estoni-oni-a pictures

estoni-oni-a pictures

Pictures from estonia, hand wrapped for you


the old town

mas old town

estonian traditional dancers

me having no idea what im doing

true true

ughhh 830 in the morning comes too early

so does the 330pm sunset

its a nice house

the greek orthodox church

a government building

a pink house
more old town

the old town sky line

estonian sky scrapers

mas

old town was really good okay

ahh a little bit of home

me and james

and my biggest fan

thanks for looking,

jacob

estoni-oni-a

tere tulemast Tallinna

Welcome to the Estoni-oni-oni-a blog. The land of no sun, hot chicks, good beer, and wild meats. This ladies and gentlemen is the tale of my greatest TDY trip thus far. May not be the coolest locale, but I had the best time here and I’m still not looking forward to going back to Bosnia. I have yet to go to Western Europe, so I don’t know how good or bad it is. However, I have spent more time in the former Soviet than all of Hanks High School 01, I extremely severely recommend the Baltic States to all of my XX friends. The ugly Estonians girls are better looking than Americans.

Friday
This is our standard travel day. Here to DFW and then to Frankfurt. We had a long long layover in Frankfurt then to Estonian. The flights were nothing to speak of. The movie selection was pretty bad. Although Eagle Eye was pretty awesome. The flight to Tallinn was alright. I sat next to some crappy French guy who insisted on having the window shade open. Frog, don’t you understand I’ve been up for 30 hours, I don’t need sunlight. Luckily, it gets dark quickly at 59 degrees north. So, I was able to fall back asleep. The Estonian airport was alright, I didn’t get a passport stamp from them. You can travel stamp free throughout the EU, so I got another Deutschland stamp. It was pretty cold the whole time. It hovered around 0 Celsius the whole week, but hardly any wind so it was durable.

Saturday
Normally it’s very hard to stay awake that first night. It’s key to stay up until bed time so you can adjust yourself as best as possible. So we went out to a restaurant. We found some pirate themed restaurant. I had elk and huge beer. It was very Viking-esque. Afterwards we went strolling through the old part of town. It was full of old buildings and cobblestone streets. Not much has changed in the last 400 years except for the addition of street lights. We came upon a cigar bar and two of the guys with me really wanted to smoke. Okay, so I’ll sit through it. I suck at smoking but, it’s always fun to break some trade embargos and have a Hecho en Habana. We went through another bottle of wine there. You’re only supposed to huff on these things, but I can’t, it was all up in my lungs and throat. So I killed like 7/8 of this thing and called it a night. A night at that place. We had one more stop to make. We saw some strip clubs that had our name on them. One of the guys had been there before and said it was awesome. It sucked though. I’ve never been to a good Euro strip club. Or at least the American ones are better. The reason I don’t like Euro clubs is that girls aren’t constantly dancing and when they do, they come to every patron and ask for a tip. Get to stepping, is what I’m thinking, but I hand over money because of the scary Euro door men. Well they take us downstairs into the Grotto and there is one girl for each of us. They are all soviets or Bolsheviks or Ukrainian, no Estonians. Very heavy accents. When I tell my girl I’m American, “Oh, you get me visa”, Yeah girl I’ll get you whatever you want just keep dancing. So these girls were good looking but they would not have made the cut for Motley Crues Girls Girls Girls video, because their dance skills aren’t up to snuff. The Estonian dollars are worth a tenth of what ours are. So a Twenty dollar bill is 2 US dollars, if you can’t do mental math. After one of the dancers dances on my friend, he puts a 5 EEK (that’s Estonian Kroon) into her undergarment. She takes it out and throws it in his face, she was pissed. He was pissed. I gave her a 100 EEK, just to appease the strip club gods and the scary doormen. After she leaves, I explain to him that he gave her 50 cents, which is not that bad. Most guys tip ones in US clubs, but I guess we weren’t in Kansas anymore. They don’t do dances there for less than 100 US, no thank you I said. I’m glad I only had so much EEK on me. Where you’re sitting with these girls you’re talking about whatever and they want drinks. Beer? “No, no beer, you buy me champagne, (the price is like 40 US for one glass), I don’t have that much, but I like it, but I want it, it’s not cost that much, Yeah but I don’t have that much EEK on me, you have plastic, you’re a big fancy American business man. Damn, got caught in my lie of small talk. Eventually, I get one of the other guys to leave with me, but one stayed inside for a little private VIP time. So we waited outside and watched a cool drunken street fight. We finally got home after getting lost for awhile. Lost in Translation happens a lot to me. But like always everything always works out in the end for me.

