Travel Thru History has kindly published and presented well my Estonia travel history article from my week there in May. It’s available on the travelthruhistory website. Here’s ten more photos from my trip. The first five are from Parnu, and the second five from Tallinn; the last three are from the Open Air Museum:
It seems as if the Finnish dream has finished, and the XaW Files travel questers have left Estonia for its southern Baltic Sea state neighbour Latvia. Moreover, it seems as if both Love the mixed-up vole and the greenYgrey have shapeshifted into other forms, with Love now in control,
although no longer a vole!
I think the files might have got mixed up (like Love) while importing into the greenygrey world, with weird goings on probably to be expected from the parallel universe X Files parody world they have come from. Sorry if you read the next one before this one, as we have a few in an interstellar traffic jam waiting to enter the greenygrey world…
Hi, it’s G.G. Howling, fiction writing correspondent at the greenYgrey inspired by legendary Harry Potter wizard writer J.K. Rowling, and here’s the latest thrilling prose – poetry chapter – episode of the thrilling X Files parody comedy fantasy ramble across all regions of Eurasia:
Chapter 2 Episode 14
To Live and Dye in La(tvia)
I felt awake, but I couldn’t see anything. It was Pitch Black, like in that Vin Diesel film; as if I was still sleeping, but with Finland’s Northern Lights now switched off. 
I tried to talk, but I couldn’t say anything either.
I tried to move, but couldn’t really. However, I did feel some internal chemical reactions, and thought I was creating a bit of a stink.
Time passed in darkness, but then there seemed to be more light above, and the next thing I heard was my travel buddy Love the mixed-up vole.
It said, ‘Hi greenYgrey, you smell awake. You’re looking fine. A little off-colour, all yellow now, and ponging my bag out more and more, but you’re maturing well.’
Estonia to Latvia Poem
Love continued,
‘We thought you wouldn’t remember much
when you first regained consciousness,
so we created this poem to explain everything
knowing that becoming a cheese would create a wing
and a prayer situation for you in Love’s clutches
still with some senses but relying on my security watches
shapeshifting to a dairy product was a risky procedure
complicated by added caraways to pro-seed-yer
here’s a poem trying to explain what you said to me
after finishing your Finnish dream in Mustvee’:
Carry me faraway
as a cheesy caraway
take me to Latvia
to meet our Stella
I know fashionable Riga
will be in-ter-stellar
big movie releases
remembering meeces
Pixie and Dixie mice
Mr. Jinx makes characters thrice
I’ll be a big cheese
Love be a mouse please
mixed-up I know you already are
but I’m not asking for a tarantula
at least it’s in your rodent family
it would be little more than a formality
I just have a weird feeling
maybe it’s all this deep dreaming
but to see the wood for the trees
in Latvia’s impressive forestries
a mouse with cheese looks natural
and I’m not feeling particularly special.
References
To Live and Dye in La(tvia) is a play on the 1985 movie To Live and Die in LA.
Pitch Black is a 2000 film starring Vin Diesel.
Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks is a Hanna-Barbera cartoon that featured as a regular segment of the television series The Huckleberry Hound Show from 1958 to 1961.
Interstellar is a new movie in November, 2014.
It’s Friday afternoon (G.M.T.), and most traditional 9-5 five days a week workers will be looking forward to escaping work and relieving the stress of the working week.
Escaping to the Zone
Canis lupus baileyi running (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Life is often more enjoyable when you don’t have to think. Many of us spend our lives looking forward to the times when we don’t have to think too much; when we can just enjoy ourselves, and act on instinct.
Whether it’s sport, shopping or sloshed, it’s nice to get into that zone of contentment, the primal part of the brain that doesn’t care about the day to day detritus of the modern conscious world.
It’s a place I aim for while writing, a place I am now, a place where I can feel important and intelligent, with ideas flowing out of my brain and becoming real in these letters I type.
Think Drive Safely Advert Campaign
The house in Orlando, Florida where Kerouac lived and wrote The Dharma Bums and aspiring writers stay now. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Hi, it’s Jack Wolfpac, travel writing correspondent at the greenYgrey inspired by travel writing legend Jack Kerouac.
