Valli Baar

There is bar in Tallinn called "Valli Baar" and from outside looking in through the window, it's the kind of place that you would pobably take one look at and then keep walking by. Surrounded by other pubs full of the young, slutty and tanned this place is like a backwards oasis. The furniture was recently updated, well as long as you consider 1977 to be recent and the floor was probably last cleaned around the same time, yet there is still something quite memorable about the place.

It's not the same bunch of customers who appear to have been there from dusk till dawn since that last refurnishing, nor is it the wrinkly old guy sitting in the corner playing an accordion, actually this is beginning to sound like half of the pubs in Dublin, but the remarkable things about Valli bar is that its the only bar in Tallinn that has this throw back to the 70's look.

Oh yes and then there is the Millimallikas (Jellyfish).

The Millimallikas is Valli's house shot, comprising of Vaccari Sambuca, Tequila and Tabasco sauce, yes that's right Tabasco sauce. You have to knock it back in one go and of course you could soften the taste by chasing it with orange juice, but where is the fun in that. When you drink Millimallikas you have to savour that burning tingling sensation for as long as it lasts.

Now you may say that it was because of the drink or perhaps it was just that I suddenly had a lot of energy that night, but right after leaving the bar I climbed on top of the newest statue in Tallinn. Literally moments after jumping down a police car drove by, I'm not so sure if they would have seen the funny side of it.

After this it was off to Tallinn's only remaining Karaoke Bar. "The Helsinki" as you can imagine is aimed at the Finnish tourist market, but on quiet Monday evening they were delighted for any custom they could get. Without any encouragement required at all I got up on the stage to sing Tom Jones's "Sex bomb", to me it was singing, to the few people that were able to stay in within the reach of my voice it probably sounded like screeching mettle, but I loved it. The highlight of the night was Una and I doing a duet of "Only Yesterday" by The Carpenter's, OK, the truth is she was singing in key and I was singing like a bunch of keys scrapping along the ground.

But we had fun and that's all that matters.