As my final Baltic Tweet travelled around the world to my recently new found 274 ‘Virtual friends’ I myself began my journey leaving Estonia the country I had called home for the last 8 years. My first mode of transport which could for health reasons involve trains, automobiles but definitely no planes was the ferry Ophelia, as I tackled the on board open herring sandwich, Hamlets lover was readied to begin crunching her way through the still partially frozen Baltic Sea separating Saaremaa from Tallinn.
The ropes were set free from the quayside and Ophelia skated sideways with a beauty that even Ruthie Henshall would have found faultless.
Ophelia was no more than a minute into her routine when I realized I was already suffering withdrawal symptoms from my injection of pleasure as I was informed that there was no internet connection during this particular 45 minute part of my journey and my bulging veins anticipating their next twitter fix that accompanies every @pitstopmark reply, oops, its called a mention now isn’t it, would have to wait.
Soaked with sweat after frantically pacing around the ship like an animated Todd and Jerry on ice we finally arrived in Tallinn and I dragged, struggled, switched hands and even considered dumping 1 of my 5 bags, but no prizes for guessing the last one to go would be my lifeline to sanity, the lap top. I would rather walk naked than risk the chance of not being able to enter the ‘Twitter Zone’ in the not too distant future.
Ahhhhh it’s 18.00 on Wednesday the 1st of April. Is this some kind of joke that usually accompanies this day on the calendar? I am on the Tallink Victoria, A proper passenger ferry, 800 semi luxury cabins, 2 night clubs, A la carte restaurant, 24 hour fast food, casino, shops and even a beauty salon.
Well here’s the thing, I don’t want to buy the latest Calvin Klein cologne from a sales assistant who smells like she has is just about to knock off from the perfume counter to begin her shift in a brothel, or go for a manicure, I did that myself with my earlier mastication, I do not want to gaze through magazines of Brad Pitt lookalikes choosing a hair cut that will in no way make me as sexually attractive to the opposite sex, I certainly have no need for a sauna, I am sweaty enough from my donkey impressions along the trollyless, travellatorless walkways to board this floating village, no amount of Calvin’s latest potion could camouflage the stench emanating from this gladiator and I definitely don’t want to gamble away what little money I have left. I will need to use my diminishing funds to restore my energy just in case Stockholm awaits me with the same warm welcome and lack of mechanical or human assistance that I received back in the former USSR.
Bags in the cabin, which thanks to a very nice girl at the ticket desk had placed me in a 4 berth cabin all alone, whether it was out of kindness to me or to protect any other passengers that might find them unfortunate enough to spend the night in a stable with Shreks sidekick.
Washed, fed and watered I could wait no more, with my most important bag in hand like an agitated Heroin addict now shaking profusely, I pensively approached the receptionist and enquired with a level of fear, talking out of one side of my mouth keeping a look out in case anyone saw me say those words, ‘Excuse me, do you have internet on this ship? Really hoping I wouldn’t hear the words ‘Sorry I got nothing for you today’. Her answer was a bit of a double edged needle, ‘Yes sir we do but it’s not very strong, I think there are many others that got theirs before you so I think it will be quite weak now’.
Incredible like a rush of adrenalin racing through my veins quicker than the chuckle brothers can admit they’re fakes, I see the blue sky and scattered clouds on my rectangular lap top porthole, ‘Hi I am on my way to Stockholm on the second leg of my journey back to blighty, what have I missed? Any more pics from Adam Woodyatt?
BUGGER! Connection lost, that’s almost worse than not getting to tweet at all, did my tweet get sent in time? Did any of my ‘Friends’ see it, I don’t want them thinking I am no longer on twitter, will they forget me, it’s been almost 10 hours since my last tweet. I decide to control my anger, return to my stable and get my head down on the hay for the night. I sleep nothing like a baby thank god, I didn’t keep waking up or poo my pajamas and I wake feeling refreshed at 8am and head off to the 25 hour, yes, 25 hour fast food place which closes between 10.30 and 11.30 am, so it’s a 23 hour shop then, my geography may not be up to much but my maths is spot on, which also helps me to work out that I'm paying over the odds for a tuna sandwich, a banana and a cup of coffee. I take my seat by the window and see the spectacular archipelago with exquisite Swedish summer houses sprouting out of the winter snow all over the mountains like massive spring flower beds, I am approaching Scandinavian civilization, luxury, polite warm hospitality and with that I am hoping the end of having to use my donkey legs and relieve my aching arms which now resemble a monkeys.