The introduction was fuelled by coffee. Not all my writing is, but some of my best stuff is. It also fuelled my main writing inspiration’s best work. I don’t drink coffee because Jack Kerouac did, and I’m not taking Benzedrine like he apparently did. It’s a coincidence, but it feels cool to be caffeinated and writing in a stream of consciousness way, like Kerouac did fifty to sixty years ago.
That is why I like Kerouac. Not because of his sexuality, or because he liked to drive cars fast. Which brings me to the main point of my blog; I got there in the end, in a roundabout way.
Think Drive Safety Campaign
Jack Kerouac’s trips around America (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I know the beauty of travelling by car, and how it’s nice to just relax and enjoy the views. I also know the thrill of travelling fast.
I’m not going to add to the warning of the following advert, as I know people don’t want to be told how to drive, eat, smoke, shop and drink…
Cars Kill, Wolves Don’t, Is Britain Bearable?
I’m just here to point out the greenYgrey’s starring role in the advert below, and if you will bear with me for just one minute, make a little wildlife reintroduction point that on average three people a day die in traffic accidents on country roads. 
I wouldn’t want anybody killed by wild animals reintroduced to the U.K., and don’t think anybody would be if it was done properly, like they seem to do it in little Estonia.
But I guess that if anybody was killed by wolves or bears it would be a big media story, like the unfortunate urban fox-biting cases of a few years ago, whereas hundreds of people die in traffic accidents every year, and it largely goes unnoticed.
A lot of traffic is necessary, but a lot of it is recreational. I can feel the wrath of drivers building now, and don’t want to spoil your weekend drive, so I think it’s time to skedaddle back On The Road.
National Wildlife Park Economic Benefit Idea
I would just like to add before I go, that with the politicians and media always going on about the economy, and how they want to cut the deficit, and get more money into the U.K. than goes out, surely a buoyant and beautiful real wildlife national park like they have in Estonia would be one positive all round way of attracting more tourists, and hence more revenue for the British economy.
Cover of Quentin Tarantino
Sorry if you think we’re just using the advert to make the above point. We really do care about you as well as the animals, and especially if you like us. So to those still with us, who we guess like us, or you must be masochists!, here’s the advert… drive carefully, even if you are driving fast in the zone… remember, Kerouac’s zone was the big open highways of America, most of the world’s roads are much smaller…
P.S. Our film critic, Quentin Tarwolftino, who was inspired by Quentin Tarantino, said the ghostly green and grey imagery reminded it of the first two greenygrey rambles around North America and Australia, while the yellow slogan brings it up to greenYgrey date, and so reminds it of the current Euro trek.
We’re still travelling back in time in the latest XaW File to reach us, as greenYgrey traces it and Love the mixed-up vole‘s travels before awakening with amnesia in Tartu, Estonia, like it originally did off Vancouver when it originally entered the human world.
In this episode greenYgrey’s dream leaves Estonia to Finland, hoping to find out where it met our fashionista suprema Stella Lagerwolf-Bruno, as in the last episode from the more recent past it remembered she was in Talinn, Estonia when they arrived there. I think this episode does a good job in explaining everything… so far…
Helsinki, Finland Fantasy Travel
English: Suomenlinna, a fortress near Helsinki, Finland. Picture taken from a ferry. Suomi: Suomenlinna kuvattuna ohikulkevasta laivasta (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Hi, it’s Jack Wolfpac, satirical comedy fantasy travel poetry correspondent at the greenYgrey inspired by legendary novel writer and poet Jack Kerouac.
I still don’t know what’s going on with the chapters though, with this one marked Chapter 2 Episode 7. Are they going forward or back, I just don’t know. I guess that’s one mystery that isn’t explained this episode, along with what happened the rest of the time in Finland.
Oh well, here’s this very enjoyable poetry and prose episode from Helsinki, Finland. Enjoy!
XaW Files Chapter 2 Episode 7
My first memory
of Stella in this fantasy
before mixed-up and me
crossed the Baltic Sea
vole spearheading flying-V
50 miles soaring free
landing on a Talinn tree
Love Were synchronicity
from hoochy-coochy Helsinki
Finland’s fab capital city
remembering flexibility
arriving thoughtfully
where once we’d been really
sad to leave the lagoon levy
between remembered Finnish history
and amnesia started mystery.
