Today Claire and Susan are leaving again, but this time to visit some long-time friends who are missionaries in Tampere. We awoke early and made the drive in fairly good time (about 3 hours). We left early enough to avoid rush hour in Helsinki and were in Tampere in time for lunch. We have known the couple that we visited, Tom and Linda, since 1994, when they were on forlough in the Sacramento area and their youngest daughter, Liisa, was in Susan's class at Victory Christian High School.

We spent several hours catching up with them and looking at family photos (particularly those of their two daughters' weddings) before starting a load of laundry (oh, what a joy that was!!) and hitting the town. We went out for lunch where Claire and Susan ordered some traditional Finnish food which we shared (reindeer stew and meatballs). Then we saw the city (and had some great donuts) before returning to their house to hang out some more. We asked Linda for recipes for some of the great dishes we've had, including Russian Bliniy and Finnish Rice Pies (with egg butter). We had a great dinner followed by tea and sweets (and yodeling... the "Zillertaler Schurzenjager" - Tom's favorite group!). We left in the evening and, after our long drive, made it back to the cottage around midnight.

We sorted our belongings and packed as much as we could in anticipation of an early departure tomorrow.

Labels: Europe 2008, Finland

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

Today is Dad's birthday and also the day that Ivan arrives! Hurrah! We slept in and had a nice breakfast. Us girls left after breakfast to do some sightseeing in Helsinki before picking up Ivan. First, we went to Porvoo so Claire could wash her hair in the public Water Closet. Then, we went to the port of Helsinki to confirm our tickets to Tallinn, Estonia. Near the boat terminal was a big Orthodox church that we decided to visit. It was nice, but after the gorgeous cathedrals we saw in St. Petersburg and Moscow, it didn't seem that impressive. Then the Rock Church, where we stopped across the street for a lunch consisting of a traditional Finnish Rice Pie (which was quite tasty and cheap). Then a quick stop at the senate square before picking up Ivan from the airport.

We had to wait quite awhile, feeding the meter (1 Euro for only 10 minutes!!). We finally got Ivan, added him to the car rental agreement as a driver (which was supposed to be free, but cost 10 Euros), stopped for some groceries and went home.

We were invited over for tea with our landlord's mother and grandmother and had a delightful time. The mother, Ingrid, speaks excellent English, but the grandmother, Marianna, only speaks Swedish. It made for interesting discussions with everything being translated into 3 languages (Russian, for Ivan's parents). Marianna will be 88 years old in November and she is still so energetic and active. She prepared a delicious spread of treats to go with our tea and told us all about the farm and the family history. After tea, we returned to our cottage and packed our bags for tommorrow.

Labels: Europe 2008, Finland

We were able to sleep in and spend a relaxing day around the house, though we did end up doing some sight-seeing and shopping in Porvoo in the afternoon. The schedule is a bit twisted as we generally sleep until 9am, eat breakfast at 11am, lunch around 4pm (or later), dinner after 9pm, and bed around 1am. Today started out the same and we have decided that we prefer a traditional American schedule better. Although, perhaps if it was light until after 10pm at home, that might change our perspective somewhat.

Porvoo is about at 20 minute drive away from our cottage and we spent the afternoon there. We found a few souvenirs, including Susan's wonderful handmade purse. Mama and Papa were able to buy their tickets home (they plan on taking a ferry, rather than the train) while Claire and Kristen checked their e-mail at the Tourist Office. We bought groceries and returned home for a late lunch.

After lunch, we relaxed while Mama and Papa went to check out the sauna and then we spent an uneventful evening at home. Ivan called, which was a nice interruption in the day. He finished moving everything out of the apartment and is on his way tot he airport. We also called Mom and Dad - Claire had some important matters to discuss with them and we also used it as an opportunity to wish Dad and early "Happy Birthday."

Us girls took a nap while the parents went to the sauna. Everyone was so relaxed afterwards, that rather than having a large dinner, we had a light snack with tea and went to bed "early" (midnight).

Labels: Europe 2008, Finland

Today we took the train to Helsinki. Susan woke up early at 5:15am to finish the laundry (it still wasn't dray) and pack and get ready to go. The other gals woke up at 5:45am and we were supposed to meet Aleksey at 6:15am, but we weren't ready to go until 6:30am. Thankfully, there wasn't any traffic, so we made our way tot eh Finlandski Rail Station in plenty of time for our 7:28am train. Aleksey was even able to drive us past Peter I's little wooden "Teremok" on our way - so now we can say we visitied it on this trip.

Eventually, we boarded our train and were on our way to Finland. We were all quite tired and rested as much as we were able to. After the train stopped in Vyborg, Russian Customs Officials came on board to check everyone's documents. After the Finnish border, Finnish IMmigration officials boarded the train to check everyone's visas and passports. Everything went smoothly for us and we were grateful to not have to wait in lines like you do at the airport.

We arrived in Helsinki and Claire and Susan went to find the car rental agency to pick up the car. We squeezed everyone (and the luggage - barely) into the Kia we rented and made our way across the Finnish countryside to the cottage we rented in Porvoo. It is very rustic, but hte inconveniences of no running watter, lots of bugs, and using an outhouse are overshadowed by how much money we saved by not staying in a hotel! Definitely worth it!

It's almost fun having to haul water for the dishes and boil water for our use (although we did buy clean water for drinking). The area around the cottage is so beautiful and the owner and his family are so nice (although next time we should brush up on our Swedish, instead of Finnish, before arriving). We had a nice hearty dinner outside before retiring late.

Labels: Europe 2008, Finland