(NB!  This post is long, rambling, and rather bathroom-focused!)

I wish I had done something more interesting today, but really the record shopping was the highlight.  The cold I mentioned yesterday has developed into a full-fledged sickness today.  My hope is that it’ll be two days developing, one day being actually sick (today), and then a day of recovery.  Point being, I only left the hostel for a couple hours today.

I walked to the harbor (sadama, I think) to buy some tickets- I wasn’t able to get them online for some reason.  On the way back, I got caught in a rain storm, so I had to wait it out in a little shopping mall-let.  The good thing about that was I got to puzzle about some pay-bathroom quandaries that I otherwise never would have considered.   Basically, I walked up to the bathroom, realized I had to pay for it, and then quickly realized I didn’t have any change.  ( .2 euros)   So I stood there, kind of in a daze.  This is not a problem I’d faced before: no money for the bathroom.  Just as I was about to come to terms with not entering the bathroom, the door opened!  Out came a prior customer.  In a moment, I wondered what the etiquette was.

It seemed to me kinda like when you put a bunch of money in a parking meter, and then you leave with a substantial amount left on the meter.  If you see someone hovering around to park, you might be inclined to get their attention and somehow communicate that there’s still plenty of time on this meter.  “Hey dude!  I may have gotten screwed into paying too much for something that should be free, but that doesn’t mean you should have to as well!”*  Of course, a lot of people have the opposite reaction: “I paid for no g-d good reason, this guy should have to, too.”  Being my first experience with a pay bathroom, I didn’t have any kind of intuition what the average person thought, and being (obviously) scared to death of bothering anyone ever in the least (especially while visiting their country!) I didn’t know whether to just slip in to the bathroom, or to continue fumbling in my pockets, trying to look like I was, in fact, a respectable paying customer.  Bear in mind, this entire time I really do have to go to the bathroom, so I only hesitate a moment longer before I enter and relieve myself.

Now, some time passes.  Remember, I’m waiting out a rain storm.  Also- I’ve been sick, which circumstance I react to by constantly guzzling water.  ALSO, I’m bored, and at a mall (!) so I’m working on my flash cards and drinking espresso.  Point being, it isn’t too terribly long until I have to use the bathroom again.  On the second encounter, there is a line of perhaps six men, all waiting outside the bathroom, all being patient for someone to either leave the facilities or for some cash-having person suffering a real emergency to pay our fee for us.  Just as I walk up, someone leaves the bathroom, and the seven of us file into the bathroom, then awkwardly wait our turns, avoiding eye contact, like at a baseball game.

So then I walk home, take a couple pictures.  On the way, I stop at an apteeka (think apothecary) to get some cold medicine, which medicine I decide upon by choosing the one with a cartoon marked with stars on areas corresponding my my discomfort.  It worked relatively well, I guess.

I spent some time talking to more Scottish people (have I mentioned them?  There’s a lot of them.) and doing flash cards.  Getting pretty comfortable with my chapter four vocab, though chapter 5 is still tricky.  (Apelsinimahl is orange juice, not apple juice.)  Then I went for another walk just to get out of the building, and almost immediately came across a record store!  With records and CDs and an indie rock section and 7″s and 10″s (well, really just one, but still) and DVDs and a helpful clerk (that was actually kinda weird.)

I tweeted earlier that I saw a Twin Shadow cd, which was neat, cause I’m at a tiny store in Estonia, and I really did think about getting it, because I somehow never got around to putting that on my iPod, and am thus rather Twin-Shadowless for the summer.  I bothered the clerk about some Estonian music, and he brought me four cds and sat me down in front of a player with headphones.  As I’m skipping through the third cd, he brings me a stack of another five!  I dutifully listened bits and pieces of all of them (many of which were comps, so I’m sure I missed something good) before settling on Ans. Andur (wikipedia link only good in Eesti and, oddly, Portuguese) and a band called, ick, Dallas (kind of un-googleable, sorta, kinda).  The Ans. Andur case is particularly cool looking- check out the picture.  There seems to be one big-deal indie label in town (Estonia’s Flying Nun, perhaps?)  called SekSound, though it very well could be the name of a coffeeshop or the Estonian wing of EMI.  Anyhow, reviews forthcoming…  perhaps.

Did laundry.

Now preparing for bed.  Headed to Haapsula tomorrow.  Who know’s what will await us there?!?!

*I actually think paying for parking in urban areas is certainly reasonable and probably underpriced.