Helsinki National Museum 
We’d fallen in fondness with Finland, Love and I, and hadn’t wanted to leave without learning a little more about it, so we’d frequented the Helsinki National Museum.
Love said it was off to find the histovoley section, while I wandered around the Finnish folk history section.
One of the costume mannequins reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t really think who.
Stella Reunion
I continued walking, and then felt a tap on my left shoulder, hearing someone say ‘greenYgrey were where are we’.
I thought someone was asking me directions, but upon looking around I was stunned to see the mannequin had come alive, unfurled her hair, and it looked like it was none other than Stella Lagerwolf-Bruno, my good were friend from the greenygrey world.
After greeting Stella, I told her my above thoughts upon seeing her again so unexpectedly.
She said I wasn’t far off the mark, as she had indeed been asking where we are; the last she remembered she was in a fashion show in the greenYgrey world!
While Karl Lagerfeld was leading the Chanel models on a catwalk feminist protest at the Paris Fashion Show, including one particularly great greenygrey outfit, Olivia Palermo was wowing the crowds at the Valentino show and out and about in the French capital city.
Olivia Palermo Fashion Special
Hi, it’s Paco Wolfsang, fashionisto supremo at the greenYgrey at the moment inspired by fashion legend Paco Rabanne, but usually the apprentice fashionisto to Stella Lagerwolf-Bruno, who I’m delighted to write has surfaced in greenYgrey’s latest XaW File from Estonia, although Stella has apparently gone ahead to a fashion shown in Riga, Latvia.
MSN news brand and style expert Nick Ede loved Olivia Palermo’s greenYgrey look, describing it as an overwhelming HIT! Ede particularly liked the green, but also complimented the yellow-grey bag, which nicely complements the green dress, in a completely greenYgrey way. Ede wrote that it was ‘a stunning shade of green on Olivia, she looks effortlessly beautiful! And the bag is a gorgeous finishing touch to the look!”
… Palermo paired ‘her stunning coat with one of her favourite pair of heels; Aquazzura’s iconic ‘Sexy thing’ sandals in leg lengthening nude. Finishing off her get up with an on-trend Nina Ricci snake print clutch and chunky-framed sunglasses, she looked every inch the seasoned show-pro…’
Eggenberger ended by gushing ‘Oh, Olivia; do you ever get it wrong? It must be so touch being perfect… ‘
Olivia Palermo Website greenYgrey Folding Mirror Photo
There is a great greenYgrey Folding Mirror (our sister poetry site) photo of the newly-married Olivia in the outfit wowing the fashion world on her fantastic fashion website:
In this photo it is easier to distinguish the genius of the look, with the zips matching the bag’s grey and yellow.
There are also lots of other delicious designs modelled on Olivia’s website, including one that shows the versatility of greenYgrey fashion, with a long flowing dress.
We definitely prefer this one modelled by New Yorker Olivia though, and thank her for taking greenYgrey fashion out into the wider world from its humble Blighty home!
Viva Olivia, a phenomenal greenYgreyer!!
There’s some amazing good news in the latest XaW File from greenYgrey in Estonia, mixed with some sad news from the factual world about over half the wildlife being lost in just forty years. We hope our fantasy world can lighten the load of the real.
X Files Comedy Parody Fantasy Travel
Hi, it’s G.G. Howling, fantasy fiction correspondent at the greenYgrey inspired by Harry Potter wizard fiction writing legend J.K. Rowling.
Jack Wolfpac asked me to write that Estonia is the most northerly country to the south of the Baltic Sea, and that’s what he meant in his introduction to the last XaW File.
Link for multiple Ereaders at Smashwords.
Xaw Files Chapter 3 Episode 6
Estonia Nature
I was surrounded by wolves, bears, lynx, beavers and flying squirrels, with birds flying all around. I thought I must be dreaming, as I’d recently read a WWF report stating that half the world’s wildlife had been lost in the last forty years.
Working on averages, that’s probably about 10% since the greenYgrey entered the human world, so although we’ve been trying our best to save the world’s wildlife, it is unfortunately always likely to be a losing battle in the current global climate.
