The capitol of the northernmost Baltic state, Estonia, Tallin is an "enchanting medieval town that's on the brink of a new life," the party town of the cash-strapped EU Finns of Helsinki, and my home for the weekend. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania joined NATO on April 2, and joining their northern neighbors, Estonians were celebrating in fine form this weekend. I, along with my 27 other Study Abroad 'draugai' spent 2 nights in a hostel located smack in the middle of Tallin's old town. The trip, although physically exhausing like all traveling excursions, was a wonderful respite from the monotony of class.
We left Friday morning [yep, skipping class :o)] on a chartered bus and drove first to Siauliai. We stopped at the Hill of Crosses, where we walked through the rows and rows of rememberance. The wind passing through the crosses, made for eerie and thought-provoking surroundings. Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.
And then on to Riga, where we ate at a great restaurant called Lido. "If Paul Bunyon built a log cabin in Latvia, it would look like this! Mr. Kirsons of the Lido empire has outdone himself with the biggest buffet of home cookin' this country has ever seen." good enough for me... :o) We stuffed ourselves to the brim courtesy of the SA program, and got back on the bus.
We stopped at a beach along the road and played in quick sand, and watched tacky music videos on the bus ride. George Michaels, Michael Jackson, and the Spice Girls on the same tape???
After a rather annoyingly long border stop, we arrived in Tallin around 11:30pm. We checked into our hostel, Vana Tom. "Vana Tom is everything a hostel should be - clean, friendly, informative, and smack dab in the middle of Old Town...don't be wary of the strip club upstairs." Then we hit the town. My transport group, my beloved TG-Kwah, set out to explore Tallinn by night, and found ourselves following the old castle walls around Old Town. Drunk Finns and Estonians were on every corner, breaking bottles and singing their national songs at the top of their lungs. Quite a change from the quiet reserve of Klaipedites. Our late-night exploration took us through the skinny cobblestoned streets to St. Olaf's, with its 124m spire, Cat's Well (story to follow), the town square, a failed attempt at finding Nevsky Cathedral and Toompea Hill, and finally back to our hostel for a good night's sleep on a 3-tiered bunk.
We set off in the morning in our TG's, this time being led by Janis, a quirky and oh, so fun Latvian LCC student. Janis hauled us up the 124 meters of St. Olaf's spire. Feel the burn! The view from the top was incredible, and way worth the climb. We sat up on the top and tanned our faces in the sunshine and ate pistachios and made up stories about the people whom the shells would hit when they reached the ground and took pictures of the city. We walked around more of old town, and were successful in our attempts to find Nevsky Cathedral and the Hill. I bought a small bronze (doubtful) pin from a lady on the street that is from the 1980 Tallin Olympics, and an ice cream cone.
Saturday evening we all met back at Olde Hansa, a "mecca of medievaldom in the heart of Old Town that doesn't just serve historically authentic fare made from carefully-researched recipes, but provides guests with a whole experience using a combination of candlelight, period costuming, and medieval background music." We ate, and then we ate, and then we ate some more. Pickles, huge olives, whipped herb cheese, pickled berries, chicken pate, gingered carrots, black bread with ham, herbed bread with hazelnuts, garlic lentils, barley roasted with hazelnuts, honeyed sourkraut, ginger/garlic turnips, salmon with nut sause, arabian fillet in figs, honeyed apples under a cinnamon pastry with almond caramel butter. All served in big ceramic bowls that just kept coming. Wow. I ate a lot. It was amazing.
After our 3 hour dinner, my TG went to a coffee house and played cards, talked, drank coffee, and just hung out. It was wonderful. The relationships I've built here have been such a blessing in my life. I'm gonna miss these kids.
I woke up sunday morning and took my breakfast to the kitchen. There were several international students who are studying in Vilnius staying at the same hostel, and they were on their way to St. Petersburg. They had neglected, however, to find a hostel or learn how to read the cyrillic alphabet. Whoops. So I showed them some stuff on a map and explained Russian consonants - I never have figured out the vowels. How long has it been since you've sat in Estonia, speaking a combination of English and Lithuanian to an Italian woman and Brazilian man, while trying to give directions of Russia? Crazy-small world we live in, huh?
We left Tallin Sunday around 11 and drove to Riga, where we ate and walked around in old town for a while, then got on the bus and headed back to Klaipeda. We got home way late and I was tired, but it was a good weekend. The sun was shining, I don't need to eat for a month, the weather was beautiful all weekend, my freckles have arrived, and I am happy.
See you in 4 weeks - hugs...
*anna the international
.:quotes courtesy of the 'in your pocket' guide books of riga and tallinn.
highly reccommended by this traveller:.
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