Here's the Tallinn post:
Day 8 – Tallinn, Estonia
Dear Sailor:
It is not true that dogs in Russia eat caviar. What is more likely is that people sell tins
of cat food to tourists in Russia claiming it’s caviar.
Anyway, Russia is soooo yesterday! Today Tallinn celebrated
my birthday by throwing a lovely summer folk dancing and music festival. I guess it was for me, though I don’t know
when you had time to send word to them that it was my birthday. You sneaky dog! These are a couple of very short and very
unprofessional videos taken with my cell phone, I took photos too, but the
videos give a better idea of how all out they went for me.
Guess you just couldn’t keep it a secret could you?
Tallin’s history is one of constant upheaval, they belonged
to one duke and then another, then to Russia, then to Sweden, ruled themselves
for a couple of years, then another take-over.
Port cities were valuable prizes.
Currently they have been self-ruling since 1991 when they were given
freedom from Russia after protesting peacefully by song. I didn’t get the whole story, I’ll have to
look it up, but no blood was shed and they’ve been on their own for over 20
years. All seems to be going swimmingly
as you can see from all the singing and dancing.
Rumor has it that Tallinn is the birthplace of marzipan –
what a great invention! Way back some
time in the 12th or 13th century it was developed by an
apothecary and thought to have medicinal properties. I think I could become an addict! It seems to
me that I should make it a tradition to celebrate my big day with marzipan
every year starting now. So here is a
photo of the marzipan taxi I bought – sorry, nothing left but the photo.
At dinner Pamela surprised me with a marzipan angel that she
snuck in and bought after we went our separate ways, actually she said she was
trying to beat me to the shop (I wasn’t sure where it was, she Googled it on
her I-pad); which turned out not to be too hard because I ducked into almost
every souvenir shop along the way after I left her in a café. Pamela doesn’t like to shop, I’m just curious
– what can I say? I just need to know that every shop has the same stuff as the others.
Oh, if you should get hungry in Tallinn you can get a decent
bowl of elk soup for 2 Euros (just in case you’re wondering).
Anyway, back to the ship and a day at sea. I’m not blogging about the day at sea, I’m
doing my laundry, going to the gym (gotta get those 45 minutes a day in) and just
generally floundering about in the ocean.
More to come from Warnemunde.
Oh, just looking at photos and I remembered this. We happened to be passing by a church (I think it was St.
Mary’s Cathedral, but I wouldn’t swear by it without going back to my cabin and
looking at the map), when bells started going off, the church doors flew open
and out came all the clergy and half of the town … they paraded around the
block the church stands on and then as we were going outside after a peek
inside at the altar they came swarming back in, we were crushed up against the
wall, - never thought they’d circle the church and come back. I always thought that when church was over
you went to get breakfast! Incense and
altar boys and lots of gold embroidered vestments – it was very ceremonious.
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