Tere Estonia!

We arrived in Tallinn at 5:30am, but realised that we told our friends Silja and Priit (who we met at Mt Bromo in Indonesia) we were arriving at 7:30am (the lady who sold us the tickets really didn't know anything). A good book took care of the time and soon Priit picked us up to drive us to their house for breakfast.

A couple of Silja and Priit's friends were away and on their trip to work they dropped us off at the empty apartment, right in Old Town. It was luxury; we had our own bathroom, kitchen, bedroom and internet to use! We took our first morning slowly, then headed out on to the streets. Tallinn's Old Town is OLD. Built in the 14^th and 15^th centuries, its narrow, windy streets are cobbled with turrets and spires peeping out everywhere. We fell in love with it immediately.

...ghosts in Old Town.

Crossing the Old Town to the City Centre, a modern high-rise development outside Old Town walls met us. Here we found a supermarket to buy the goodies we needed, now we had started to cook again. Slowly rediscovering this skill was especially important after witnessing some of the prices on menus in town - we were certainly in Europe now!

After an afternoon nap to catch up on the previous nights lost sleep, we met up with Silja and Priit who took us to their friends place for drinks and snacks in the warm evening. Their friends were from Estonia and Luxembourg and, lucky for us, they spoke fluent English. We fast came to admire how well Estonians handled our native language.

The evening went quickly. Drinking the best beer and most importantly, the most delicious wine we'd had in months, we compared cultures. Something that was coming up far more frequently the further west we travelled was The Lord of the Rings. We eventually learnt to hide our cringe and promote NZ as best we could. One story that appeared during the evening was about the presence of ghosts in Old Town. Fine by us, as long as we didn't have any scary encounters in the middle of the night!

On Friday morning we took a walk to Toompea, part of the Old Town climbing over a hill. This is where Tallinn began, in 1219 when the Danes built a castle here (Estonia has suffered a long history of occupation). We began by looking inside Toomkirik, Estonia's oldest church, passing by the Russian Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral (no photos were allowed in either of these), and headed to a lookout for some beautiful views over Tallinn. We hadn't left the wedding party photo circuits behind in Russia (we saw a lot more in Moscow and St Petersburg) - it looked like the Russian population carried out the tradition here too.

Toompea Castle isn't what it used to be. Nothing is left of the original castle, which is now a pink baroque-style building. Towers from the second castle to stand on the site (Knight's of the Sword Castle) still survive.

We decided we should learn a bit about the history of Estonia, so we went to the Museum of Occupation and Fight for Freedom (EEK10 – NZ$1 = EEK8.5). This was one of the most worthwhile things we did in Tallinn, we just wish we'd had more time there! The museum is small and has displays of objects kept from Soviet Times, but what caught our attention the most were the videos. There were 10 or more videos showing news and how people lived during different periods over the last 70 or so years, each video ranges in length from 20 to 30 min, we couldn't see them all! Did you know Estonia has had only one other time when it was a free nation before now? That was between the 1^st and 2^nd World Wars!

Saturday had us visiting a beach about 40km from Tallinn with Silja and Priit. It was a perfect day to lie in the sun reading but the sea was a bit too cold (though not too bad considering how far north we were) us to swim in and Adrienne wasn't happy with all of the jellyfish either! After a couple of hours on the beach, we headed back to Tallinn for an evening of drinks and nibbles.

That was the same day we made contact with Priidu through WWOOF. In a bid to save the few dollars we had left, we had decided to try working on an organic farm through an organisation that lets farmers and volunteers get together. Yep, that's right, we were volunteering to do farm work, all for food and accommodation while we waited for Sean's work permit.

On our Sunday afternoon stroll through Tallinn, we were crossing the town hall square (Raekoja Plats) and unexpectedly bumped into two friends from NZ, Alex and Shelley. What a huge surprise! They were visiting Tallinn for only day trip from Helsinki and happened to be walking through the town square at the right time. They had things to see, so we arranged to meet them for a beer before they were meant to take the 1 ½ hour ferry ride to Helsinki.

