Frioul Archipelago before we headed back to Vieux Port for lunch, where I had a salmon, tuna and beef tartar...it was really good...you can't beat fresh seafood...

Iles D'If; View from Chateau D'If; Frioul Archipelago

After lunch, we walked up La Canebière, the main street of Marseille and picked up some navettes, boat shaped biscuit created to commemorate the arrival of St Lazarus and the two "Marys", Saint Mary Magdalene and Saint Martha to Provence around 2,000 years ago. We continued on to the Les Reformes Church, a huge church with stained glass windows with the main scenes of the bible and the saints of Provence and then walked along Boulevard Longchamp to the Palais Longchamp, which was built to commemorate the arrival of the water of the canal between the river Durance and Marseille.

We headed back to Vieux Port and then walked around the Panier Quarter, the oldest part of the city with small narrow crooked streets. Along the way we picked up some soap from La Compagnie de Provence...their soap is 72% oil so it is much better for your skin, and we saw the following:

- Jardin des Vestiges, an archaeological park with ruins of the 1st-century docks and the 4th-century entrance to the fortified Greek town (Marseille was founded in 600 BC by Greeks)
- Saint Ferrèol les Augustins, which was previously the headquarters of the Knights Templar in the 12th Century
- Hotel de Ville
- La Place Daviel
- La Vielle Charite, a poorhouse where the Town council decided to lock up the poor inhabitants of Marseille in a selected "clean place". It's actually quite nice architecturally notwithstanding its purpose





- St Laurent Cathedral
- Fort St Jean
- Cathedrale de la Nouvelle Major, a huge Provencal Romanesque Church that you see as you are approaching the Vieux Port. Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte laid the first stone of the Cathedral. I've shown a picture taken from the sea with Fort St Jean on the right and the Cathedrale on the left as the Cathedral is huge and Yang and my lense couldn't do it justice from up close (time for a camera upgrade?!).

We had dinner this evening at La Miramar, renowned as the best restaurant for La Bouillabaisse, a fish based soup served with la rouille (a garlic saffron sauce) and bread similar to crostini (you put the la rouille on top of the bread and then soak the bread in the soup). The restaurant definitely knew how to make money from its reputation...charging €55 per person for the Bouillabaisse and then making it only available for a minimum of 2 people. It was definitely worth a try given it is Marseille's most famous regional culinary dish, but not sure I would pay that much again.

Sunday 29 April 2007
On today's sightseeing itinerary, we saw the:
- Basilique Abbaye de St Victor, built in the 5th century but in really good condition
- Notre Dame de la Garde, a neo Byzantine Church built on the highest point in the city. You can see the Cathedral from the sea, from the Port, from the Panier Quarter...pretty much from anywhere in Marseille because of its dominating position. Picture from the Port and then up close...

- Fort St Nicholas








- Palais du Pharo, which was to be an imperial residence that Prince Napoléon Bonaparte approved for his future Empress Eugenie. However, neither Emperor Napoléon or Empress Eugenie ever resided in the Palace.



- Arc de Triomphe, built to commemorate the victories of the French Revolution and the First Empire, and as a tribute to the glory of the Republic, the Consulate, and the Empire





Our afternoon was spent on a boat under a clear blue sky admiring the Calanques between Marseille and Cassis. Calanques are deep narrow inlets in the white rocky cliffs, mainly formed of limestone. They are often referred to as the Mediterranean fjords. What a relaxing way to spend the afternoon.


We had a nice seafood dinner (to continue the tradition) before getting an early night, as we had another early start the next morning to the airport, and then straight to work from London Gatwick Airport. Overall we had a nice trip with great weather. Though some parts of Marseille were dodgy it certainly wasn't the "organised crime capital" of France. The people were nice and the food (in particular the seafood) was good, although we needed to give seafood a miss for a while afterwards!

