Estonia

1 September 2008
Tallinn, Estonia
                The bus stopped at the duty free store for about 15 minutes.  The shop was pretty bare; it contained the normal things (alcohol, chocolate, perfumes).  We bought a bottle of water and a Sprite.   Everyone loaded back onto the bus, and the bus drove, over the river to the Estonia border check point.  The customs guy came onto the bus and collected everyone’s passports.  Then the bus driver asked a couple of the guys to get off the bus, and assist with the border guards checking the luggage.  The customs guy came back onto the bus about 10 minutes later handing out passports, and soon the guys all came back onto the bus.  The bus drove into Estonia.
                The bus stopped one or two times on the way to Tallinn, arriving on schedule at 1:35 Estonian time (an hour behind St. Petersburg time).  We unloaded off of the bus, grabbed our bags, and began walking.  Walking across the street Anna almost got hit by a tram (she wasn’t looking both ways).  Subsequently, she gave Doug a heart attack in the process.
                We were hungry not really having much to eat but some chips, and decided to have some lunch at a pub called “The Scotland Yard.”  After ordering food, Doug went around the corner to look for the place we were to pick up our keys for the next 3 days.  We rented a room in an apartment, “supposedly living with a family.”  After eating two giant chicken sandwiches we picked up the keys, and walked to our new home for the next 3 days.  After dropping off our bags, we left to do some sightseeing. 
                The city was made up off old town, and new town.  Old town is surrounded by an old wall, with cobblestone streets.  And new town has the sky scrapers, and shopping malls.  We walked around old town for a couple hours, checking out the area.  It was an amazing day with beautiful blue skies…and of course we didn’t bring the camera.  On the way back to the room we stopped by a market picking up a few items to eat for dinner.
                At the room we popped open a bottle of wine, cut some cheese, and watched a movie. 

2 September 2008
Tallinn, Estonia
                The morning was a little lazy.  Anna also decided to begin her exercising again.  After being in large smog smitten cities for the last month or two, she wanted to start getting her butt in shape, so she went running.  Back at the room, we took showers, and had breakfast of yogurt and granola. 
                It was time to do more sightseeing, and take the camera with us this time.  Unfortunately it was sprinkling outside.  Anna wanted to go to a café for a cup of coffee.  In old town we found a café, and ordered some snacks.  Walking around we went to the post office to post some things home.  We also managed to find a place to check internet.  After checking internet we walked around some more.  The rain was on and off by this point.  We were taking photos during the short periods of no rain.
                By late afternoon we stopped by the market on the way to the room, and picked up some more items for dinner.  At the room we watched another movie to bide some time.  Estonia was more expensive than we planned, and watching movies didn’t cost us anything. 

3 September 2008
Tallinn, Estonia
                Our first chore of the day was to get tickets to Riga, Latvia for the next day.  Next was to check our internet.  We went to the place we went to the day before but our session was cut off about 5 minutes in.  After 5 minutes of troubleshooting we asked the lady working the desk and she replied, “Oh yes, the server is broken.”  Thanks for letting us know.  She shut off our computer and said to wait 10 minutes.  15 minutes later we asked if we could come back later.  She said yes.
                We explored Old Town a bit more.  Tallinn is a beautiful city.  Eventually we decided to go back to the internet place again.  The computers were still not working.  We decided to try and find some food.  We ended up finding a big grocery store (on our last day of course).  We found a hot bar with some onion mashed potatoes and chicken Kiev.  We got some other essentials (like dark chocolate with raspberry filling) and headed back to our place for lunch. 
                Back at the internet place for a third time the computers were working.  We sat down and got about 10 minutes in this time before the server stopped again.  We waited about 10 more minutes and then asked for a refund.  There was another place in the upstairs of a bookstore that was more expensive…but they had computers that worked.
                After we reserved a place to stay in Riga and a couple other odds and ends sorted out online, we walked around Old Town some more.  Eventually we went back to the room for the night.  Doug ended up going on an “emergency wine and desert” run a few hours later to make our dinner and a movie that much better.

4 September 2008
Tallinn, Estonia
                We were out the door about 9 am.  We had to walk to out of our way to drop off our keys and get our deposit back.  At the housing agency Doug ran upstairs and was glad to see that the lady was there (the hours posted showed they started at 9:30am…but our bus left at 10am).  With our key deposit back in hand we took off to the bus station.
                The bus pulled up just as we arrived at the platform.  Doug took care of luggage while Anna worked on coffee.  The bus left on time and set off for Latvia.
                The bus stopped and two border security guards got on.  Next a golden lab ran to the back of the bus and one of the guards started directing it towards the front of the bus having it sniff everybody.  Once the dog finished the guards got off and we rolled into Latvia.  They never even checked our passports.  This was by far the easiest border crossing we had had yet.

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