Continuing our wanders, we finally found (Catherine's Passage). This passageway has huge stone tablets and kind of funny roof things. We aren't really sure what the point of them was but they looked interesting enough for a photo. Around the corner is the Dominican Monastery. We took a look inside the dark interiors after paying something like EEK25 (they wanted us to pay about EEK35 each, we looked at each other thinking "too much", they went down to children's price, then one child!). It was small and in no way worth EEK35 each!

Kiek in de Kök (we thought the name was funny but it means 'Peep into the Kitchen') is a tower on the wall that surrounds Old Town. The name comes from medieval voyeurs who looked into town kitchens from the upper floor of the tower. Nearby you can have a go at shooting a bow and arrow, very tempting until we found out it was EEK25 per shot, not for 3!

After a catch up beer with Alex and Shelley, we joined Silja and Priit for another beer at the oldest pub in Estonia (Hell Hunt).

Monday saw us moving to Silja and Priit's house just outside old town (their friends were coming back). Sean picked up a SIM card from Tele2-Ultra for EEK25 including EEK25 credit for our time in Estonia. He also organised bus tickets to Nurste on Hiiumaa (EEK185 pp), where we would be travelling the next day to begin our Woofing.

The day was taken up with chores. Sean's work permit had recently been rejected so we visited some embassies to find out if there was another way to get a visa without going home (no). Before meeting Priit and Silja for an evening tour, we bought a Tallinn card. At EEK130 for 6 hours (you can buy them for up to 72 hours) they are great value. They get you into almost anything in Tallinn – museums, churches, the zoo, spas – for free. We chose to use ours the following day, before jumping on the bus.

Our evening tour took us to Priit's office for a beer or two (not for the driver, there is zero tolerance to alcohol here), a drive through Kadriorg Park and through Pirita where there is an Olympic Yachting Centre from the 1980 Moscow games. The evening didn't end until 1:30am as we sat up talking.

The final day in Tallinn was spent trying to use the Tallinn Card to it's fullest extent. We chose to use it from 9 till 3, but discovered not much is open at 9am. The Church of the Holy Spirit (Pühavaimu kirik) was the earliest sight that opened. We looked around at the delightful carvings and stained glass windows before heading to the Marzipan Museum for our free chocolate coated, VanaTallinn flavoured bar of its namesake. Mmmmm.... tasty. For the uninitiated Vana Tallinn is a terribly nice, Estonian liqueur.

Succumbing to a free truffle and cozy atmosphere, we had a coffee at Kohvikud Kehrwieder ja Kohvicum (we dare you to say it out loud!) then headed to Oleviste Church. Back in the days of yore, this church was able to boast that it was the tallest building in the world (159 m) but several fires brought it down a peg to 124 m. Undeterred we climbed to the observation deck and had a very worthwhile view of Tallinn – it's highly recommended to venture up there! Here's a video of the panorama.

We'd paid off the Tallinn Card by jumping onto a tour bus heading towards Kumu (Kunst Museum). It's a new and very good art museum near Kadriorg. It was easy to spend a couple of hours there viewing the various Estonian artists. We were really interested in the art from the Soviet era, so that we could get some insight into what it was like. Our opinion? Not that great. We're happy to have grown up in the land of "jandles, sandals, ketchup, Coromandel..."

The rest of the bus tour was a good whirlwind, covering the further out places like the TV tower and filling in some gaps with the audio commentary. Soon we had to leave for the bus station. Zipping through the town hall museum, darting up the city wall and then back to our friend's place we were done for the now.

Trolley no. 2 (we didn't have to pay for some reason) took us to the bus station and our packs were loaded into the bus's belly. The drive to Nurste didn't take long, including an hour long ferry ride (Estonia is not a big country) but the bus driver did seem intent on torturing us with absolutely terrible music.

The island of Hiiumaa unfolded in front of us, as we motored along in the bus. It was satisfyingly green, though the trees hid the sea.