I make sure I am at the front of the queue so I can make the next connection in 1 hour 15 minutes which is a train from Stockholm central station all the way down to Esberg in Denmark with one change at Copenhagen along the way.
We all edge toward the gangway like jockeys in the Grand National, no false start here, I make a great start but this stallion soon shows his breeding when not even blinkered I search in vain for a trolley, ah but what’s that I see? Brilliant, it’s like a moving walkway but for bags not humans, but like the internet on the boat, it just didn’t work.
I was like Jenson Button on pole position but ended up like Lewis Hamilton but with one difference, I didn’t claw my way back through to third but then again I remained true to my morals and remained honest and although there was no, albeit short promotion to the podium, I managed my race alone with no crew and was there when the green flag was waved on the Swedish SJ railways 11.21 to Esberg
Although I had made the train, settled into my comfy seat with my leg up as instructed by my doctor, when I noticed loads of people opening up lap tops and within seconds I heard the familiar sound the MSN message alert sound, music to my ears, internet! At last, proper reliable Swedish engineering, I purchased my code which worked out about a tenner for the entire 9 hour journey and meant I could again share a needle with my fellow Twitter junkies.
My euphoria was short lived, my own msn alert brought me back to reality when a less than competent piece of Iranian/Swedish reliability in human form screamed at me in capital letters ‘GET OFF THAT TRAIN AS QUICK AS YOU CAN’ I didn’t know what to think, had I awoken from a bad dream into a nightmare reality and found myself in the midst of a bomb alert from my Iranian born Swedish friend who had mapped out my route home? Well happily for the other passengers but very shockingly for me it transpired, the train would arrive in Esberg 2 hours after the boat left for Harwich in the UK and what made it easier to convince me to get off as soon as possible was the fact there was no boat leaving after that 'til Saturday which meant 2 nights in Esberg, nowhere to stay because my budget never included an emergency fund for such a monumental fuck up by a guy that prided himself on his Iranian army timing coupled with his 17 years of learning Swedish competence.
So I quickly tried to dismiss all the negative thoughts (most importantly I am not sure if or when I will have internet again) and focus on another route back. The guy that put me in this position seemed to of redeemed himself when he ‘Arranged’ an alternative which involved getting off the train I was on, losing the 90 quid I had paid for the ticket, lose the 10 quid I had used for one Tweet, plus receive the bad news from the Swedranian and get a train from Nassajo to Gothenburg.
All I had to do was wait 30 minutes for the train which would get me into Gothenburg 1 hour before I had to be on board a cargo ship which was leaving for Tilbury in Essex at 1900 hours. Finally it all looked so simple, nothing could go wrong from here surely? I needed to call a woman called Margaret at DFDS on arrival, she would sell me my ticket and I could go and roll up in a ball somewhere on the container ship and wake up getting my passport checked by Sharon or Tracy.
The train with Meticulous full breed Swedish timing pulled into Gothenburg station at 16.57. I was elated to see my doors open right by a line of baggage trolleys, ah ha, no 5 SEK coins to release the umbilical chain and as I let out my first angry scream of the day although it raised many Swedish eyebrows it never managed to raise any hands of help.
Ok Mark, come on you’re British, bulldog spirit and all that, I was warned to get some food before I got on the anticipated rat infested rust bucket hopefully all the way home as only breakfast the following morning was included in the 160 pound price tag. So with 6 bags in hand, some by now dragging ripping on the Gothenburg cobbled taxi rank approach, I met by far the most helpful local up til now, A Hungarian who had been in Sweden for 42 years, I explained the situation and he made me feel for the first time today I was ‘Going home’ and he would make sure of it, after all we could be related he explained (Mistaking me as an Estonian rather than just someone who had lived in Estonia for the past 8 years) he educated me that Estonians, Finnish and Hungarians were all part of the same language group therefore somewhere back in history our forefathers probably at same stage shared more than goulash.
I never let on that we might not be related after all, I had a brother here that was going to get me home, he called Margaret but she didn’t answer, it was gone 5, surely she hadn’t just left a ‘Sick man’ (And I’m not talking home sick here) with nothing more than his fare home, 2 chicken salad baguettes a bag of cheese and onion crisps (not Walkers before you all shout at once ‘Well what have you got to complain about) and the obligatory banana to give me that extra boost to get all my belongings and myself back to where we belong.
