Kristen flies home today and then Claire and Susan go to Estonia by ferry. Kristen's flight leaves at 8am, so we had to wake up at 4:15am and leave the cottage at 4:45am. Ivan drove and we made great time to the airport. We gassed up the car and then Ivan dropped us off at the boat terminal (after dropping off Kristen). We arrived early and waited outside until they opened the terminal at 7am. We checked in and then went across the street to a market to buy some food to eat (we were already hungry since we had eaten "breakfast" almost 3 hours ago). We each got a pastry plus a rice pie for a snack later.

We returned to the terminal to wait for our boarding time. The tickets we had purchased were "super economy" which we weren't sure how they were different from economy (except for being much cheaper). Susan thought it meant that we wouldn't have seats, but when we got in we sat in some seats and no one said anything or checked our tickets. As a result, it was a very comfortable ride.

We hadn't done any research about Estonia or Tallinn, so when we arrived we were absolutely clueless about what to see and where to go. We also had no idea that Estonia, while in the EU, uses Kroons instead of Euros as the official currency. We weren't sure how easy it would be to find a money exchange booth in the city, so we went ahead and changed $40 in the boat terminal. What a rip off! But at least we had some Kroons, so we set off to continue our journey. The terminal had large lockers where we stowed our bags and many promotional maps about the city. None of them were ideal tourist maps (they were either listing all restaurants or stores or only a subset of the sights) but, by consulting all of them, we were able to get a pretty clear picture of the city (or at least old town and downtown).

We set off towards the highest spire that we could see from the water (which turned out to be St. Olaf's Church - I think) and in the process we walked past "Fat Margaret," a few old towers, part of the old wall, and the two main streets in town (translated, their names mean "Wide" and "Long"). What a great way to start our sightseeing in Tallin! We were able to climb to the top of the tower at St. Olaf's (we heard someone say that it was over 700 steps to the top - and I believe it!) and from there we got some magnificent views of the city. It helped us orient ourselves with the maps we had and plan the next leg of our journey.j

By thte end of the day, we had walked the length and breadth of the old town twice and felt quite comfortable navigating on our own. We visited sights such as the Nevskiy Cathedral, Kiek in de Kok, Herman Tower, Toompea Castle, and several museums.

One minor hicup in our plans was that Susan's cell phone wouldn't work in Estonia, so we had to buy a phone card to use the public phones to contact the family that we would be staying with. Eventually, everything worked out and we arragned the time and place to meet Risto, Ivan's former classmate with whom we were staying.

One highlight of our day was a great find - we stumbled upon a small cafe in search of a Water Closet. We went down into an underground street crossing and found a hole-in-the-wall place selling inexpensive food. We decided to "play it safe" and ordered a hamburger and were pleasantly suprised: it was huge, delicious, and very unlike any American hamburger we had ever eaten before. Instead of lettuce, it had cabbage; instead of pickles, it had cucumbers; instead of mayo/ketchup, it had a sauce similar to 1000 Island dressing; and instead of a beef patty, it had a breaded patty made out of white meat. Although it may seem anti-climactic to order a hamburger in Estonia, it was really a delightful cultural experience!

In the evening, we met up with Risto and he drove us to his home, tucked away in the countryside, not far from the village of Koogi (I think?) - the oldest village in Estonia. It was so peacheful and beautiful at Risto and Angela's house, which is situated on a nice plot of land overlooking the Gulf of Finland. They have their own dock and a small boat that can be used to go out into the water. The water in the gulf stays quite shallow for many meters, so they take the boat out to swim and fish, rather than wading out to a suitable depth.

Their house is large, beautiful, and modern (it was built last year) with an abundance of Siberian Larch wood. We foudn their home to be a restful and pleasant change from the last few days spent "roughing it" in the cottage near Porvoo. We had "family dinner" with Risto, ANgela, and Risto's family (sister, parents, grandmother) who live next door, and afterwards Tristan (Risto's son) helped his "Mama" (grandmother) pick berries for us. All-in-all, we agree that this has been one of the most enjoyable days of our trip so far. The only thing that could have made it better would have been for Ivan to be there with us (he is in Finland with his parents).

Labels: Europe 2008, Finland