So today, I woke up in some dudes apartment, a couple of countries away from home. Used a car, a cruise ship, a train, a bus and mine own two feet to get home, hauling a big box of goods that literally increased in value with each step forward. Here are the details:
We got up 7:15 am, did the regular things, showered, ate, cleaned up and left the house. We set our sights to a small border town between Latvia and Estonia, which had some ridiculously cheap alcohol prices. Our car was jam-packed already, so we only managed to spend maybe half a grand total or maybe more, but we came out with couple of scores of harder liquors, as well as more beer than I care to count.
Oh, turns out that one of the liquor stores in that border town, is an old now-defunct toll station, made obsolete by EU. I think it's poetic justice that in the same building that used to confiscate your excess alcohol, they now sell alcohol well in excess.
Estonia isn't that big of a country (Well, neither is Latvia, where we started), so it only took around four hours to drive through it, from Latvia border to the coastal capital of Tallinn. We stopped for a rather fine dining experience in Pärnu on the way.
In Tallinn, I found out that perfumes actually cost exactly the same as back home in Finland. That was bit of a bummer, since everything else seems to be quite a bit cheaper, especially alcohol, and I was hoping to find some great deals. (We would've checked the prices in Latvia as well, but didn't have time)
We shopped around a bit until it came time, 6:30 pm to be precise, to drive into the car deck of this cruise ship that took us over the sea to Finland. In Finland, I unfortunately had to split from the rest of my family, who took the car. Not wanting to hand over my hard earned booze to anyone, I took my loot box and divided the weight evenly between my trusty old back-bag and the box, got on the last train back to the major town near my home. There, I made it to the nearest bus stop, having to wait for 20 minutes or so for the last bus of the day to take me home. Passed the time by meeting a guy who turned out to be the only importer of some of my favorite computer brands (or specific parts of those brands.)
It's middle of the Easter holidays here and services are reduced, so the buses stopped running after 2 am, next would've been 4 am.
As per my estimates, my alcohol haul grew to around 2.5x the original value. Good trip, maybe a bit on the uneventful side.
We got up 7:15 am, did the regular things, showered, ate, cleaned up and left the house. We set our sights to a small border town between Latvia and Estonia, which had some ridiculously cheap alcohol prices. Our car was jam-packed already, so we only managed to spend maybe half a grand total or maybe more, but we came out with couple of scores of harder liquors, as well as more beer than I care to count.
Oh, turns out that one of the liquor stores in that border town, is an old now-defunct toll station, made obsolete by EU. I think it's poetic justice that in the same building that used to confiscate your excess alcohol, they now sell alcohol well in excess.
Estonia isn't that big of a country (Well, neither is Latvia, where we started), so it only took around four hours to drive through it, from Latvia border to the coastal capital of Tallinn. We stopped for a rather fine dining experience in Pärnu on the way.
In Tallinn, I found out that perfumes actually cost exactly the same as back home in Finland. That was bit of a bummer, since everything else seems to be quite a bit cheaper, especially alcohol, and I was hoping to find some great deals. (We would've checked the prices in Latvia as well, but didn't have time)
We shopped around a bit until it came time, 6:30 pm to be precise, to drive into the car deck of this cruise ship that took us over the sea to Finland. In Finland, I unfortunately had to split from the rest of my family, who took the car. Not wanting to hand over my hard earned booze to anyone, I took my loot box and divided the weight evenly between my trusty old back-bag and the box, got on the last train back to the major town near my home. There, I made it to the nearest bus stop, having to wait for 20 minutes or so for the last bus of the day to take me home. Passed the time by meeting a guy who turned out to be the only importer of some of my favorite computer brands (or specific parts of those brands.)
It's middle of the Easter holidays here and services are reduced, so the buses stopped running after 2 am, next would've been 4 am.
As per my estimates, my alcohol haul grew to around 2.5x the original value. Good trip, maybe a bit on the uneventful side.
