Today our tour started in the medieval town of Tallinn. We walk up tooompea hill to the palace square where we viewed Toompa castle, now the Estonian Parliament. We were able to peek into a lovely Russian Orthodox Alexander Nevsky cathedral. Since this was sunday, no pictures were allowed but the clergy were all dressed in their religious robes, very ornate. We continued over the cobble stone streets for an overview of the lower city. The city is on a hill with city walls protecting the lower city and larger walls protecting the upper city. There is a Catholic St [View Full Entry]

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Beware the Müürivahe Molester In keeping with my strange ability to attract unconventional situations, Tallinn served me up a beauty of an incident. It was my last day there and I was doing one last wander around Old Town just before midday. Walking down Müürivahe (yet another quiet cobbled street), an innocent, blond-haired blue-eyed adolescent was coming in the opposite direction. He gave me a shy little smile and in return, as Kiwis generally do, I smiled back. Naturally, the nordic youth took this to mean; "please, feel free to fondle me" and proceeded to give my left mammary gland [View Full Entry]

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I was pretty stressed out the morning of the 30th. I had my final exam for one of the harder Engineering units i'd been doing and the lecturer conviently decided to change the course requirements to create a final oral exam. I was soon to find, however, that the stress was undeserved - the lecturer simply held an extended conversation with me about me thoughts and learning from the course (a course might i add in which I attended 10% of lectures due to unforseen circumstances - like Amsterdam). Anyways, relieved to claim some unit points and have the rare [View Full Entry]

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Today we took a ferry from Helsinki to Tallinnn, Estonia. It was very crowded going over. We went to a restaurant in the Old Town and had a good and plentiful lunch. Then Margaret and I walked down to the Town Hall and Central Square, while Mother sat outside one of the hotels. She ended up eating a dessert and having a drink so she could stay at their table. There was an exhibition of dancing in the central square with lots of different groups giving performances. We walked by the stall under the city walls. There were lots of [View Full Entry]

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Tallinn - Estonia , the city of all things old, trendy & tourists. We arrived in Tallinn, Estonia after travelling across the Baltic Sea from Finland (Evonne - I didn't see any whales :( ). Our first feeling of Tallinn was that we were moving further away from home. Once we moved away from the docks into the old town, we were pleasently surprised by how well preserved the medieval city is (even if it was full of tourists, like us). We arrived at our guest house (located in the old town) a bit tired from our nights of drinking in [View Full Entry]

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I figured if I was coming all the way to Finland, I might as well go to Estonia. For many, its an easy day trip that takes anywhere from 1 1/2 hours on a hydrofoil boat or 3 hours on a cruise type ferry. I think there are a fair number of Finnish people who enjoy making this trip for the cheap cigarettes and well, duty-free alcohol available here. I was relieved to find that the prices are similar to canadian standards. A good bench mark is always Mcdonalds and five dollars cdn will get you an extra value meal [View Full Entry]

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We've been extremely busy in the past few days. Arriving in Tallinn and finding a hostel was very easy (although on our way to Stansted the coach driver nearly crashed...). We settled in quickly and though we hadn't slept much we had to go out and make the most of the time we had. The city is very beautiful, as you've probably all heard, but there was very little atmosphere of any kind. Just peace in the daytime and a few rabbles of Brits roaming the town at night. Hardly any local people on the streets makes it seem much [View Full Entry]

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Sal was right about the Lonely Planet's "Europe on a Shoestring": 'Well, that is unless you call over a thousand bucks a week "shoestring"'. Nonetheless, as we hit the end of Adventure no. 1: Europe, we thought we'd give a bit of a summary. This computer is cool, we have just realised, because you can change the nationality of the keyboard (except it keeps defaulting to hungarian). So: Happz Euro travel blog )HungarianÖ Hqppy Euro trqvel blog 9French0 So the run down.... 1. Portugal Best food: That take away chicken shop in Lagos. We would have taken away the shop too [View Full Entry]

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Untitled zacandsof Wow. What decisions we have to make in Tallinn. I hope we don't keep up this stress forever. 1. We have to get out of bed. Do we get up at a) 11am b) 12pm c)1pm 2. We go to the best ever pancake restaurant for a cheap breakfast. Do we a) order the champignon and blue cheese b) order the bacon and smoked cheese c) order the raspberry and condensed milk d) order the chicken fillet e) you get the idea 3. We feel like having a sauna. Do we a) have the free one at the [View Full Entry]

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Who'd have believed I'd use that joke?? Okay, so I didn't believe it either. Estonia. How do I describe it? It's.....odd. It's an Eastern European country trying desperately to haul itself out of the post-Communist malaise and into Scandinavia. Tallinn is a city that is obviously developing quickly and there is clearly a great deal of wealth making it's way into the pockets of the locals. Despite this and the removal of most of the obvious monuments to Communism some parts of the city still feel as if they are still within the border of the Soviet nation. I think [View Full Entry]

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