tallinn, estonia

After getting acquainted with the ship (finding our life jackets and emergancy boat in case the ship sunk) we had a day at sea to catch up on sleep before our first port in Estonia. I get a little car sick and don't do well in the crazy taxi cabs so I was nervous about sailing. My mom reassured me that it wasn't that bad and she threw in some Dramamine just in case. Well, we were up north and the waters were a little rough the first night. At first I was having a really hard time and it was driving me crazy that there was nothing I could do to stop the spinning. Of course the Dramamine was lost in the luggage so a nice crew member told me I could go to the infirmary and tell them I lost my luggage and they would give me something to help. It turns out there is something better than Dramamine that doesn't make you sleepy and luckily it seemed to do the trick.

Before we left on our trip my mother and I decided that it would be best if only one of us brought the hair supplies (shampoo, hairspray, blow-dryer and straightener) to conserve on space in our tiny bathroom. Unfortunately, it was my mother who volunteered to pack it all so there we were with our frizzed out hair, and nothing to help calm it down. My hair actually wasn't that bad and the ship did provide us with a blow-dryer but my poor mother has very course hair and needed something to calm her wild mane. Luckily cruise ships have everything, including a salon, so she made friends with the workers, told them her sad story and they were nice enough to let her use their straightener. I will add that my mom was such a trooper and never once let the fact that she didn't have her luggage, ruin our trip.

After our day at sea we sailed into Tallinn bright and early and were ready to embark on our first little adventure. Every day before we set out we would read up on the city we would be visiting that day to get us excited and that day they described Tallinn as being: The beautiful capital city of Tallinn is one of the Baltic's great surprises, a fairyland jewel of medieval architecture perched dramatically above the sea. So after learning this we were very excited (my mother and I are both very gullable so anything you tell us we believe. That being said ... it doesn't take much to get us excited)

Tallinn was a lovely little country that in 1991 won it's independence from the Soviet Union. We took the Medieval tour that included the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Alexander Nevski with the infamous onion tops, several tiny cobblestone streets with their parliament buildings, scenic views of the lower town with its red rooftops, several Amber shops (too expensive to purchase but fun to see), and the market square where you can purchase several local wool and linen products. Of course, my mother and I had to taste the local toasted almonds and we both had to buy a woven linen scarf to wear in the cold winter months.

Our tour was short, but fun to see such a quaint little medieval village. Estonia is a small country with a total population less than NYC. I was shocked, but it was interesting to learn that most of the Scandinavian countries don't have a large population (to cold I guess).

The Russian Orthodox Church


Lower Town


Along the cobblestone streets


S&J outside one of the Amber shops


A cute little restaurant along the street


The Market Square


The girls that toasted the almonds


One of the towers at the entrance to lower town


Sadly, my mom's luggage was not in our room when we returned from our tour of Tallinn. They told us that the airlines would not deliver it to Russia so she would not be receiving it until Finland. We were spending two days in Russia so this meant my mom wouldn't be getting her luggage for 3 days. At this point we both started crying but realized there was nothing we could do. My mom made do with what she had, had her clothes dry cleaned at night and took over my wardrobe. Maybe it's a good thing my dad didn't come?