Sunday
That 8 am alarm came fast after getting to bed around 4. I was sweating something fierce, I wasn’t hung-over though. The whole day I was dragging though, about midday, I started to feel hung-over and it took a couple of naps and lots of fluids to get that feeling to go away. That day we just set up the network and everything worked pretty well. That night we decided just to eat in the hotel and call it a night. I turned my heater down a couple of notches. About 3 I woke up and turned the heater off.

Monday
I still woke up sweating and I couldn’t figure out why, so I left the window open and went to breakfast. In Estonia the sun comes up about 830 and sets about 4. It’s so odd to start the work day and not be light for at least two hours after that. Monday day was fine; it was just pre-conference and pretty boring. This was my first trip where I didn’t also have to do homework concurrently. So, I spent a lot of time on the Interweb that week. That night, I went back to old town for some food. We went to some Estonian place. The waitress stayed in character the whole night. Welcome lads from a far away land. I am but a poor humble servant girl. Here are your ales. We had rabbit and wild boar. Again, I felt like a Viking. We just came back to hotel after dinner. No need for Cubans and strippers again.

Tuesday
This was the first full work day and boy was it hectic. Everyone likes to forget their passwords and forget all network settings and basically they are like me. For everyone, except for a few, this is a vacation for them. Everyone looks forward to hanging out in a new country trying new things. So most of the time people are surfing the Internet also. That night we had the ice breaker and it was held in the hotel club. It was a pretty good evening. Free beer and wine is always nice. Hors devours were good. I talked with a few people, but wasn’t really in the mood for drinking and I wasn’t feeling good.

Wednesday
There were more sick people at this conference then I’ve ever seen before. I never got full on sick. If I were home I would have just drank lots of water and played racquetball. I couldn’t do either so I just relied on Ny/Dayquil. My teammates accused me of getting me sick, but I don’t think I did. This was the day of our cultural tour. Something I always look forward too. Unfortunately, by the time we left, it was already dark. So I fell asleep on the bus. We awoke at the Old Town and we had a pretty good tour guide. Went to an immaculate Eastern Orthodox Church, where I was foreboded from take pictures. It was snowing a little bit that night. We found a small Italian restaurant. I had pesto lasagna which was really tasty. Stopped in a liquor store and bought some souvenirs for my peeps.

Thursday
This was our first full day of work with no planned events. It’s my least favorite day. It was a long day too; I think I was there for 12 hours. That night, we just went back to old town and walked around. Old town was the shit, if you aren’t reading carefully enough.

Friday
Was the last day. We only had to work a half day and then we were given the rest of the day off. Yes, there is a difference. We got both. So I went and got a massage. It was given by this woman who I have since labeled Olga. She was old and strong and went to town on my muscles. She used these hot stones, which were scorching. I flinched when she put them on me and she snickered at me. She also gave me a hair massage. Yes, a hair massage, not a scalp massage. My hair looked like a troll doll from 4th grade, but it felt good. Afterwards I went backed to my room and chilled. We didn’t have to be downstairs for the cultural dinner until 630. The dinner was really good. Lots of meats that I didn’t know the animal origin of. I promise all of you that I didn’t drink too much, but I woke up hurting because I mixed and matched. The Canadians brought this whiskey that has maple syrup in it. Oh man is it good. Then I had some Armenian Cognac, my balls instantly dropped and I sprouted 22 chest hairs. It was pretty tough going down. I had some Salmiakki from Finland. It’s like Jager, but manlier. I also had some wine and champagne. Oh well, it’s like a buffet you gotta try it all. We left there about 10 and went back to hotel where everyone was partying. We all decided we had to go out to a club at some other hotel. It was called the Amigo club. There were lots of pretty girls there. None of them wanted to dance though. It felt just like every other time in my life….I need a Kleenex, one second. Okay, one girl finally agreed to dance with me. She was cool; spoke enough English to get by. She loved US 80s pop. So I danced with here for the next 2 hours. About 3, I was drunk, sleepy, and broke. So we hoofed it back to the hotel where I woke up and felt like death

