One significant difference between by life in Belfast and my life here is the amount of walking I’m doing. In part this is because I have little option but to walk here, but it’s also because I can walk here – I’m pretty much living in the city centre and everything I’ve wanted so far has been within a 20 minute walking distance. Here I can walk to my local supermarket, do my shopping, walk back and unpack everything in less than the time it would have taken me to walk to my closest shop in Belfast.
A few days ago, however, I stretched this much further than I planned. I decided to go in search of alternative routes to my local Rimi. It should be pretty much in a straight line, but there’s a lot of building work in the way, which means I have to take a detour around it. I had a theory that by going up the street rather than down it, I might be able to find a way through further up the road, but still still end up slightly quicker. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any way through, so cutting through the hotel is still the shortest route.
However, when I found my way back to the Rimi from above, I decided to take a walk down the road alongside it. At first glance it looks like this should run south, roughly parallel with the western wall of the Old Town, sweep down around Toompea, and take me down towards Kristiine, which is on my list to visit.
However, to achieve this goal I needed to be on the next road over, as instead Kopli actually sweeps around in a semi-circle and heads up to the north west! I ended up seeing little more than a few housing districts. I did however encounter what seems to be the local equivalent of Lidl, only even scarier. I was sure that the security guard was going to give me grief for pushing my way through a gate with a big ‘no exit’ sign on it, but as there was only one till open with a queue of about 30 people at it, and I wasn’t actually buying anything, I couldn’t see any other options. Thankfully he just looked sternly at me and didn’t challenge me.
I also passed quite a large furniture store, Mööblimaja, that seemed like it might be interesting, as I still need a few things for the apartment, but unfortunately it was closed.
I ended up doing about a five mile round trip, with no real usefulness, other than getting to see a little more of what the city is like outside the Old Town/City Centre. My feet also hadn’t been expecting this, so they complained for about 24 hours afterwards. And I still haven’t made it down to Kristiine.