London - Leaving Do & Birthdays

Wednesday 18 April 2007
I was given the responsibility of organising dinner for our team and our new Project Manager this evening. I chose The Forge, a new restaurant in Covent Garden. Thankfully everyone really enjoyed the food...the menu was extensive...there were too many things to choose from; I might have to take Yang there one day! I also got to choose the Champagne and given I wasn't paying, I immediately chose Louis Roederer as Aaron and Alli bought us a bottle a while back and it was really nice...well it's apparently the best non-vintage Champagne around. *sigh of relief*...I didn't want to disappoint the new Project Manager on our first ever meeting.

Thursday 19 April 2007
Yang cooked (with assistance from "Sous Chef Ryan") French trimmed lamb cutlets with a trio of vegetables and a side of potato gratin for Jason, Ammy, Peter and the current residents of 9 Lowry House.

Friday 20 April 2007
After work Yang and I headed to Pizzeria Oregano in Islington for a quick dinner as Sean raved about their linguini (personally I didn't like the pasta but Yang said the Pizza was good). Then we went to help Sean set up for his leaving party at the Salmon and Compass. It ended up being a bit of a late night...but thankfully, Richard took us home in his Porsche 911 Turbo, so not only did we save on paying for a taxi, we got to sit in a much nicer car! Oh...to have a car again...you Perthites don't know how lucky you are!

Sean & Joe; Yang, Sean & Linus; the other Shawn (no he is not my brother!) & me

The private upstairs Bar @ the Salmon & compass; DJ fuboi

Blythe, Sean & Alli; Peter, Van, Jason, Sean

The Foo Cousins; The Boys

Saturday 21 April 2007
With barely any sleep, we still made it in time to meet Alli, Aaron, Loreen & Felix at J Sheekey, a fish and seafood restaurant that is run by the same people that own The Ivy...both west end celeb haunts. The food was nice...but really heavy for our very first meal of the day...as a result, we didn't have dessert...and apparently their desserts are really good...oh well. Enjoy the photo (to the left) as they have a no-photography policy in the restaurant, but management kindly let our waiter help us take a photo.

After lunch, we went camera shopping for Alli and then Yang and I headed off to Knightsbridge so I could run a few errands at Christian Louboutin (would you believe that when I bought a pair of Louboutins in Paris, they gave me one 4 inch and one 3.5 inch heel) and Harrods. I also saw Mohammad Al Fayed for the second time (I almost barreled into him as he only had one bodyguard this time and I wasn't paying attention to where I was going). We also had relaxing drink overlooking Hyde Park at the Fifth Floor Bar in Harvey Nichols.

We then caught a taxi to Clerkenwell on the other side of London for Jason's and Peter's birthday dinner at Dans le Noir, a French restaurant where you dine in complete darkness and the waiters are blind. The 18 of us were all led (it was a pretty funny sight seeing 18 people with their right hand on the right shoulder of the person in front of them being led by a blind waitress) into a completely dark room. When I say completely dark, it really was completely dark and there was no light so your eyes couldn't adjust to anything. There were a few novelties to dining in the dark...you drank wine out of tumblers (apparently wine glasses tip over too easily!), and it proved quite difficult to cut your food into manageable pieces...I ended up stuffing my mouth and getting sauce all over my face (I don't want to see what I look like on the infra-red cameras!). We also had Peter Smart (who had dined at the one in Melbourne) trying to steal our cutlery to make us eat with our fingers and coming over to the other side of the table to say hello from behind...which was a bit of shock at the time (you are not allowed to move around in the dark without being led by the waitress). We all had a "surprise menu" where you are not told what you are given to eat and you have to guess what you've just eaten. The food was okay but the servings weren't very generous (we were actually still hungry afterwards) but it was an interesting experience.

After dinner, we had dessert and milkshakes (and in some cases, more food!) with the group at Tinseltown before heading home.

Sunday 22 April 2007
Still in the marathon spirit after last weekend, we woke up early today to watch a bit of the London Marathon outside our apartment (this also meant dodging runners to get to Canary Wharf) and around Canary Wharf. We have never seen so many people in Canary Wharf on the weekend...again, it was the same supportive atmosphere as in Paris.

