844. Luxembourg

First post of 2022! We celebrated Christmas and New Year's here in Tallinn. The past couple years have felt quite strange due to the pandemic and our travels. I can't quite keep track of time. The year went by in a blur. Last year for the holidays we were in Morocco, which doesn't even feel like a year ago already. Sometimes I forget which month it is and it didn't feel like Christmas at all this year. Even though in Tallinn, we were in the right atmosphere for it - lots and lots of snow and a Christmas market we often walked by. For new year's we walked out to an open space close to our place and saw the fireworks around us. In Tallinn there isn't one central place for the celebrations and fireworks. They do them in several places around the city and on a smaller scale.

Rewinding back to October, after visiting Strasbourg, we took the train to Luxembourg. We mainly went there to visit my friend Anouk who I haven't seen in years! If you've followed my blog for awhile, we first met in person back in 2012 in Paris - both of us were on vacation. She lives in Luxembourg so I've always wanted to visit her there someday. Finally 9 years later I made it lol. In between we've taken trips together to Capri, London and Western Canada, and she's also visited me in Toronto a few times. Hope we will be able to meet again soon..somewhere else in the world!

We stayed in Luxembourg for 2 nights. It's a tiny place and possible to see everything within hours. Unfortunately I was quite sick during those days (it was right after I took my first vaccine dose as well, which was probably the cause) but had a great time. It was nice to catch up. It is a beautiful little place and felt kind of like a fairytale village or one you see on chocolate boxes.



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842. Tallinn Part 2 | Back in Estonia

In between my previous blog post and this one, we have spent several days in Paris. Blog posts from that trip will come eventually. It was kind of a "last minute decision" to return to Estonia after that. Well, I didn't have many options anyways since it's the only Schengen country I'm allowed to be in at the moment. At the time of this post I'm unfortunately still waiting on the result from my Digital Nomad Visa application..the deadline is in a few days so that will determine what happens after Estonia (if I am forced to leave Schengen).

Now it has gotten a lot colder here in Tallinn and we even got snow a couple days ago, though it has all melted since then. The Christmas Market here is set to open tomorrow which I'm very excited for! I really love Christmas Markets in Europe, and I heard this one in Tallinn is rated one of the best. It's very sad that the markets of Germany are closed this year since they received an influx of COVID cases these past weeks. I've always wanted to go to the ones there. We were lucky to have visited (Munich) last month when it was still relatively normal.

Maiasmokk is one of my favourite cafes in the city. I really love cafes (or restaurants) in this style. It's the oldest cafe in the city, dating back to 1864, and known for their marzipan. Apparently they are the "birthplace of marzipan".

Pelmeni are Russian dumplings. I really love them.

I think this is the best rated restaurant in the city. It's called Rataskaevu 16 which is also just their address. I got the elk roast which was delicious.

This was Siga La Vaca, an Argentinian steakhouse. Of course I rarely order steak at steakhouses. I got the octopus which I was a bit sceptical about at first (I don't think Estonia is known for octopus) but it ended up being really good.

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832. Dubrovnik Part 1 | Around the Old Town

Last weekend we took a trip to Dubrovnik, Split and also across the border to Mostar. Dubrovnik was a place that has always been on my bucket list. I really loved it there but I think I was more impressed by Rovinj. Probably because I've always wanted to visit Dubrovnik and had very high expectations. I did still enjoy it a lot though, especially at night when the place comes alive. We took a day trip to Mostar as well (in Bosnia) and had to do a COVID rapid test in order to enter the country, then to return back to Croatia. It was a bit of a hassle and endless border crossings, but worth it. I will talk more about that in a future post. Then on the way back to Zagreb, we stopped in Split for a night. Split is another very popular destination around here but I didn't find it to be anything special. If I didn't visit Dubrovnik first (and other more beautiful coastal cities), I think I would have really loved Split. But I would have been fine with not visiting it. It's still a nice place but I found it too touristy and not really beautiful.

Anyways, we stayed in Dubrovnik for 3 nights. I would have liked to spend more time there to just relax and explore more of the surrounding areas. Here are some random photos walking around the old town.

We went to this restaurant. It was a great spot at the end of the main street.

I got the seafood risotto. It was sooo good and contained a LOT of seafood.

I was very shocked to see this woman had the same shoes as me! The colourful ones on the left. They are by United Nude. I bought a pair in Bangkok a few months ago. I've never seen people with the same shoes as me before lol (well the more unique shoes that I own)



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