Estonia Part 1 - Tallinn

As many of you know I recently took a trip to Estonia with my wonderful cousin Jana. The flight went well. We left Saint John, NB at 4:30 PM March 19th and we arrived in Estonia just past 4:30 PM on March 20th. There is a 6 hour time change so we were on the road for about 16 hours. The longest part of the trip was from Montreal to Frankfurt, 7 1/2 hours. We had several relatives meet us at the airport. They welcomed us with flowers. I love that custom!

Jana went to Saaremaa with her family and I stayed in Tallinn at my cousin Margus'. Margus and his family live in a well kept home. They had recently done some renovations and it was much more roomy than when I had been there before. Like many homes in Estonia, they had running water but still had no shower. Their water was heated by the kitchen wood stove. It amazed me how clean people there kept themselves and their homes without all the conveniences we have to work with. While I was away, I applied for my Estonian passport. That will give me duel citizenship which is my birthright. I don't know how it will benefit me but now that Estonia is part of the EU, you never know when it may come in handy. I should have it in hand by the end of the April. The last time I was in Estonia many things were hard to come by. The most remarkable thing that I remember is that they used abacuses in the stores to do their calculations. You should have seen their fingers go. It was truly amazing and fast. Now the stores all have computer cash registers and the stores are full with anything you want to buy. The stores are much more colourful as well with advertisements all over the place. The prices for things were very comparable to the prices here in Canada. However, the wages are much lower which makes the cost of living very high for the average Estonian. One day while everyone was at work, Kristo, my 15 year old cousin took me to town shopping. What a great kid! He made sure I got breakfast and then together we went into the city by bus. We shopped and shopped. He was so patient as I listened to lots of CDs. In Estonia you can preview any music before buying it. I bought him some Sony headphones for a thank you gift for being my guide. I had noticed him eyeing them earlier in the day. He fought me on getting them. He is so polite. He was also a lot of fun to go to town with considering the difference in our ages. We really hit it off. He carried everything I bought in his backpack and then we bussed it back home.
That evening after we got back from the city, they took me to the TV tower for supper. It is like the CN tower but not as tall. It is over 500 meters tall. The restaurant is at 370 meters. The meal was very good and fancy. I took a picture of it. :-)
Let me tell you what happened that night. I must have been dreaming and going to sleep walk. I've done that in the past. I pushed myself up on my arms and must have been going to get out of bed but the bed sheets were wrapped around my legs and woke me up. I remember thinking "What am I doing?" and so I went to let myself back down. Now, there was a desk butted up against the head of my bed. The bed was very narrow for a single bed, about 2 1/2 feet wide. As I let myself back down, I hit the corner of the desk with my eye and gave myself a black eye. I knew when it happened that it would be black. It was not real bad. I was able to cover it with makeup. How crazy is that?! One evening Pilvi, another cousin invited us out to see one of my younger cousins, Kadri, in a musical performance. She is a gymnast and competes in rhythmic gymnastics. She is also a dancer and in the performance she did interpretive dance to the songs with two other girls while the singers sung. It was wonderful!

It struck me that all the young girls in Estonia were strikingly beautiful. If you want to know more about that, just ask Jaybird.

Too be continued...