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Published: July 28th 2010
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Tallinn
Old Upper Town taken from ship as entering harbour - fog everywhere Hi everyone and thank you for your comments - we haven't responded individually to them for several reasons.... one - having too good a time, two - no FREE WiFi on board ship and have limited time... yes good excuses!!!
A couple of things I haven't mentioned earlier - it is daylight in this part of the world until around 10pm!!!! even better than daylight saving - it's really amazing for it to be light for so long and the sun rises at 5am!! Loving it.
We met some Americans at breakfast one morning and the lady started singing 'I come from a land down under' - there's a line there about a vegemite sandwich... this lady had never seen vegemite but we had brought a tube of it & had it on the table. Anyway to cut a long story short - her and the others on the table tasted in on toast and loved it!!! We are very obliging Aussies!!
Yesterday we went to Tallinn, Estonia for the day - with its narrow winding roads in some areas of the Old Town. Tallinn is a medieval town that was not ravaged by war and dates back
Guess who
Trying on locally made hat to the days ofthe Vikings. Also had an upper area for the wealthy and lower area for the lower income people. Also saw in a church a shop where they were selling souvenirs!! No matter where we've been we have never actually seen a shop within a church. Also had several old ladies out the front of the church begging for money.
At Tallinn they make heaps of arty crafty type of stuff plus beautiful linen clothing - bought a lovely shawl type of thing to wear when it's cool at night. Interesting that they have a currency called EEK - and also take Euro - BUT although the prices are in EEK and Euro they do not take Euro in cash... strangely enough but will accept it on Visa. Weird hey!
We've found in the last few places we've been to that AMBER jewellery is the thing - very expensive but looks like costume jewellery - apparently the darker the amber the better quality it is.
We enjoyed Tallinn - gorgeous small place with a population of about 400,000 with an Old Town there with very old and quaint buildings and of course some very modern
Church
Upper Town church with gold opulent by local standards - had shop selling souvenirs at entrance IN the church buildings as well.
We had lunch in the town square where the al fresco cafes were set on the fringes - the staff and owners were working hard in the square touting for business - interesting to watch. On guy got 13 people into his restaurant within 2 minutes!! However, the staff weren't so quick on the service and 5 of them got up and left... while we were having lunch - a 7 person pedal bike went by - will include photo for you.... very different.
We have arrived in Russia to the news that there are fires caused by the big heatwave here and is expected to be around 40 degrees today. We're off to St Catherine's Palace and to the Russian Ballet tonight - looking forward to it.
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Ken
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That Hat!!!
Where on earth did you get that hat. You can bring one back. NOT!!!! Looks like a tea cosy.