Tallinn

Sept 3rd
Tallinn Estonia

Today brought me to the country of Estonia, a place that I don’t believe I knew anything really about until today. I went out on a tour early this morning entitled “The best of Tallinn with Concert and Lunch”. The tour was good, and the tour guide really did a nice job. She was able to tell us stories of when the country was under soviet power and what it was like living in a communist society. Now I never really liked history, but hearing it from someone who actually experienced the effects of communism in such a way just blew me away. Her stories of waiting in lines for hours to get a pig ear, and if lucky, low grade sausage, were just so eye opening to our freedoms. She talked about needing a visa to even go to the beach back then because the government was afraid of people trying to swim the 60 miles to Finland. And then hearing her talk about how much the country loves having their freedom now, despite the poor economy, they finally have a choice on what to do and have to opportunity to make and save money. I was really glad to have heard some of those stories, and the guide had a great personality and could make a joke out of most everything, so it made the stories less harsh to hear. But anyways, we stopped at the music festival grounds (a big band shell), a bunch of churches, and had a great lunch of pork, potatoes, and sauerkraut. The city was really nice though, it had more of a traditional European vibe to it. The concert was lame, 15 minutes of two people performing medieval music on hand drums, a lute, or the herty gerty (I think they called it). It was interesting, but not the “concert” I had in mind. We made it back to the ship then, I got some rest, and had the rest of the night off. Good deal right? Tomorrow is a sea day while we travel to Copenhagen, I think.