Saturday
Since we didn’t leave Tallinn until 6 that night, we were able to sleep in and then we went shopping in old town. I got a really awesome ugly wool hat. I bought stuff for my friends and family. We went into some really cool antique stores and an old military surplus store. They had all kinds of US, USSR, and Nazi paraphernalia. It was really amazing. We came back to the hotel had some lunch and then just packed. I ended up missing my bus, but they came back for me, there are only a few flights a day to this place, so there was no worry. We flew to Frankfurt that night and just kicked it at the hotel. I was going to use the sauna but it wasn’t working.

Sunday
Finally time to come back to the You Es and Ay. I was upgraded to Business class on the long flight. It was amazing. The seat goes to 180 degrees. The movies are on demand, which is not a big thing, but AA coach doesn’t have that. Back to that in a little bit. My team lead found out that I got upgraded and was not please. Because he’s always ragging on me, I didn’t pay any attention to me, but my coworkers were saying he was calling me a smug son of a bitch. He was upset for like 30 minutes. Some of my coworkers told him to be quiet and knock it off, don’t be jealous. “He takes two trips to Asia, makes Executive Platinum and look at him, he gets upgraded and he’s all smiles” Had I known that’s how he really felt, I would have kicked him in his chest, gave him the finger, and told him to stop being a little bitch. He had the joy of sitting next to me in first on the DFW to Tucson flight. He was not a happy camper. I was non-verbal to him the rest of the trip and he didn’t like that further. He slept it off evidently because the next day at work he was pretty chill with me.

So that was my trip, pictures will follow next week. This was my best trip mostly because I was able to quench my tourist thirst. One of the guys who went on the trip was all about getting out of the hotel. So were able to try different restaurants at night and go see different buildings. We went out so much in the cold that my knuckles cracked because they got so dry. AWESOME. Alright, well this thing is pushing a quarter of ten thousand words. Time to wrap it up.

