Tallinn, Estonia

 We are at sea the first two days, which gives us some time to learn the boat and get ourselves ready for the first port which is Tallinn, Estonia.  John has been here before and it seems to be an easy port to visit on your own.  We have found that when it is 50 degrees outside and no one sits outside, everything gets pretty crowded in the spaces.  There is no covered pool on this ship and this means that the pool and hot tubs are not getting any action.  It is hard to believe that we took a cruise in December 

 that was warmer than this one in June.  I know that we are very north, but the water in the Baltic Sea is actually warmer than the air that we are experiencing.  Also, the amount of wind makes it unbearable outside even if it weren’t so cold.  I’m starting to think that this cruise wasn’t the best idea we’ve ever had, but we’re committed now, so push on. 

Tallinn, Estonia

Getting off the boat and into

 the old town was as easy as Rick Steve’s said that it would be.  We were able to do the walking tour throughout the town, but it starts off at St. Olav’s church which has the tallest spire in the town, so we had to climb it.  It was a ton of small, irregularly sized stairs that wound so tightly around each  other that you had to hold on to ropes in order to get up them.  We didn’t bring a water bottle on this climb and I thought that I would have to kill John when he said, “You’re made of water, 

don’t worry about it”  It would have been sad to have buried him in Eastern Europe, but the man shouldn’t say stupid things like that to me when I’ve climbed hundreds of stairs.  We made it back down the stairs (eventually) and walked on into town and to a café that was recommended.  We were able to recoup and have some treats, coffee, and water and check the internet.  John’s just happy his Blackhawks are still alive, I just sent another blog entry and we went further into the walled city and up  into the second walled city inside of it.  This a great little town to visit because it is so compact, has such medieval backbone to it, and has really flourished as part of the EU.  The reminders are everywhere of their occupation by the soviets, we passed the KGB headquarters and the spire we climbed was used to block any tv broadcasts into Estonia.  They had soldiers out in force on some kind of maneuvers and it made me think that they are probably on high alert because of the Ukraine situation.