Day 10: Tallinn - free WiFi for all!

Our ship docked in Tallinn, Estonia this morning, with disembarkation beginning at 9. We got off shortly after 9, armed with our printed copy of a walking tour of the Medieval and Old town sections of Tallinn. We wandered its cobblestone streets

and saw medieval churches and walls, a Russian Orthodox church (it is Sunday, so they were having a service!),

a pink palace,

and a million tourists.

View of the city from the old city:

Our tour took about two hours, and ended with us in the town square, where there was some sort of music festival taking place.

There was also a little square filled with tables and tents full of handmade traditional Estonia crafts and stuff.

Rich also discovered an open WiFi network here and I hurriedly posted the last three days worth of blogs and checked my email. Fortunately, there were no crisis, so I was done quickly and could return to my sightseeing.

We wandered the stalls and the town square and all of the little offshoot streets and shops for about two hours.
A typical nut cart:

Then bearing many gifts and cool stuff for ourselves, we headed back to the ship. All in all we were gone for about five hours and we got back too late for lunch. So we got ice cream and a snack to hold us over until dinner. Then I read. I don't really know what everyone else did, because I was reading. Then we won the evening trivia game, thanks to Rich's vast knowledge of trivia, and we got these really cheap little flashlight key rings. Then we ate, watched a show, went hot tubbing, and collapsed in bed. A very successful day.

I have decided that the food here is too good not to mention, so I will be keeping a diary of each of my diners in each post. Tonight I had a spring roll and mixed greens as appetizers, and glazed duck and beef Wellington as the main course. Desert was chocolate and butter pecan ice cream and then a honey caramel creme brûlée. The beef was the best one, followed by the brûlée. Yes, I ordered way too much food. But the entrees are small, so it isn't quite as bad is it looks at first glance. But it was still too much and I regret the creme brûlée, no matter how good it was.

~Mia

From Myra:

We actually witnessed a couple different musical performances in Tallinn. The first was in the town square, where we saw a group of children sing, they were really good. I also spent some time listening to what seemed like a folk music performance. I love the music of the Baltic area, so you may imagine this was quite a highlight for me.
Another fun thing: we tried elk! They had elk sausage at a stall with samples, it was pretty good. Sadly, we can't bring any meats back.

My note on the cruise food: yum. I usually get 5 appetizers.

I thought Tallinn was a really pretty little tourist town and probably could have enjoyed it more. I did get a chance to wander about by myself as the others were enjoying their wi-fi. Yeah. Fun.

I think I started getting homesick about this point :)