See you next time,

Jacob

phoenix phun

So as many of you know, we didn’t hang out much this Christmas and New Years because I really wasn’t there. Spent Christmas in Grenada and I was only home dec 31 night through Jan 2 morning. Not much time. That’s because I went to the Cardinals v. Flacons game and to the fiesta bowl. I was pretty happy with the drive from El Paso to Phoenix. I did it in about 6 hours, roughly. I was going to the Hampton Inn at the airport. Go there and my Dad was waiting in the lobby for me, but I couldn’t find him. “I’m right here in the lobby, where are you?”, “Uhhh, here too, where are you?” Wait…..is there more than one Hampton Inn Airport. “Yes, there is north and south.” Easy Hampton Inn trying to corner the hotel market. After everyone got to the hotel nothing was really open except for Applebee’s, yum ½ price appetizers and drinks after 10.
The next day we went on a mission to get AZ paraphernalia. Since I don’t know my way around Phoenix we were relying on my brother’s iPhone to get turn by turn directions. This turned into the biggest Eggemeyer ball busting I’ve ever been a part of. I don’t really know how to use an iphone, so trying to use the gps directions was slightly complicated. Everyone was ragging on me for getting “lost” and even Zach busted me, it was his first time. We googled mall directions, but we ended up getting directions to a medical mall. It was just a bunch of doctor offices and hospitals. So eventually we ended up at a mall in Prescott which is way east of where we wanted to be. The drive to Glendale was pretty chill, the stadium looks like a UFO in the middle of Canutillo. We parked out in the boonies, but were able to get a shuttle. The stadium was packed and loud and we were on the fourth tier, so it was kind of a hike and we missed most of the introductions. We ended up being on the top top top row, but it wasn’t too bad because we were on the 35-40. The game was great, a flea flicker and Fitzgerald, Bouldin, and James tearing it up. We had quite a few beers, I went on a beer run and when I came back some drunk bum was sitting next to my dad chatting him up because he wanted to know what the view from up there looked liked. Whatever drunk bum. So you all know the outcome of the game and I don’t really know football so I can’t really describe what it is I like or what was going on, but it was loud and awesome. So the Cards beat the Falcons even though no one expected them to and we went out on a pizza quest. Finally found one and it was money. It was a pretty long day and everyone else except me had to get up early, so they all went to bed.
They woke me up, all three of them because they are asses, but I was able to get back to sleep. I woke up and had some rockin continental breakfast, worked out, watched some pron, and then went to see my cousin Dan who had invited me to the Fiesta Bowl. A little about Dan, he just got back from Iraq, hasn’t had any alcohol in 7 months, hasn’t spent any money, and has an insatiable desire to party. So as soon as I got there we went and got some sushi. We went to some place and ordered way too much. So much that the waitress actually said, Wow you all are really hungry. Yeah, bitch, bring me my benzo box. Then Dan, in all his infatuation, really wanted some Sprinkles. Sprinkles is an upscale bougy cupcake place for stuck up white bitches wearing Uggs. He got a delicious red velvet cupcake. After that we went back and chilled until we went out to a Texas Exes event. It sucked bad; I’ve never seen so many crappy Texas people in all my life. Although I did see a 6’10” woman, my head only went to her shoulders. Some Mexican only went up to her ass, poor bastard. The event wasn’t popping, so we went to some crappy bib place. It was called Luanne’s or something like that. The wait staff was ranting and raving about the food, it was crap. And not just because I’m from Texas, it’s because it was crap. We went back to the crappy Texas ex’s party, stayed for awhile and then went to mill ave. There weren’t any hot co-eds, but there were some really cool bars. We went to a place called library and to another cool bar. There mostly Texas people there. A few buckeyes and of course they got into scuffles. We continued drinking and got a taxi, the next morning was pretty tough, I was very thirsty. We finally got up and got some food, we went to a place called the Salty Senorita. Next we went to the game and parked in the same place, Dan got into a fight with the parking attendants. $30 for parking and a mile walking to the game. We went to the world’s biggest tailgate party, hosted by Tostitos. It was very good, but we did get free Tostitos, hot dogs, sodas. Not bad. There were lots of sponsors, Toyota, Taco Bell, Samsung; all giving away swag. Next, we went into the game and went up to the nosebleeds. The UT side of the stadium was packed, but the Ohio state side was not filled. So they were out cheered. The Ohio state band did the scripts Ohio, which was pretty sweet. The game was pretty boring, until the 3rd and 4th quarter. I wasn’t happy for the outcome, but I was happy for Dan. There were a couple of scuffles in the stands. Those were pretty good. Dan and Ryan had drunk a bottle of Makers between themselves. So Dan was really happy and talking trash to OSU people. After we got back to the hotel, we ordered pizza. It turned out the pizza deliverer was an OU grad. Dan busted on him about Boise state running the statue of liberty play. He said that wasn’t the first time he heard it that night. Dan peed himself he was so happy. The night pretty much was over and in the morning I went back to work. That’s about it, it’s been a month and I’ve been off gallivanting around the globe, so there you go. The next four weeks will have blogs dropped. Thanks for reading.

Besos,

Jacob

grenada photos

grenadian photos

grenada photos

das monkey

crater lake

carolers

crater lake closer

this is cocoa being dried, they dont use rakes, they prefer it to be walked on by girls

the cocoa plantation house

the fermentation house, where it smells like rancid ass

andrew being very characteristic

the rum distillery

cheer up drew

sugar cane

the original smoke stack at the distillery

the crushing wheel

cut sugar cane, pre crushing

the river that powers the wheel

the original wheel from 1785, time for an upgrade i think

oily

here is where the fire is stoked

the rum is cooked in these five cauldrons at an increasingly higher temperature

same

then its put in these big vats, it looks like and smells like vomit

pretty island

me

andrew not liking me

the other brother not liking me

ahh girl cousins, at least they re happy to be around me

see

all smiles

some rain forest

mas rain forest

creek

the seven sisters waterfalls, i think there are 5 more somewhere else

that is some poofy hair

the coastline

see the sister is happy to be with her burnt brother

the cousin who looks nothing like me, but everyone thinks he does

here is everyones new wallpaper, pasty white chest, jet black hair, and lobster shoulders

girl cousins loving me

even none cousins loving me

the Maltese falcon, the worlds biggest sailboat

the SAC!

