Tallinn

Tallinn was much different than either of us were expecting. Since it had been part of the Soviet Union, I was expecting a Spartan place. Actually, since it became independent in the early 1990s it has developed quite a bit. It’s also a very charming and quaint city. We did a Café tour – going to several little coffee houses and cafés. We had sardines and a traditional Estonia beverage that tasted kind of like a cross between root beer and sassafras. We had pastries at another place and coffee at another. We went to the town square where a band was playing selections from West Side Story. Specifically, they started playing “I Feel Pretty” just as our whole group walked into the square. Hundreds of gay men, musicals, and a large open space. I’ll spare you the details – let’s just say they may have FELT pretty, but they weren’t!

Despite the long soviet influence, Estonians still speak their own language and are clearly more influenced by their connection with Scandinavia than Russia. The new buildings are more of a Danish modern style. Our guide was a wonderful woman in her 20s who was very fluent in English with very little accent despite having never studied in an English speaking country. She still remembered when they were part of the soviet union and commented about some of the strange things she experienced. For example, apparently bananas were considered “Western” and so were not allowed – she had never had one until she was twelve years old.

We turned the clocks ahead an hour last night, and do the same thing again tonight. I’ve given up on trying to adjust to the time changes! We were also commenting that we’ve been staying up WAY later than we usually do at home. Then I realized that basically we’re going to bed at 8pm Indiana time…not that much different than normal life. Sigh. But we are having a great time. I’ll try and upload several pictures from Tallinn, but they are saying that our internet connection may be somewhat intermittent while we are on this leg of the trip due to satellite issues, so we’ll see what happens.