I am screwed up. Here. I didn't want to tell anyone, ever. And so I wrote it.
One is an expert, organizes everything, saves here and there, thinks a little about the various things that are needed and those that could happen. He also prides himself on knowing how to get by and almost ends up, underneath, by making fun of those who make a mistake, who leaves something out, who as a "classic tourist" with his head in the clouds gets fooled like the last of the fools. But the retaliation is always around the corner, and my beautiful scams (one in particular still burns me) arrived on time.
It will be that the Easter period in which I am writing makes me a little more inclined to a healthy bath of humility, it will perhaps be that you learn more from your mistakes than from successes, in any case I want to tell my experience may perhaps some usefulness for those who like to read it.
I had planned a short break in Tallinn, Estonia, last November, booking early flight and apartment in the center. Find out about public transport from the airport to the center and considering the landing on Sunday evening, I note that the only viable solution is that of a taxi, with a run of a few kilometers.
Then the sliding doors open and towards the street I see different taxi waiting and with the service sign about 8-10 euros. From there the mental blackout starts: I realize that I have not printed or bought or searched for a map of the city at the airport; I understand that I don't do anything about the address I have in my hand; I am met by a very kind young taxi driver who takes us to his beloved Lexus blue with a thousand LED lights that sparkle in the night; we sit down and hand the address to the young man, who sets it on the navigator and turns on the taximeter. A glimmer of reason suggests that I ask him about how much he will spend, just to put me a little quiet, and the young man mumbles something like he can't know before and has to put the meter on. In my, as well as his poor English, I ask him about the basic rates I had read at the airport, for the center, and he replies that my address is in the Old Town, which "is not the center" in his opinion and therefore I have to wait for the stop for the response of the taximeter.
Not knowing what else to say, I then take care of giving the owner of the booked apartment a call when I realize that something is wrong. I can't call. I check all sorts of things, but it doesn't take the net, none of the available, and for some absurd region that I don't even remember (and that I solved the next day, but that's another story) calls, messages and the internet have been blocked .
Two good punches in a few minutes and I'm lying: in a taxi that I don't know how much it will cost me (and which, rightly, begins to stink) and towards an apartment of an owner with whom I am unable to get in touch. Then it's evening, I'm tired, I'm not in the country with the mildest climate in the world and I'm with my girlfriend who I don't want to worry about.
The taxi arrives and takes us to the correct address, which however corresponds to a door that opens onto an internal courtyard, with a series of bells without any indication. But before worrying about this (which is later resolved somehow after about ten minutes), there is a taxi to pay.
It shows me the display of the taximeter: 48. With a small kn at the bottom, which is the symbol of the old Estonian currency. But the young man specifies to me, after 5 or 6 requests from me, that it is euro, 48 euro. Stretched out. "You're mad!" I tell him and repeat it, in an increasingly hallucinatory way, and he is not even so surprised to tell the truth. But it confirms that I am right 48 €. I would have screwed up if I hadn't been abroad, late in the evening, with my girlfriend and maybe with a working phone.
But I brought him the orange note. I would have thrown the two euros he gives me back on his head. Or on his beautiful Lexus. But now the best thing to do was to swallow the bitter bite and enjoy the holiday!
Moral:
• Always get a map, preferably a paper one
• Be well informed about the destination and ways to reach it
• Check the roaming networks, the unexpected is just around the corner
• Just don't take the "different" taxis or the friendly taxi drivers who meet
PS: on the way back I got away with less than 10 euros, luggage included!