Then we caught the train to Putney to meet Jane and Ed for lunch at Olé Restaurant. They had a Spanish craving as they were a bit disappointed with the food in Barcelona during their trip over Easter. I would have to agree that this restaurant had some of the nicest tapas I have had in London...it's just too bad that it's not closer to Central London.

Then we went back to Canary Wharf (where we saw a few stragglers from the London Marathon) to say goodbye to Sean before he flew back to Perth.

Paris - Run Jason Run!

For some reason...it ended up being a present week...I love presents when you are least expecting them (hint hint Yang!). Yang had a bottle of 1995 Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame Champagne Brut (La Grande Dame is the prestige label for Veuve Clicquot...like Dom Pérignon is the prestige label for Moët & Chandon) delivered to his desk at work...a gift for just a really simple favour...THANKS HENRY & INCHEE!

Then the next day I received this hamper from Harrods...courtesy of Qantas...long story...but in essence, after my horrendous flight from Perth to London in December, instead of being 'passive aggressive' (I usually never officially complain...instead I just winge winge winge...it's the English thing to do!), I decided to write a 3 page letter of complaint and for once, they actually did something about it. Cool hamper...not sure how we are going to finish everything.

On Thursday, Yang and Ryan went to watch The 39 Steps, an Alfred Hitchcock inspired 'whodunnit' play. With only a cast of 4 and limited props and sets, they managed to recreate every scene in Hitchcock's acclaimed 1935 interpretation of John Buchan's novel. It was quite impressive as the cast members played 150 characters between the 4 of them!

On Friday, Yang headed out to take night shots of the London Eye and South Bank with Linus, Felix and Jason Tsui. Then dinner, with them and their respective halves at Strada on South Bank (the Royal Festival Hall branch). Yang's curse struck again as his meal was served after everyone else had finished eating. And then it was not what he ordered. And then it was under-cooked. Perhaps another candidate for the "Smiths of Smithfields boycott"? It's a story for another time perhaps, but in summary "SOS" remains the pinnacle of bad service; what a fitting acronym!

Saturday 14 April 2007
Yang and I headed to Paris early this morning and made it in good time to join Jason, Ammy, Peter and Janie at Café de Flore on Boulevard Saint-Germain. This cafe (and its neighbour Les Deux Magots) were haunts for the literary, intellectuals, existentialists and artists in the post-war years. This included Gaby Aghion and Jacques Lenoir, whom, in 1956, debuted the first collection of Chloé over breakfast at Café de Flore. This is also one of Kylie Minogue's favourite spots in Paris. It's a bit of a people watching cafe...and the guys got a great seat on the terrace for us to do just that!

After brunch, Yang and I headed off to run a few shopping errands. We discovered a new street (Rue de Grenelle) this trip which is a quainter version of Avenue Montaigne...without the tourists. We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping around St Germain (such a lovely area) and also made our first trip to Le Bon Marche, the first department store in the world. The current Le Bon Marche building was constructed by L. A. Boileau and Gustave Eiffel. I don't know why we never made it to Le Bon Marche before...it has such cool stuff on sale and the interior of the store is modern mixed with Art Deco.

Next stop was the recently completed Louis Vuitton Flagship Store on Avenue des Champs Elysées. We were very impressed with the architecture and the interior design of the store (especially the central dome of the building with the mirrors and hundreds of suspended metal rods), but the number of tourists in the store was quite overwhelming. However, most of the tourists were on the ground floor, so Yang and I spent most of our time upstairs trying on clothes (well I did!). As you would expect, the prices (though cheaper than anywhere else in the world) are tear inducing, so we left empty handed.

We followed this with more shopping at Galeries Lafayette before dinner at La Table de Joël Robuchon. After dinner we had a drink at The Hemingway Bar, a quaint bar which kind of resembled a library (wood paneling on the walls and pictures of famous people with Hemingway). We were however a bit shocked that a G&T and a glass of champagne cost €26 and €29 respectively...our most expensive drinks ever...glad I am still earning pounds.

