Lots o' Stairs

Today we explored Old Town!

We first had our last class in one of the boys' rooms. It was about discussions, deliberations, an debates. I wish we could learn more social studies methods!

Then we set out for Old Town which is just a couple minutes from our hotel. It was so cool! Similar to yesterday's area, but even older! It was really quaint. There was a big stone wall around the oldest part of the city which used to be used as protection. We went in some really old Lutheran churches, one of which used to be the tallest building in the world! Granted, it was built in the 15th century, but that's still pretty cool! So, obviously we wanted to go to the top of it (what other use is there for tallest-building-in-the-worlds?). The staircase was so tiny and cramped! There were over 200 steps (Nicholas counted, but I forgot to ask the total). It was such a beautiful view!! We walked around on the tippity top roof part. It was creepy because there was a door out onto the roofing, but there was only a guard rail added on in modern times, so you really used to be able to go out on the roof, and there was not too much room for error up there, even with the rail! Anatoli said that the designer of the building was famous for his steeples, and one day when he was fixing the roofing, he fell and died!

None of us did though. So we climes back down the stairs and hit the bricks again. We walked down a lot of little streets. It was all so cute!

We went to the museum of Estonian history, which was super cool! All the exhibits had English subtitles and it was really modern! There were a lot of interactive exhibits and even a room devoted to how history can be interpreted in different ways! Estonia is a really cool place. They were part of the Russian empire, then independent, then taken over by bulsheviks, then independent again in 1921, then taken over by a dictator named Pats, then conquered by the Soviets again after WWII until 1991.

It was all really fascinating. After than museum, we walked to a part in the city wall where you could go up in some of the towers. On the way, there was a huge dance recital going on! There were boys and girls of all ages, and it was about the cutest thing I've ever seen. It was mostly Russian dances, but there was also a group that did flamenco and another that did hip-hop! It was awesome. I saw a group if little boys that did Cossack dancing; that was definitely my favorite.

Then we went to the wall. Anatoli was trying to communicate with the Ickes lady, but he wasn't having much luck until Titus suggested he speak Russian. It worked perfectly! It was hilarious because he had been trying to use English, and the lady was speaking Estonian, but they both spoke Russian, so it all worked out. We all climbed a lot more stairs and we were on top f the city wall! Anatoli started yelling to us in Russian, saw our confused faces, and repeated himself in English. Haha it must be so confusing to switch languages all the time! We went up and down in 3 different towers and walked around a pretty good part of the wall for a while. The view was really cool, because you could see the old village, but in the background you could see all the modern high rise buildings.

After that, we came back to the hotel, and Julie and I at at a Azerbaijani restaurant. It was delicious! we had Pahlava for desert, which was similar to baklava, and equally delicious.

After that we decided to rent bikes! It Was only 2€ an hour, so we took them out to the beach on the north side of town on the Baltic Sea! It was a really pretty bike path, and we pedaled along on our grandma-style city bikes. It was great! The weather stayed fine today (we've heard that the day often starts in sun and ends in rain, but not today!).

Then we got some candies at the grocery store and came on back to the hotel.

Tomorrow Helsinki!!!!!