Margaret, when we eventually got through to her via Eve and Freda Sharon and Tracy’s equivalents at Gothenburg border control was very quick to inform me that firstly I needed a real friend, had she recognized me from Twitter? No she was telling me that the ‘Real Friend’ I thought I had back in Estonia had actually lied to me and she had told him I should be at the boat 2 hours before departure the ticket should be paid for by card 4 hours prior to boarding also. After persuading her to allow me to pay with good old fashioned cash and talked my way out of trying to reverse an earlier plea by me to allow me to travel because of an illness I had by way of convincing her it wasn’t contagious and a promise that I wouldn’t die on the way home I entered what was going to be the vessel that would take me to my final destination.
I reluctantly left my passport and 3 bags in the ships office and I must admit that I was more worried about someone putting something in my bags than taking something out. I have seen ‘Banged up Brits abroad’
I was sent in the general direction of my cabin, wow I get a cabin I thought, well it’s looking better already, at least I’m not forced into scrubbing the decks and then having to sleep on them. After crawling under Truck trailers and making myself as thin as possible to get between the tightly packed cargo I reached my cabin. It was fantastic, huge, bigger than my 4 berth one on the Victoria, if I had brought a cat with me I could of cleaned him by swinging him around in the shower with me.
Then the ships chef told me that dinner was ready in the mess room when I was ready, help yourself to tea or coffee whenever you want and breakfast will be between 7.30 and 9.30 in the morning. Had I wandered onto the wrong ship, was I going to become the all male crews’ entertainment in my large bed? What happened? Had I finally succumbed to the blood clot in my leg, died and gone to heaven?
I just re read that last paragraph and realized how bad it reads and makes me sound more gay than Oscar Wilde but I won’t bother changing it, I will leave it there for your amusement.
Once again, showered fed and too tired and to be honest too scared to ask the dreaded 'Do you have internet' question, I decided to get an early night and wake bright and early for a real hearty shipmate’s breakfast. I met the one other paying passenger on the Ark Forwarder with whom I would spend the entire following day introducing each other to great comedy we had both been missing out on while he has been living in Gotland which is an Island between Estonia and Sweden and myself of course in Estonia.
The Ark Forwarder http://twitpic.com/2v5ln http://twitpic.com/2v5yz http://twitpic.com/2v64w
Is that a tweetdeck or what?
Mark, my new comedy buddy being a complete computer nut appeared with his Mac and quickly established that there was also internet available on this palace made for 2 and as he chatted on skype to his wife and kids I went straight to the medicine cabinet. Amazing, here we are off the coast of Denmark the 2 happiest guys on the planet, he has his family and I have found my Shangri-la. I could finally rid myself of the guilt I had carried in addition the other baggage and at least try and explain why I had been absent but with unavoidable leave from Twitter, but I was ready to make up for it.
I began explaining the basic idea of twitter to my newest recruit, Mark who already spends a large proportion of his days on the internet for work certainly wasn’t looking for another attraction to keep him in front of a screen for any longer than his work demanded. My space, Facebook and Bebo had already failed to tempt him but rest assured after showing him around the celebrity corridors of Twitteringshire manor, dropping in on Jason Manford via Youtube and a quick rummage around in the attic which is my blog I finally lured him into another inter / net.
We spoke about every celebrity, non celebrity boring and interesting person I come across in my daily visits to the manor, whether you are searching for a little company, feel like joining in conversations about politics, help the newest charity appeal, talk to music maniacs, film fanatics, or just spend a bit of time away from reality chasing celebs around the Twitter maze it has something for you.
Twitter is like a friend you don’t appreciate until it isn’t there anymore. My adventure came to an end at 0900 hours on Saturday the 4th of April at Tilbury docks 75 hours after it began, the 2 hours 40 minute journey a healthy person might take from Tallinn to Stansted is certainly the quickest route from A to B, but sometimes it pays to go via Sea.
All the disappointments, heartache, loneliness and the thought of my homes and families Essex and Twitteringshire manor kept me strong and all I endured was made even more worthwhile due to the fact that I could then share the whole experience with you all. I am HOME
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