Sunday 15 April 2007
We woke up early and met Ammy, Peter and Janie on Avenue des Champs Elysées for the start of the Paris Marathon, as the purpose of this trip was not actually shopping...it was to support Jason in his first marathon. Watching the start was amazing...30000 people running at you down the Avenue des Champs Elysées with the Arc de Triomphe in the background was so cool. Jason ran by the side at the start, so Yang managed to grab a picture of him running past us.

After a quick breakfast, we headed to Pont Marie to try and get another glimpse of Jason...this time, we all totally missed him...he actually saw us...but it was not entirely our fault as Jason was about 5-10 minutes ahead of his group at that time so we weren't expecting him so soon.




To ensure we could get more photos of Jason, we got back on the Metro and headed to Avenue Foch for the finish. We arrived about 3 hours into the marathon at the end, but it was crowded...given the winner made it over the line in 2 hours 7 minutes and 19 seconds...that's an average of around 20km/hour...and I can only jog at 10km/hr and only for 1 hour...yikes! We did catch a glimpse of Jason this time (the runners were more spaced apart at this stage), just a few hundred metres from the finishing line. The whole experience was really exciting and the atmosphere was great with spectators cheering everyone on...it makes traveling all the more fun when you have an event to go to...just like the FIFA World Cup we went to last year. We met Jason at the end of the runner's enclosure and he didn't look that tired; he even walked back to the apartment (about 1.5kms away). WELL DONE JASON - who finished in 3 hours 50 minutes and 36 seconds and was ranked 8432 out of 28,261 starters...not a bad first effort!

We had a late lunch at Crêperie des Arts on Rue St André des Arts (mental note...lots of Crêperies on this street) and then Jason, Ammy and Peter left to take Janie sightseeing, whilst we wandered around more of St Germain and its many Art Shops. As it was 30°C, we queued up for 20 minutes for ice-cream at Amorino...it was definitely worth the wait! Then we walked along the Seine and towards the Lourve before heading back to our hotel to pick up our bags.

We took the Metro to Tolbiac for a quick dinner at Pho 14 and then made our way back to Gare du Nord to catch the Eurostar back to London.

Having been to Paris 4 times (Yang 5 times), this was one of the best trips because the weather was great, the atmosphere at the Paris Marathon was great (we even had a French man come up to us and ask if we needed help with directions whilst we were looking at a map...you don't get usually get that from Parisiens!), the company was great and we discovered some more new things too. Paris has definitely grown on me over time...I didn't really like it when I first visited, but once you stop going to all the touristy places and just enjoy the shopping, the café lifestyle (it's like the Subiaco Hotel and Oriel in its heyday at every corner!) and most importantly the food...it's fantastic...I could see myself living here for a while (Yang?). I can definitely see what Cole Porter was on about when he wrote "I love Paris".

I love paris in the spring time
I love paris in the fall
I love paris in the summer when it sizzles
I love paris in the winter when it drizzles

Tallinn - Easter in a Medieval Town

Friday 6 April 2007
We met Loreen & Felix at Heathrow and kicked back in the Business Class Lounge before departing on our flight to Tallinn, capital city of Estonia, via Helsinki. They were still serving breakfast in the lounge when we got there and then they started serving lunch just as we were leaving the lounge to board our flight, so we had two meals in the lounge (plus the usual mouldy sandwich on the BA flight)! It was a pretty long day of traveling so we (including Ryan who had taken an earlier flight and spent the day in Helsinki) arrived in Tallinn around 8:30pm.

Our first stop was to drop our bags off at the apartment we had rented for our stay. Upon entering the building it looked very run down and dodgy. The lift was tiny and barely fit our luggage and one person. Everyone else had to walk up six flights of stairs. The door to our apartment looked like a bank vault and even had four locking rods (as opposed to the usual simple latch). However our fears were allayed when we walked into the apartment and saw that it was very clean and modern inside and it also had quite a nice view onto the Old Town (pictured).

