Blogs from Kuressaare, Saaremaa, Estonia, Europe

Today we biked 33 miles for a total of 203 miles. Woke up to cool overcast skies, but no rain all day. Became blustery later in early afternoon. Last night over dinner we all talked about Gary's ankle getting a bit of a rest. So he and Bobbie decided to head to Muhu Island instead of going to the South end of Saaramaa Island and then to Muhu Island. Pam and I will still go to Kuresssare and spend the night. The next day we will meet them on Muhu Island. We had breakfast together in the town of Oitme and then went our separate ways. It was very cool day and on into the night. We had a strong head wind the whole way. We did pass through rural areas of Saaremaa Island with lots ... read more

An diesem Tag bin ich von Tallinn nach Kuressaare auf der Insel Saremaa gefahren. Dort gibt es eine schöne Burg. Leider hatte sie geschlossen.... read more

July 6 - I didn't get to sleep until 12:30am or so last night, and got up this morning at 6am. I so need more sleep. I got everything together and had breakfast and then got on my way. I had to go to the train station to get the tram to the bus station. I asked someone if this was the right tram to get to the bus station but he didn't speak English. Luckily another man told me it was right and he was going there, so I could just follow him. It turns out he is a priest who used to work in the place where I was going. Anyway, he did get me where I was going. I was able to get a ticket for the 7:50am bus to Kurassaare on the ... read more

I am now on Saaremaa island the largest in Estonia - in a place called Kuressaare, which is the biggest town here - but we are only talking about 11,000 people so WAY smaller than anywhere else I have been. It was quite a surprise to come somewhere so small. However I was ale to use my initiative and found a pretty reasonable hotel not mentioned in the LP (Lonely Planet) the Arabella which was only 500Eek (thats Estonian krons - about 9 to Aussie dollar - so that was pretty reasonable. The bus ride to Kuressaare is about 4 hrs (incl. 30mins or so for the ferry crossing to the island) from Tallinn and I got here around 4pm yesterday. I was a little worried about it being the weekend and no booking but it ... read more

Just a few days ago, I visited the capital of Estonia (Tallinn) to see a few friends and to see the parliament building. The other exchange kids met us there in Tallinn of course too. When we got to the parliament building, we met Estonia's prime minister: Andrus Ansip. He is a funny man and showed us (just for a joke) a letter that George Bush Jr. hand wrote. Not meaning to be the sound hypocritical, yet his handwriting was quite terrible and we all laughed at the fact that none of us could read it- even me. Later Ansip showed us a "translated letter" of what he wrote. It was interesting to see that my previous president would take the time to write a handwritten letter though- sweet of him actually. Unfortunately, while I was ... read more