I was still dreaming, but the dream was true, because Estonia’s national parks in the middle of Europe are incredibly, impressively and thankfully home to over 150 wolves, 500-600 bears, 700-800 lynx and about 20, 000 Beavers… plus flying squirrels and thousands of birds!
Estonia had chosen ‘Wolf not War’, so I thought Andy Wolfhol would have felt at home in Estonia, and my epic travel quest was given a bear-faced boost. Estonia had chosen their own direction, but Wolfhol’s favourite phrase would have been welcomed if our A.W.O.L head honcho of greenYgrey creation had indeed passed this way.
English: Old farmhouse on Hiiumaa island in Estonia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
More to the immediate point, how had I passed this way?
I saw now that I had arrived on Hiiumaa island from Haapsalu on the mainland. It was a smooth journey despite there being no Gs or Ys in their names. Once I’d acclimatised to the H and As of Hiiumaa it was easy to find my feet and paws on Haapsalu.
Haapsalu is very pleasing on the eyes anyway, with the name meaning Aspen Grove in Estonian. It’s salt mud spas are very easy on the paws and feet too, although it was harder to find them once they were buried in mud than it was to metaphorically find my feet in the seaside resort town.
I had to resort to picking them out of the mud with my teeth and fangs, but then ended up somersaulting head first into the mud with my feet and paws sticking stickily up into the air. It all worked out for the best in the end, as I had a complete mud makeover, which was just the tonic after all my epic fantasy travelling.
Brown Bear in Spring (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Now I know why my memory of me felt so fresh and frisky on Hiiumaa!
Hot-tailing it to Talinn
And now I was starting to remember before the nature parks. I had arrived in Estonia in Talinn with Love… and Stella. Yes, I remember now, our fashionista suprema Stella Lagerwolf-Bruno was there with us. But how had she joined us… and where was she now?
It was coming back to me slowly. We hadn’t arrived from Russia, we’d arrived from the north. We’d travelled to Finland after Russia, and I was just beginning to remember it. But where was Stella now? Why wasn’t she with us when we awoke in Tartu?
Oh yes, I remember now, we were passing through Talinn’s Old Town when we lost Stella in one of its many fashionable shops.
When we finally found her, and said we were off to one of Talinn’s many green parks she said she’d try and catch us up; otherwise she’d seen there was a big fashion show in Latvia’s capital Riga, and she’d meet us there if we didn’t meet up again in Estonia. She didn’t really fancy going wildlife viewing anyway!
It was all much clearer now, and I thought we should high-tail it down to Riga as soon as possible… but my dream had other ideas, taking me north across the Baltic Sea, to new old adventures logged in my mind’s memory history.
Link for Amazon book and kindle.
Link for Amazon book and kindle.
I’m delighted to say that we’ve received another report from greenYgrey’s epic fantasy ramble to Estonia. It’s the fifth from the Baltic Sea‘s most northerly country. I predict there will be one more from Estonia, so this is the penultimate.
Estonia Epic Poem Fantasy Travel
Hi, it’s Jack Wolfpac, satirical comedy fantasy travel poetry correspondent at the greenYgrey inspired by legendary novel writer and poet Jack Kerouac.
It’s another epic poem from greenYgrey, as it travels back in dream sleep through it and Love the mixed-up vole’s Estonian travel, after they arrived in the Baltic State for Chapter 3 having completely missed out Chapter 2, in a very X-Filesish unexplained event.
The greenYgrey starring as Scullymulder is on the case…
XaW Files Chapter 3 Episode 5
Niua
I memory dreamt east over Niua
full speed on a phosphine shower
through speediest state hypnagogia
Karski castle looking greenYgreyer…
my mind was clearing like dawn’s sweeting
dew drop glistening spider web sparkling
spring morning after a frosty calling
your eyes outside to stop your mouth yawning
Nomme
I relished crossing Nõmme
off my bucket list
all green and grey
under and over yellow
with a double Y created
like in greenygrey…
Although not in exactly
the same position:
if in the same place
as the bridge supports
the Ys would make greenygrey
more like gryengyre.