After we dropped our bags off, we went to dinner at KN Restaurant. The menu wasn't really Estonian (which is most probably why I wanted to order almost every main course on the menu) but the food, service and atmosphere were great. We even had our own little section complete with exposed Medieval brickwork.


Saturday 7 April 2007
We all struggled to wake up early (Tallinn is BST +2) but managed to make it to the tourist office and find out that my whole itinerary had to change as most of the places I had scheduled to visit on Sunday were closed because of Easter (but they didn't say that on their websites...how rude!). So after a quick breakfast at Coffer, where the breakfast set came with a pint of beer (Yang and Felix rose to the challenge), we got on the hop-on hop-off buses and headed to the Pirita area of Tallinn. As it was really really really cold and windy, we sought refuge in the warmth of the bus and didn't make it up the Tallinn TV Tower or around the Botanic Gardens (which had Australian wildflowers for some reason). However, we did brave the harsh conditions for a while and made it to St Bridget's Covent Ruins (which crumbled in the siege by Ivan the Terrible) and the Tallinn Olympic Yachting Centre (which was used during the 1980 Moscow Olympics). Unfortunately the Ruins were closed so we were left standing around in the freezing cold waiting for the next bus to arrive. The irony is that it was 18 degrees and sunny in London (i.e. the only time the weather was going to be nice in London this year) but we went to a place where it was below zero and where it was supposed to snow.

Our next stop was Kadriorg Park and Palace. The baroque Palace was built for Peter the Great, the Russian Tsar, who intended to use it as the summer residence for the Royal Family. Although pretty, it wasn't as grand or opulent as the Catherine Palace outside St Petersburg. It also housed portraits of arguably the ugliest man and woman known to man; unfortunately for them they hadn't invented plastic surgery or Photoshop back then. This is where we also discovered the Estonian fascination of depriving people of their overcoats. At the Palace (and for the rest of our trip) they insist on taking your overcoat, even if you are cold (Ryan was only wearing a t-shirt under his overcoat) or you aren't even wearing an overcoat (Yang's blazer was also confiscated), which led to some interesting comments in their "visitor's book".

Lunch followed at Spaghetteria Kadriorg...again non-Estonian cuisine but we all love pasta (Felix used his risotto carbonara and his minute steak (and beer) at Coffer that morning as his 'benchmark' for the rest of our meals in Tallinn). Strangely they initially seated us in the section where they didn't serve pasta (the restaurant is called a Spaghetteria after all). But it makes sense as the prices were much higher than the pasta menu (the "tourist section" perhaps?). Fortunately we were able to move to the regular section without too much fuss.

After lunch we got back on the hop-on hop-off bus where we absorbed (some of us whilst sleeping!) the sights outside of the Tallinn Old Town, including the Old Port, Fish House Area, the Concert Hall (which won an architecture award but was really ugly...just a massive concrete bunker) and the entrances of the Open Air Museum and Tallinn Zoo.

After the bus tour, we did a bit of shopping before heading for dinner. Some of the shops in Tallinn are quite remarkable. For instance one store was an ultra modern building that contained ruins of (presumably) the original building in the basement. But the theme we noticed was that as nice as these shops were, they didn't sell anything of particular merit.

We had dinner at Kuldse Notsu Korts (The Little Piggy Inn) a country style Estonian restaurant, complete with chandeliers made out of old wicker baskets and wagon wheels. Yang and Felix each attempted to eat the world's largest pork knuckle, but in a strange twist of fate Felix, even with Ryan helping him, left more of his meal uneaten than Yang.

After dinner we "ventured" across the road to the Beerhouse, a microbrewery with live German oompah music and a dancing damen and herren group. The beers were not terribly impressive but the beer hall did have a nice atmosphere (some of the tables were in little houses or giant barrels). After a couple of drinks we headed home, before Ryan could profess his love to the beer wench that was serving us.