and the SAC! members

Grenada from the air

wheres filiberto from
EN PUERTO RICO!!!!!

mas puerto rico


pretty awesome,
wish you could have been there

jacob

chrimmus in grenada

Chrimmus in Grenada
So as many as you know you didn’t see me this year for Christmas. That’s because I was in the Caribbean. So even though it didn’t feel like Christmas, you quickly forget it all because you are on a tropical fucking island.
Saturday
My flight was ass early in the morning, 0550 in the morning. I was in first so I just slept. Got to DFW just before 8. Had an egg mcmuffin. Found some family members, unfortunately, that’s where I left them. They were flying from Kansas and were late leaving; they had to spend the rest of the day in Texas. Not that bad if you ask me. Andrew and I got to Miami and met some other family members. We were the only ones in first and they all scoffed at us. Few hours later we landed on the island. We stopped just before the end of the run way and then busted a donut and turned around back to the terminal. They only have one runway and only one entrance and exit. After we got through immigration and customs and got our baggage we went outside to wait for our ride. There were a bunch of guys waiting outside drinking. I could hear them talking, “That guy looks like Ryan”, “I think that’s Ryan”, “No that’s not Ryan”, “Well he holds his luggage like Ryan”, “He stands like Ryan”, “I think its Quinn”, “Hey man, can we take your picture, it’s because you look like our friend” “Sure, are you talking about Ryan Quinn”. “Nooooooooooooooo, you know Ryan, you don’t know Ryan, how do you know Ryan, shut up” Just then Ryan walked out and I pointed to him, that guy I said, Oh my God, you do know him” Then I got hugs and drinks. Later on that night we were back at the house just chilling and talking to cousins. Some of them decided to go out, but I decided to stay in. It was already 1 in the morning. Yes maybe I’m lame but whatever. Just as an FYI, they don’t close the clubs in Grenada. If you got money to spend they will let you.
Sunday
This was just a chill day. I went for kayak ride in the bay. Had some sandwiches then we went to the beach. That was a pretty fun beach called Spray Bay. My brother and I fought and that was fun. Later that night we just drank some beer and chilled at home. I can’t remember what we did that night.
Monday
We went shopping, got some chocolate, some rum, and some pizza. Then we went to the tourist beach and saw a bunch of crappy Britains. You can tell they are Britains because they look like lobsters and they suck. Then we went back to Spray Bay. Then we just chilled at home.
Tuesday
We had our only planned day of activities. First we just took a tour of the island. Then we went to a cocoa plantation. That was pretty interesting; cocoa is fermented before they use it for chocolate. Fermenting cocoa smells worse than the rodeo. We were also given an introduction to all the fruits that grow on the island. Did you know that loofahs are plants that fall into the river and then they are harvested in the ocean. Bet you didn’t. Next we went to a rum distillery. It was pretty interesting. It’s called Rivers Rum. It’s been around since 1785, they haven’t changed a thing since then. It’s pretty ghetto, but still interesting. The river is sold at 140 proof. It’s about 5 bucks a bottle; it’s what the winos drink in Grenada. After that we just went to another beach, one that was a bit more treacherous. Saw a uber tanned European. She didn’t give me a second look. She took her top off later according to my cousins. They said they are fans of bronze titties. That night all of the cousins went out to a bar. It was a pretty chill bar. We got tired so we took most of the bar patrons back to our house. We went through a few cases of beer playing 7-11 doubles. I’ll have to teach you Luis, since you love drinking games. It’s probably the best one I’ve ever played. I went to bed at 3, but Andrew stayed up and partied.
Wednesday
