Estonia and Finland

Since my last blog, summer has come and gone. Today it actually snowed for the first time. It was great. But as you know I haven't been idle just because it isn't summer. Todd and I played guide to his mother and her husband for a week in October. Then in November we took a trip to Estonia and Finland. Many of my students asked me why and all I could tell them was, why not. We got the time off work and we just wanted to see what those pesky Estonias and Fins were up to.

We left on a night train from Moscow to Tallinn. It took about 13 hours. And what was even better, Todd and I were not seated next to each other for the trip. We thought we could ask someone to exchange seats with us but turns out Todd sat next to a crabby old babushka who wouldn't budge. And the guy sitting next to me, literally couldn't budge because he was too big! So getting to Tallinn wasn't as romantic as it could have been. Nonetheless we arrived.

We booked a hotel close to the train station and when we arrived we saw that "close" was an understatement. It was right next to the train tracks! So it was easy finding the hotel. It had a great view of Tallinn as well. I guess that is what you get when you stop staying at youth hostels.

The "old town" of Tallinn is pretty cool. It has remained the same since the middle ages. So the streets are all windy and paved in bricks. It was very pictureque and relaxing but there wasn't much to do there. So we spent a day in the old town and then watched movies in English and shopped.

Helsinki Train Station

After two days we took the ferry to Helsinki. Todd was especially pumped to go to Finland because one of his favorite bands is from there, Lordi. Haven't heard of it? Don't investigate, really not worth your time. Anyway, we were expecting to buy Lordi Cola and all sorts of other stuff for Todd.

A candy bar we came to fondly call, racial slur bar!

Helsinki would be a great place to live but not such a great for tourists. There wasn't much to see or do that you wouldn't get in most big cities. They did, however, have H&M and reasonable prices even though they are on the euro. So we shopped! We also went to the aquarium and the reptile zoo place.



Then we took a train up to a town called Tampere. Apparently, this was the worker's capital of Finland and so Lenin had spent lots of time here trying to start a revolution. Needless to say Todd and I visited the Lenin museum and got a sweet photo of a couch Lenin slept on a for a few nights.




Eventually we made our way back to Moscow. Finland and Estonia were nice places to visit. And it turns out the Estonias were trying to speak Estonian or English but were overwhelmed with Russian. The Finnish weren't up to much because they had already mastered English! Now we know what they were up to!!