Sunday 8 April 2007
Another early start for the team with a visit to the Tallinn Town Hall, the only intact Gothic Town Hall in Northern Europe, which we had all to ourselves during our visit. The Town Hall is closed during winter and visitors are admitted by appointment only, so the security guard had to let us in.

After visiting the Town Hall, we had breakfast at Le Bonaparte in the Old Town (its quiches were really nice and I finally had a non-filtered coffee). Yang completed his trilogy of having an alcoholic drink for breakfast by having a hot chocolate with rum (he had a gin and tonic at breakfast in the Business Class Lounge on the first day). After breakfast we conducted our own Old Town tour (we were supposed to have an audio guide but it was Easter Sunday so the Tourist Office (which rents out the audio guides) was closed...).

- Great Coastal Gate and Fat Margaret's Tower







- St Olav's Church, which we climbed to take in views of the Old Town. From here, we really got to appreciate the extent of the fortifications that protected Medieval Tallinn
- Great Guild Hall
- House of the Brotherhood of Blackheads
- Oleviste Guild Hall
- Kanut Guild Hall
- Holy Spirit Church, with its ornately painted clock, the oldest public timepiece in Tallinn
- Nunna, Sauna and Kuldjala Towers, part of the remaining fortifications
- Toompea Castle, where the Estonian Parliament sits
- Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, a Orthodox Church, which stands out in the Old Town as clearly being built during Tsarist Russian times. The gold mosaics decorating both the inside and outside of the Cathedral were reminiscent of the Church of Spilled Blood in St Petersburg



- Kiek in de Kok, the boys loved the name of this medieval defence tower. However, the literal translation isn't what it sounds like...it just means "peep into the kitchen"
- Maiden Tower, a prison for prostitutes during the Middle Ages


- St Nicholas Church, not very exciting...just another Church!
- Master's Courtyard, where we stopped for hot chocolate and cake in lieu of lunch due to the lateness in which we had breakfast, at the Chocolaterie Cafe
- St Catherine's Passage, where artists and craftsman 'work' in an open studio for all to see...unfortunately all these workshops were closed because it was Easter Sunday.

After covering all the above sights of Old Town, we headed to the Viru Centre for shopping. Given most of the nice stuff was from Western Europe and as we are heading to Paris next weekend, I wasn't really in a shopping mood, so we didn't stay long and ended up back in the apartment to have an afternoon nap!

Dinner this evening was at Balthasar, a garlic restaurant, overlooking the Town Square. Yang was the brave one and had garlic for all three courses...yes...garlic ice-cream...well if bacon and egg ice-cream made it on a Michelin star restaurant menu then I guess garlic makes sense too? After dinner, we had drinks at the kitsch Depeche Mode Baar...Yang's a fan of their music...all I can say is...at least the drinks were cheap!

Monday 9 April 2007
Everyone was a bit bored of sightseeing so we didn't make it to the Tallinn Zoo or Open air Museum for a proper visit. Also you have to bear in mind that although it didn't snow in the end, it was still freezing. Instead, we woke up late, had lunch at Vanaema Juures, a traditional Estonian Resturant visited by Senator Hillary Clinton. The food was really homely (I guess that is why the restaurant's name translates to Grandma's Place) but a bit heavy for our first meal of the day. I'm not sure what Hillary's standards are, but we weren't terribly impressed by the staff smoking whilst they were working and the worm that was wandering around our table, which the waitress squashed with her fingers...luckily we only pointed it out to her after we finished eating...

We spent the afternoon shopping at Stockmann before having a quick game of Monopoly the Card Game back at the apartment. If you want to know who won, let's just say that tradition was not broken. Then our driver came to take us to the airport.

We stopped over in Helsinki on the way back and Yang and I picked up 2 bottles of 1999 Dom Perignon as it is €25 cheaper per bottle than in France and as we hadn't bought anything in Tallinn this was our 'souvenir'.

In summary, a relatively easy going trip with good company, which resulted in some very interesting conversations during our many meals!