Pictures of Estonia

Here are a ton of random pictures from Tallinn. I took many more, but there just isn't room here for all of them. (Also, none of us really wants to see that many pictures, now do we? I didn't think so.) You can have these ones, though. I'll try to explain a little bit about what each of them are, but I'm tired and I can't tell you everything. Moral of the story: if you really want to hear all about my adventures, you're just going to have to invite me over sometime after I get back to the States.

For now, here's Tallinn, Estonia for ya!

The old Town Hall building.
(Also, the place where we had elk soup on Halloween night.)

This was just a red brick building that I loved.
Every time we walked past it, I thought, "Gee. I love that building."
So I decided I'd better get it over with and take its picture.
Now I have it forever. :)

Old Town was made up of cobblestone streets and stone alleyways,
like these ones. I discovered rather quickly that although
cobblestone streets are really cool, walking on them for too long
can hurt your legs after a while.
Worth it.

Just a streetview of Old Town.

Ooh! The Apteek! This is the oldest running apothecary in  Europe.
It's mostly a museum, but they do sell potions and pills there.
(No, I didn't buy any. Poor, remember?)

See the "Bezoar" annotation? JK Rowling knows her stuff.

This was a list of common ingredients the apothecary used
way back in the day. I'm particularly fascinated by the mass
of medicinal ingredients that come from humans.
(Maybe the cannibals are just trying to eat healthy?)

Here are some of the ingredients they had on the shelves.
From left to right, those are "mummy fragments," "stallion hooves,"
and "sun-bleached dog feces."
. . .Parents, this is good material:
Next time your kid complains about taking his vitamins...

Okay, we're out of the Apteek. This is a lady selling almonds.
They had tons of these almond stands set up all across Old Town.
It was fun just talking to the medieval folks selling them.

...particularly if they were young men wearing tights.
This one gave me a free medieval coin when I bought some almonds.
(Those almonds were good, too. Cinnamon-sugar flavored.)

I also had the privilege of sampling some odd sausages.
Such as this one: moose sausage with cheese.
Not bad, but I prefer the sweet almonds.

Another alley in Old Town

It was a nice place to wander around.
It just looks so cool!

This is St. Nikolas's cathedral.
(It's for you, little brother.)
It has the painting "Dance Macabre" inside, but we didn't get to see it.
It was closed the entire time we were in Tallinn.

I was often left behind. (Those are my friends up there.)
I kept getting distracted and taking pictures,
and the other girls were in such a hurry to see everything.
I never got completely lost, though. It's a small town.

This place is called "Kiek in de Kok," which translates to
"peek in the kitchen." It was named thus because it's so tall
that from the top you can look down the chimneys of other houses
and see right into their kitchens.
There are some cannonballs from the 1500s still lodged in its walls.

Old Town, Tallinn. Just another streetview.

I like trees. Everywhere we go, I notice the trees.
Does that make me really weird?
Ah well. Even if that didn't, there are other things that would.

Beautiful, giant clock in the side of a wall.
Oh! I think that's the cathedral we went into and found a concert.
A girl with a beautiful singing voice, accompanied by a guitarist.
That's one thing I've really enjoyed while being abroad:
Music.

More of Old Town, Tallinn.

That's me in front of Kiek in de Kok.
I'm probably hugging the mossy wall or something.
I just really loved that place, okay?
It was a city displaced in time.
And it was great.

Well, I hope you enjoyed Tallinn. I think it's now taken as many days to tell you about it as I actually spent there, so we'd better move on. Sweden won't take nearly so long to discuss. All we did was sightsee, and those pictures speak mostly for themselves. Say goodbye to Tallinn, friends.

Next stop - Stockholm!