Ice in my drink!!

Good afternoon to you! It's been a great first day in the city of Tallinn! Let me tell you about it...

So we gathered at 11 for Anatoli to take us to breakfast. We went to a fast food place called Hesburger. It was very similar to McDonald's, and I got a chicken wrap with fries and a coke. To my very pleasant surprise, my coke came with ice! In Russia, and most of Europe, they don't serve iced drinks and even the "chilled" drinks are usually lukewarm. Dunno why. But I never really knew how awesome ice in your drink was until I didn't have It for two weeks. Mmm iced coke.

So, after Hesburger, we went a'walking towards Tallinn's old town. It's only a few blocks from our hotel. It was so charming! It's an actual real-life medieval town! All the roads were cobblestone and all the buildings were super old! The main municipal building (now a museum) was built in the 1400's! It was so cool, and it was way older than anything I've seen before. I took some pictures, but I'll take more and try to upload them tomorrow.

This week they're having a festival about the city's age or something (am I not hitting these cities at precisely the right time??) so they were having a demonstration of the city bus system in a square in the old town. It was kind of hokey, but they had all the old models of buses out on display, so it was kind of cool. Also, the square that they were on used to be the main public square during Soviet times, so the puppet government would stand there and receive ideological parades and preside over other official events. Hopefully we'll learn more about Estonian/Russian relations while we're here. So far, I know it has been, and continues to be, a tense relationship.

After walking around, we went to Tallinn University to meet some administrators and hear about the university. It was really cool and they were super nice! They told us all about their international programs and summer school programs. They boasted several programs offered in English, which was a cool concept that was new to me.

A few different women spoke to us about different aspects of the university. Kea has been president of the international student club for three years. She knows 5 languages pretty well. We all told her how impressive that was and she said something that sounded really profound to me. He suggested that because Estonians are from such a small country, and Estonian is such a different language, they feel like it's their responsibility to learn as many foreign languages as they can. Isn't that cool? I wish The whole world had that attitude! Especially Americans, some of which feel it's the rest of the world's duty to learn English, even though it's only the native language of a handful of countries. Oh, how I wish I knew more languages! I guess I have to learn. ;)

After the university, we came back to the hotel a chilled for a bit. Then Julie and I headed out for a mini-excursion. We went to exchange currencies, and we found a Tex-Mex place! We've both been craving Mexican food, so even though it was slightly pricey, we went for it. Suffice it to say, it was worth it. We also went to a little craft fair that was going on and I bought some super-thick 100% wool socks. They are cozying my feet as we speak.

Then we went to the grocery store to get some snackies. I got items including, but not limited to, the following: strawberry aloe vera green tea, blue cheese flavored nuts, pear soda (duh), bacon flavored crackers, pretzels, and hard candies. The store was really fascinating, and because a lot of the labels were in English, it was fun to go around and look at all the weird stuff!

Then we came back here and now I'm going to bed! Surely I'll dream of mooses and ice in my drinks. :)