Tallinn, Estonia

We only had a few hours to enjoy this historic city and did so armed with bus passes and Rick Steve's Scandinavia book. We followed his walking tour through the old part of town, reading interesting tidbits as we strolled along. It's a lot more fun to know something about what you're looking at - makes it come more alive - and Rick Steves is very informative. Bricked over windows in a church courtyard have no meaning until you learn that prisoners were held here before being shipped to their deaths in Siberia. He tells you exactly where to go,the most interesting sights, and the historical significance of them. Estonia was ruled by communist Russia for 45 years after World War II until the fall of the USSR in 1991. We took a bus tour with narration around the city but, honestly, this put us both to sleep. We returned to the lovely and interesting old town area and ate lunch in the town square. The cobble stoned square is surrounded by numerous outdoor cafes, the city hall, and a pharmacy built in 1422. Kyle ate Russian pancakes which were thick and covered with mushrooms. I don't think that was what he was expecting but they must have been good because he ate them. After that we went into the pharmacy which is a museum as well as a working pharmacy. Ancient herbs and remedies are displayed in a glass case and they also sell modern drug store items. I bought more bandaids. We hiked up to the Danish King's Garden, a lovely park where you can see part of the remaining town wall and the city below.

Of course we had to climb the 142 steps of the spiral stone staircase in the church tower for a breath taking (literally) view before we headed back to our ship. We decided to walk instead of taking the bus and we strolled along for a while until we started getting concerned because it was farther than we thought. We looked nervously at our watches as we approached the harbor and then realized we had come to a dead end! This meant we had to do a lot of back tracking on legs that felt like rubber anyway from the 142 stone stairs. Then we had to jog a little so we wouldn't miss our boat AGAIN. I mention this, dear friends, only because this stuff only happens to me. You can laugh at my expense. Yes, we made it back to the ship in time, had our last, fabulous buffet dinner and did a pub crawl the rest of the night. Mr Bulgaria was playing at the Seapub again and we were happy to see him. He took requests and played everything from Swedish and Bulgarian folk songs to John Denver, Bon Jovi, Johnny Cash, Credence Clearwater, Soundgarden, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, you name it. He held his mike out for the audience to join him in the chorus and said, "Hey, I'm rich!" when people put coins in his jar. A group of well lubricated young Estonians were sitting up front and got him to play a couple of encores.

Then we wandered into the Sea Palace where the Pink Panther Band was playing dance music. When they went on break, we were entertained by a group of dancers with an Olympic theme. Kyle thought it was hilarious when the dancing girls threw hoola hoops high in the air and broke part of the chandelier which sent glass raining down on their heads. Then we moseyed over to the Kereoke bar where a group of drunk teenage Estonians were singing with relish. One young man chose an Estonian song with a melancholy tune and the video showed a picture of chickens above the words he was singing. The DJ, who was also quite amusing, put his arm around the young man when he was done singing and said, "That was a very interesting song. Could you tell us what it's about? We saw chickens?" The young man said it was about a hard working farmer, then got embarrassed and didn't know what else to say. A disco on the top floor opened its doors at midnight until the early morning hours. Outside, the sun was still setting. It never got dark the entire night.