Day in Tallinn, 05 July 2010

Post by Luis: I have loads to tell about today.

Today we had a tour bus ride around Tallinn. Each bus ride is an hour long. We went to different places such as the Olympic village, the botanical gardens and even some ruins. Then my mom went shopping at this market, we met this nice lady at a stand and my mom took about a half hour to decide what she wanted to get. Then we went to the old town because we had a private walking tour of the old town. We had a really nice tour guide who told us lots about the town and stores (I even got a picture of the prime minister back of his head).
My pictures include a statue of a man named Voldemort (not Voldemort from Harry Potter), a horse place, a view of the entire town, and a really cool piece of art and many many many more. After we went for dinner at an Italian pizza place which was really good. We then walked back to the hotel to have some down time.

Yours
Luis Ounpuu Antebi

Further highlights about the tour:

Eero our guide is a 40'ish typical Esto man who did a great job of explaining Esto history

Some shared highlights of the day:

* Tuomiokirkko Church which had the family crests of those buried in the church covering the wall;

*Freedom Square monument is glass to represent the fragility of the Freedom of Esto and the ice of cold winters, the cross at the top represented the medal of honor given to fallen soldiers

* The absolute center of the main square in the lower town where you can see 5 church spires;

*Eero's comment referring to the Soviet occupation and why to this day tension remains between the Estos and Russians; "Russians in Esto feel that they liberated Estonians from the Nazi's whereas the Esto's feel that the Russians occupied their country".

*Big rock that was used to block the route of Russian tanks in 1991 at the end of the Singing Revolution was displayed as a monument to the event. We stood on the spot where the singing revolutionaries stood and parted to make a path for the parliamentarians to leave the parliamentarians in peace.

*Kunstikauplus Lohvik Art Shop Cafe, a pottery studio in the upper town off the most traveled routes where we had a break

*interesting that the Russian Orthodox church remains a huge fixture across the square from parliament

We had a delicious Esto dinner in the lower town with Sirje and Teele, (daughter and grand-daughter of Maia who is daughter of Hilda, sister of Albert Ounpuu (dad's dad). got that?!!

*The old city in Tallinn was built in the 1300's and was largely untouched by the second world war. As a result there is HUGE collection of old buildings and a labirynth of corridors and cobblestone streets to explore.