I don’t know if I was dreaming too deep
or if it was jumbling my name asleep
but I fell head first into the Kaali Crater
after managing to fly okay to Saaremaa
like a seabird over the Baltic Sea
then falling knee-deep in a pool, silly me…
At least I felt at home
with a forest to roam
both of us looking greenYgrey
colour-coordinated wordplay
I was sorry to leave once more
this time leaving the northern shore.
Hiiumaa
Arriving on Hiiumaa island to the south
where I’d left on the Kassari mouth
the sand bank welcomed me
emerging backwards from sea
I kissed it once again
before climbing Kopu Tuletorn…
I could see all around my destiny history
future, past, all directions spectrally
the full spectrum of my Estonia travel
a lighthouse is a great place to unravel
I saw my past me and Love travelling
this way from Estonia’s capital Talinn.
Link for multiple Ereaders at Smashwords.
In recent rambling history, an epic poem was sent from the greenYgrey in Estonia, and another was received soon after. We said they could perhaps be called one, but it would have been rather long, and it is foretold that this book will contain 202 episodes. So here’s the second epic poem, which could have been one super epic poem, with one super epic introduction, but we thought it was better this were… better these weres.
Link for Amazon book and kindle.
XaW Files Chapter 3 Episode 4
Hi, it’s Jack Wolfpac, poetry fiction travel correspondent at the greenYgrey inspired by legendary poet traveller and writer of fiction Jack Kerouac. I hope you didn’t mind that little play of were-way words at the end there; just trying to find a way to were I’m going with this intro…
…to the 28th episode of the new X Files comedy parody fantasy travel ramble across all regions of Eurasia book…
…which is w(h)ere we have reached in the serialisation of 242 Mirror Poems and Reflections too, in a weird X Filesish parallel world meeting of the past and future, poetry and prose… and more poetry…
XaW Files Chapter 3 Episode 4
Semi-circled the other side
to where I last saw the sun
original clock
when time was free
from precision
pressure boiling up
sending solar storms
dancing at leisure
unseen by humanity
before pagan insanity
was lost to cities
of organised anarchy
one god each competitivity
my mind seemed to stop
listening to the ground
and started ticking back
kcot, kcit, kcot, kcit, kcot, kcit
the hour hand of my life
carried me to my first memories
in the distant west
the minute hands pointed north
over the Gulf of Finland
and the seconds hand
rushed me west
to rhyming words
beyond inland cities
of Niua and Nomme
out into the Baltic Sea
western islands
of Hiumaa and Saaremaa
where I could still see
a dream me
silhoutetting through history
of my forgotten
recent rambling
I wondered what we
were doing
Were and Love
wearing our hearts
on our furry sleeves
when my mind
randomly reached
time’s volcanic vortex
shooting through
erupting every direction
Estonia to the west
Russia to the east
Finland to the north
Latvia to the south.
Link for multiple Ereaders at Smashwords.
There’s been some strange goings on in the greenYgrey world since greenYgrey set off on its third and final epic fantasy ramble, and there’s also been weird wandering on the adventure itself. The abnormal is probably to be expected though, as it is an X Files parody.
Estonia Dream Epic Poem Part 1
Author J.K. Rowling answers questions after reading from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Hi, it’s G.G. Howling, fantasy fiction correspondent at the greenYgrey inspired by Harry Potter wizard fiction writing legend J.K. Rowling (not the poetry correspondent as stated last time, sorry William Wolfsworth).
After greenYgrey rambled across Russia over four summer months in a pretty straight line, everything seemed to go haywire when it left, and it found itself having missed a chapter going straight into 3 from 1.
English: The Holy Trinity Unitarian Church in Mustvee (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It now seems to be resting and remembering, as we received two XaW Files in quick succession, and I have the first here today. It should really be the job of our Jack Kerouac-inspired poetry fiction correspondent Jack Wolfpac, and he’ll be bringing you the next one. We could have combined the two, but we do have 202 episodes to fill!
Link for Amazon book and kindle.
