Kroonis and Lattes and ice, oh my!

I don't know about you, but when my friend Maria mentioned that we could do a day trip in Tallinn, Estonia, I had to pull out a map to figure out where on earth it was. Estonia was one of the countries that used to belong to the Soviet Union and lies on the coast waaay up there in the north.

And after we found sweet ferry tickets, day 3 of my trip to Finland was spent outside of Finland :)

As members of my family well know, I don't do so well with ships. I blame Titanic. We went on a cruise in the Caribbean and I was afraid of hitting an iceberg and sinking. Ok, not really really... but kinda. In any case, the thought of a 2 hour ship ride through the ice was enough to cause mild panic. As you can clearly see:

Eeep! Ice!

Here's a nice shot of Maria and her island in the background. We're just heading out of the Helsinki harbour - I think we were the only 2 people on the whole ship to step foot outdoors :)

We had to change money before reaching Estonia - they're not part of the EU. Even at the end of the day though, neither Maria or I had any clue how to pronounce the name of their currency: the Krooni. 1 dollar is approximately 11 Kroonis, for those of you who are interested in those things :)

Maria standing by the entrance to the old part of town.

Thumb-wrestling with an Estonian. I won :)

We spent forever trying to find this stupid lookout point... and it was freezing cold that day - super blustery. We did manage to find a lookout, even if it wasn't the lookout and got a nice picture of the two of us, compliments of the German tourists we ran into.

Maria said, "look cold":
I think I look more like I'm in pain than anything else... not far from the truth actually. The wind cut like a knife!

After a while, us two hardy, hearty northerners succumbed to our blue lips and chattering teeth and found a café to warm up in (ok, so I'm exaggerating a little bit... but we were cold!). There were only 2 other gentlemen when we walked in, and they had already received their drinks. I walked up to the counter to order my café latte and then grabbed a table for the two of us. My coffee took forever to come out and I couldn't help but wonder why. I mean, it's not a hard drink - just coffee and hot foamy milk. When our waiter set my drink down on the table I immediately understood what took so long. He'd added a work of art to the top!

Prettiest coffee I've ever had the pleasure of drinking :)

I like this picture... gives you a real feel for how cold it was.

This picture too - Maria's braving the elements on the way back to the ship. We'd overheard in the café that there was a storm brewing, and neither one of us felt like being outside in it.

Both of us were a little worried that the ride back might be a little bumpy, due to the bad weather conditions, but we were pleasantly surprised. The ride back was smoother than the one over. Although I don't know that you ever grow to like the sound of ice sliding on past the hull of the ship...

Lovely chatting with y'all

Sandy