L&J
As I mentioned in a previous post, Vadim took us around Tallinn and shared some of the history with us. I was most impressed that he used to live in a 500 year old apartment that is fully preserved and updated with modern amenities. Here are the pictures of the place that he shared:
Would you ever like to live in a museum. I personally think that this would be awesome!
For the second day of Estonia (Aug 11, 2011) we decided to explore around Tallinn. Our wonderful guidebook recommended that we head to Kadriorg Park and to a little beach city, Pirita.
Kadriorg was a very short tram ride away. It turned out to be a beautiful park that was built by Peter I for his wife Catherine. So we enjoyed the fountains and the gardens and the gorgeous weather. We even found a summer residence of the Estonian president and watched the change of guard. Then we were off to Pirita. As I mentioned before, Pirita is a beach / port town. During the Soviet times it was used to train the Soviet Olympic teams. The remnants of that are still visible with the Olympic symbols and old unused ports for the yachts. As it is proper when you head to the beach, we packed bathing suits and towels. However, when we got there, it started to rain and the beach-wear could only be used as an additional layer to keep ourselves warm :) Since the rain was on and off we still managed to do quite a bit of walking on the beach, the piers and in the forest.We just spent two days in Tallinn. Yes, its true that this is the first time that I actually made it to Europe. (And, no, I've never been to Piter, so I don't want to hear any comments that it's very similar).
Yesterday, was an extremely long day that started around 5am in Kiev. Two words about Kiev: Thank you to our gracious hosts, Lena and Sasha, for taking care of us, feeding us, showing us around and just being your wonderful selves. So around noon, we arrived at Tallinn, found our hostel very quickly and headed out to the old city. Levka has been here before so he doesn't appreciate the beauty nearly as much as I do. But I loved the little streets, old churches and the whole feel of the city. It is amazing how clean and restored this city is. We spent hours and hours and hours walking around. Got lost several times, which only added to the fun. We photographed everything that was photographable, climbed everything that was climable, walked everything that was walkable, etc etcWell, hopefully Riga’s airport will have Wi-Fi, and I’ll be able to upload this post along with pictures there. (It does)
And here are the pictures.
So we safely arrived to Moscow. There was some stress before we got here as we thought that we may need a Russian visa to transfer from Sheremetevo 1 to 2 (or the other way around, not sure where we are). But all turned out well and civil. It did of course take 3 hrs to pass 3 passport controls and 3 security checks. Also it seemed like we woke up 15 people, who otherwise would have been happily sleeping. But 2 of us needed 3 separate escorts from one place to the other, a huge bus where the driver joked that once again he is forced to drive 1.5 people. (not sure if that was a figure of speech or a reference to my weight).
All in all, pretty uneventful.
One note about food:
Za $27 nam prinesli dve maaaalenkie sosisechki. Srazu vspomnilsya anekdot pro studentov. A potom prinesli dve vilochki y my pinyali chto na samom delete shikuem.
Next destination: Ukraine
Hugs to all the readers!
So we're in Dnepropetrovsk visiting my relatives. Our days are spent with mostly sleeping, then eating, then walking, then eating, then spending time with relatives, then eating... Well, you guys get the drift. During the walks, we spend time chasing after leggy blondes as they live up to all the stereotypes and make a great picture. And when I say "we", I really only mean Levka ;) For a better description, see our album.
In the free time from all the eating, we decided to try out something crazy... a V-Up. A wonderful thing that was taught to us by Sonechka. Here is Levka's version of a V-up.This was written and read by my mother at our going away party. We found it on her site and decided to share with those who may have missed it.
В добрый путь, в добрый путь, в добрый путь!