XaW Files Chapter 3 Episode 3:
Dream See in Mustvee
Only got ability
to lie one way
I lay down facing east
in the direction of
my remembered Russian
XaW Files first chapter
but when I was falling
asleep alongside Love
my Mustvee mind
said I must see
returning me
to the opening lines
of our arrival
in Estonia
‘We’d travelled south
to Estonia’s north-west’
which meant that we
must have travelled north
from Saint Petersburg
and then returned south
to the Baltic state
where we now found
ourselves’ each other
a guardian elf in good ‘ealth
lifting at least one
of my self’s dreams
to Talinn Bay
not the way
I faced
totally out
the other way
where I remember
waking
into totality
Love was here
Love was there
Love was everywhere
everywhere I went
in my dream
I started to believe
that all my thoughts
were truly real
not only in the present
only in future as written
but mainly of the past
as a memory of forgotten time
my dream lifted me
to where we had travelled
between Russia and Estonia…
References
‘ealth shortened from health.
Link for multiple Ereaders at Smashwords.
I Dream Of Flight (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Sorry we haven’t posted for a while, but it’s been all hands and paws to the pumps trying to keep in contact with greenYgrey and Love the mixed-up vole, as they seem to have had problems with time-travel and chapter chronology after they left Russia.
XaW Files Parody
Pedestrians arch bridge in Tartu over EmaJõgi (river), Estonia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Hi, it’s G.G. Howling, poetry correspondent at the greenYgrey inspired by Harry Potter wizard fiction writing legend J.K. Rowling.
Yes, it’s time to return to Estonia, where greenYgrey seems to be mixing lots of love and local place names in an attempt to provide a comedic effect, while keeping a serious side for the X Files parody point.
Chapter 3 Episode 2
south-eastern Estonia
Eastern Estonia had provided a poetic welcome (see last chapter), but something didn’t feel right. We were now in chapter 3, and last I remembered we were in chapter 1.
I asked Love the mixed-up vole if it remembered anything, and how it had found me in Saint Petersburg.
Love said it didn’t remember travelling to Russia to meet me, or anything after leaving the Obvodny metro station. It said it had been enjoying an evening swim in the greenYgrey world, and then landed in the Saint Petersburg tennis match.
I was no longer thinking Where is the Love, but wondering What’s Love got to with it.
Tennis Meeting Metaphors
I said there had been a lot of love present at the tennis match, and that might have been the reason it was served into the court. Love returned with a volley of exclamations. I took them as backhanded compliments.
We walked around Tartu, and enjoyed its Medieval town centre.
Rüütli street in Tartu. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Rüütli Street reminded me of the greenYgrey world, what with its double u resembling our double y, and the weak ending i reminiscent of our y ending. Moreover, it looked like the streets were full of table-teams competing to out-greenYgrey each other (see photo!).
We called into a local cafe, and shared a rhubarb tart for two, or as Love quipped as we ate, ‘a Tartu tartwo’.
My What’s Love but a second-hand emotion was that You’ve just got to love it.
Must See Mustvee
English: Shoreline at Mustvee, Estonia. July 25, 2007. Ελληνικά: Λίμνη Πέιπους Η παραλία στο Mustvee, στην Εσθονία. 25 Ιουλίου, 2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
After we said ta for the tart I asked Love what it fancied doing after we’d had a post-meal siesta. It said it thought the town of Mustvee was a must see, as it was on the shore of Lake Peipsi (Peipus), which is the fifth largest lake in Europe, and the largest transboundary one.
Mustvee is directly north of Tartu, and Peipsi sounds greeny, so I loved Love’s suggestion.
We walked out to the Kaarsild bridge and jumped from an ‘a’ each into the Emajõgi River. We swam up the river until reaching the lake, had a cool cola rest-break, and then jogged the rest of the way to Mustvee.
Although only a small town, Mustvee was indeed a must see. Moreover, as Lake Peipsi (Peipus) is shared with Russia, it inspired thoughts of my epic trek across the massive country, all the way from eastern Siberia.
Those thoughts of Russia seemed to awaken my memory motor, and I had flashbacks of travelling for a long time after Saint Petersburg. I didn’t remember travelling this way, but the large lake did seem to bring back memories.
I remembered travelling over lakes, but not this one, and if we’d travelled west from Saint Petersburg to Tartu we would surely have passed this one, wouldn’t we?
Link for Amazon book and kindle.
Link for multiple Ereaders at Smashwords.
greenygrey3 