Tallinn is more than a winter wonderland

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Yeah, on first glance, Tallinn looks like it was lifted out of EPCOT. The walls around the capital of Estonia, the look and feel of the architecture … the “old city” seems almost staged. But, that changes quickly when you walk the streets, get a feel for the people and scarf down a meal in one of the restaurants. To call it charming is an understatement, with cobblestone roads that date back centuries, reminding you that history is underfoot as much as around you as you trace the winding roads.

I arrived in Tallinn by ferry from Helsinki, which makes it a great side-trip from Finland, though the New York Daily News reports the time to the old city from the local airport is a mere 15 minutes – which is almost impossible to imagine for anyone who has sought Manhattan after landing in JFK.

When I climbed the walls of Tallinn a year and a half ago, I had no sense for the town as a winter wonderland, but looking back, I can see it as a Christmas village waiting to happen. The UNESCO world heritage site (since 1997) is among the best-preserved medieval villages in the world and takes advantage of its unusual look to host a Christmas market that began last year on November 29 and is set to close this week (on January 7).

If Santa isn’t really your scene – or if you wait for warmer weather before visiting – make it a priority to visit the indoor shooting range. Ask for Instructor Tonu to show you the ropes with an AK-47, and have a blast sending rounds downrange. Top it off with a meal at Olde Hansa, and you’re good to go.

[Photo by Tom Johansmeyer]

Times Square becomes shooting gallery

by Tom Johansmeyer on

If you were leaving the Marriott Marquis in Manhattan on Thursday morning,what you saw was not a movie. A plainclothes police officer shot a 25-year-old man; the shot was fatal. But, before going down, the Bronx resident, who was not identified, fired first with a semiautomatic Mac-10. The gunfight broke out over whether the gunman was a scammer, writing tourists’ names on CDs and using that to pressure them into buying.

The bullets flew over Broadway, quite literally, at 11:15 AM. The streets were packed with tourists and shoppers, which is the norm in Times Square on a weekday in December. The police officer involved, who’s been on the force for 17 years, is assigned to enforce street vendor regulations. He saw two people he suspected of a specific scam: (1) approach a tourist, (2)ask for his name, (3) write the name on a CD and (4) demand $10 for the “service.”

Though nobody — except the gunman, of course — was reported to have been hurt, but the situation could have been pretty severe. There were 27 rounds of ammo in the Mac-10. He only got three shots off before a shattered bullet caused the weapon to misfire.

Doubtless, an event like this is bound to reach a first-time visitor to the city … such as Suzanne Davis from Australia: “It’s my first day in New York, so it makes very real what you see in the movies.”

[Photo by Stewart via Flickr]

36 shootings, 9 homicides. A weekend in Chicago

by Iva Skoch on

I first saw this story in the International Herald Tribune. It made the list of Top 10 Most Popular stories. Europeans–myself included–have a morbid fascination with America’s gun culture.

I clicked on the article and read: “An outburst of gunfire rattled Chicago during the weekend, with at least nine people killed in 36 separate acts of violence…They included gang shootings, drive-by attacks, and even one case in which someone used an AK-47 to shoot up a plumbing supply store”. Wow. It reads like fiction.

During the same weekend last year, there were “only” 19 shootings, including four homicides, and 21 shootings were reported during the same weekend in 2006. Overall though, we are told we are much safer than we were a 100 years ago. Good to know.

Why the fascination with guns? Lately, I have had a few European friends request I take them on a tour of the “bad neighborhoods” of US cities. They have already seen the safe neighborhoods and felt like they were missing a piece of Americana. They wanted to see the movie-romanticized gun culture first hand.

I wonder if I should get my “urban ghettour” trademarked.

How safe is Thailand?

by Martha Edwards on

Here’s a story that’s all over the news where I live: A man from Calgary, Canada (my hometown,) was shot and killed in Thailand by a Thai police officer this past Sunday. The shooting occurred after a scuffle involving the victim, John Leo Del Pinto, his friend Carly Reisig and the officer, and both Del Pinto and Reisig were shot. Reisig is currently recovering in the hospital from gunshot wounds to her chest, and insists that neither she nor Del Pinto did anything that would provoke such a deadly attack.

When my friend Jenny and I stuffed our rucksacks and bought plane tickets to Bangkok after our last semester of University, we had no doubts in our minds that we were heading to a country that was as safe for tourists as our own hometown. But it was harder to convince our parents and when a shooting happened at a bar we were at within the first week of our arrival, we avoided telling them about it in case we got the dreaded ‘we told you so’ conversation. However, that was an isolated incident in our months of travel and I still tend to believe that if you don’t cause trouble, it won’t find you. But I’m starting to question that logic.

I’m curious to know what you think — is Thailand safe?