Tuesday, July 19, 2016

The Returning Thing

Over the last decade or so I've travelled around quite a bit, and my hunger for seeing new places hasn't diminished. I try to make it a rule, in fact, to visit at least one 'new' country each year. (This year I've managed two  yay!)

At the same time, though, there are also places that I find myself returning to again and again  either because of work, or personal commitments, or just because the places themselves keep drawing me back. 


The Nerd, The Sea, The Flag of Estonia
Tallinn-Helsinki Ferry, Baltic Sea, 19.07.16
A classic example of this is where I am now: inside a hydrofoil ferry on the Baltic Sea, crossing from Estonia to Finland. 

I'm not sure how many times I've made this journey, but it's enough that I have a bunch of memories associated with it. There was the time when I jumped on a ferry at 7am, not having slept and still drunk from an evening of revelry in Tallinn; the time when my suitcase broke as I stepped out of the ferry terminal in Helsinki, spilling my belongings all over the road; the time when boarding meant that I'd reluctantly but definitively parted with a woman; and then a bunch of other disembodied moments, mostly involving me standing on the outside deck, just savouring the Baltic winds and the 'uncluttered' feeling of being on the open water.

I really do enjoy the 'Returning Thing'; it gives you a chance to see how places change and develop over time. Also, every time you come back to a place, you've developed a little as well, so you see it through different eyes and notice different things.

Shrine
Lviv, Ukraine, 13.07.16
One place I return to quite often is Lviv, because my son lives there. It's very much a multi-layered kind of place, and each visit gives me a new perspective on it. And within moments of arriving, I've invariably whipped out my camera and started capturing the things that are grabbing my attention this time around. 

This year I tended to focus on small details, like this shrine to the 'Virgin' Mary which I noticed in the stairwell of a dinghy Soviet-era apartment block. (Sorry for the blurry pic; it was dark in there, and I only had my phone.) Last year I stayed for a lot longer and I snapped quite a few different things, including some of Lviv's wonderful older architecture (always a great target for the camera lens) and anything which related to the war in the East. 

Monument to The Victory Over Nazism
Lviv, Ukraine, 05.09.15
I also got to do sth I'd planned for a long time: spend half an hour with Lviv's amazing Monument to The Victory Over Nazism, which stands a little way out of the centre in an open square. Like the Moscow Olympics Bus Stop (mentioned in the previous post), this symbolises the city's complex relationship with Russia and with its the Soviet past ... but it's also just an incredible piece of brutalist statuary.

Cosmonaut's Column
Victory Over Nazism Monument, Lviv, Ukraine, 05.09.15

At the front of this monument stands a huge column, into which a 'cosmonaut' and two soldiers are embedded at different heights. The effect is striking, as the figures stand starkly, heroically against the sky. 

Behind this is the main part of the monument, on which a series of interlocked vignettes depict fierce hand-to-hand struggles on the battlefield as well as other scenes from life during wartime. My favourite of these is probably the one below, in which a Ukrainian woman hands a loaf of bread to a soldier. The looks on their faces  especially the soldier's steely, determined glare  are quite mesmerising, because they seem full of cryptic hints about how the victors regarded themselves when the monument was designed. 

A Loaf to Save A Life
Victory Over Nazism Monument, Lviv, Ukraine, 05.09.15

I've got a lot more pictures of this thing which I could show you ... but you get the point :-)

Another of my 'former home towns' is Tallinn, it's and one that I particularly enjoy returning to. These days, I generally only have time to pop in overnight  but even that can be a great pleasure in its own way. 

Still Loving The Old Digs
Tallinn, Estonia, 19.07.16

It's been said that Tallinn has become somewhat over-commercialised, and that it's lost its former charm in the process. I don't know that I'd agree. It certainly seems more developed these days, and the tourism industry has pretty much achieved Full Specturm Dominance on the port side of the Old Town. Likewise in the slightly seamy little 'Club District' that has spread out through the streets around Viru (one of the main medieval gates). 

The thing is, though, Tallinn has always been commercial, and it's always had its seamy side. But if you know your way around, you can still get away from the main tourist drags and find the quiet, tranquil bits. And architecturally, it's as breathtaking as it ever was. So I have to disagree: I still think it's a marvel.

Actually, the main reason why I started thinking about this whole business of 'returning' is something that happened to me when I arrived in Tallinn yesterday.

I was booked in to a place called the '16 Euros Fat Margaret Hostel'. Fat Margaret is one of the 34 towers that form part of the city's medieval wall, and it's one of those that you can enter through, sort of around the back of the Old Town. I know this because the school where I worked in 2009, International House Tallinn, was located across the road from it.

I have very fond memories of working in that school. Probably more than anywhere else I've taught, it was what some people like to call a 'family school', where the Director of Studies and the receptionist were one and the same person, every teacher knew every student (and in the case of kids and teens, often their families too), and where there was always a hot cup of tea waiting for you when you came up the stairs to the reception area.

However, it was also a school in crisis: struggling to pay its bills, it'd had its heating switched off more than once during the bitter winter months, and there was even talk of trying to re-open one of the bricked-up old fireplaces, just to keep the teachers and students from freezing to death while they studied. Serious conference calls with the building's owner were commonplace, as were less-than-rosy predictions of the school's future.   

When I saw the address of the Fat Margaret hostel on my booking.com printout, I thought "Oh, I think I know where that is  just go past the IH Tallinn building, head up the road, and turn left." I was quite looking forward to passing the building where I used to work, just to see if it was a) still there and b) still a school.

As I got closer, though, it seemed there was something wrong. I'd drawn more or less parallel with the school, though I hadn't actually looked at it yet, and from here the map seemed to be telling me there was a road forking off to the left. But I can usually recognise a road when I see one  it's one of my professional skill sets  and I definitely couldn't see one here.

I glanced over at the school, and got the shock of my life  well, ok, maybe not quite, but certainly the shock of my month. Over the door was a sign: "16 Euros Fat Margaret".

The hostel was the school!!

Formerly My Workplace, And Now My Hostel
'Fat Margaret' Hostel, Tallinn Estonia, 19.07.16

Checking in was weird. There was a new reception downstairs, and the guy gave me a key and directions to my room, which was on the upper floor, where the classrooms used to be. As I ascended the stairs and walked down the hallway, I passed old classrooms, their doors now marked with private room and dormitory numbers. And when I finally came to my room, in a far corner, I realised that I'd actually taught where I was now about to shower and sleep!

This was definitely one of the strangest 'returns' I've experienced anywhere.

I had to talk to someone about this, so I tried explaining to two staff members that I used to work in the building. It seemed like they weren't quite sure whether to believe me, or to conclude that I was slightly unhinged and delusional. I guess that's what comes from working at a hostel for too long: you meet so many weirdos, and hear so many tall tales, you become skeptical about anything that sounds a bit improbable.   

Anyway ... at any moment now, I'm going to experience another return. The ferry is pulling in to Helsinki Harbour. From there, I'll wind through the familiar streets of the city centre to the railway station, and grab a train to 'my' part of Finland, the region known as Kymenlaakso. This is one of my favourite 'Returning Places' of all  and much to my joy, delight and general hooray-for-me-ness, I've got nearly a month to savour it. 

I'm sure to be in a ranting mood at some point during that month ... so you'll hear from me soon :-)

Bye!


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