Fast forward 1.5 hours and they are waking Andrew up for some deep sea fishing. Poor bastard. They were on the boat at 0830. 0835 Andrews puking is sexy guts out. Then throughout the morning he was puking and dry heaving. Luckily for them they caught a 100 pound yellow fin tuna. This thing was the size of a small human. It was 5 feet long and 100 pounds. Son of a bitch tasted wonderful after it was seared. The rest of us went hiking to the Seven Sisters waterfalls. Pretty easy hike although it was really muddy. Nice fresh water waterfalls and pools, it was very cold. Then we had the bright idea to jump off the waterfall. The hike was very steep and deep mud. Once we got to the top of the waterfall the height looked much higher. 1-2-3 I jumped 1-2-3 seconds later I was in the water. Maybe not that long, but it sure felt like I was in the air for a long time. After I got out of the water I was shaking and everyone wanted to know why. I just high fived everyone, I didn’t know what, just exhilarating and my heart was pumping something fierce. So we hiked backed up, got a little rained on then we just went home and chilled.
If you cant tell I did a lot of chilling on this vacation. No work, no school work, no timetables, slept every day until my body decided to wake up. It was very nice.
Thursday
Merry Christmas. Another day of chilling. We went for a pretty long kayak ride. Then got some sun. A little too much sun. The whole week I was slathering on spf 1000, and I didn’t do a good enough job of putting it on. I was sunburned the next day. We had a late lunch, then we went to watch 24 hours of a Christmas story. Youd be surprised how many people have never seen that. Its awesome, especially watching a few minutes here then watching another few minutes in an hour later. We then played some family trivia games, my team lost. Later that night we had some awesome Christmas day dinner leftovers then watched Step Brothers. That was really funny, a pretty bad movie, but lots of great one liners.
Friday
We got up fairly early for a catamaran ride. That was a good trip. We went to an area where an artist set up some under water sculptures. Unfortunately it was pretty windy and choppy so all the ocean floor sentiment was kicked up and you couldn’t see anything. Then we went for a ride around the island. Had lunch on a small island. On the way home the winds were pretty high so we put the sails up and started hauling. Well not really, were going about 9 knots but it felt like 60 mph. we were jumping some waves. Plus it was kind of a booze cruise, so that’s always fun. Grenada had the best beer Ive ever had. Ive been to Germany and you can throw out all of their German purification laws, if I could only have one beer the rest of my life it would be Carib lager from Grenada. If you ever see some, get some, but don’t get Trinidad Carib. It is very inferior. The rest of the ride home was fun. That night we just did more hanging out. My crappy sister watched Mama Mia. So the other cousins just played cards and made fun of them. We had to get up early the next day so I didn’t want to go out that night, but Brandon did and he went to town. He got back around 0230, did a face plant into his bed and ended up pissing himself.
Saturday
This was our flight home day. When we checked in I saw this woman who was in a wheelchair and was on oxygen. Well when I got on the plane she was there in first class and was looking around and talking. She was actually flying with a air ambulance service. About an hour into the flight they checked on her and couldn’t find a pulse. So they started doing resuscitation, the ambulance guy was pretty worthless. The flight attendants were doing a better job. They eventually called for doctors and there happened to be two on board. They came up and started doing their best, about 4 minutes later the woman doctor looks up to the husband and says im sorry, we lost her. Well the husband started crying and the doctor did a little bit too. They put her in the chair and put a blanket over her. We had another hour to Miami but the pilot didn’t want to do that so we diverted to Puerto Rico. When we landed, the paramedics came on and did nothing. They just left her there and the passengers de-boarded the plane. I thought it was rather insensitive. American Airlines had quite a task getting me home that day. They spent 20 minutes and still couldn’t find a route home. Well they got Andrew home that day so I went back and spoke to another agent. I asked her how she got me home but the other guy couldn’t, “Pos, I don’t know Corazon” Well that made it all worth it, I love sassy Puerto Ricans. So I got home and just chilled. Ahh chilling, it was rather chilly in Tucson, my car was iced over when I got there.
So there you have it, I may have forgotten something, but I always do when I write these thing post trip.

Happy New Year,

Jacob