I'll start with Tallinn, Estonia. I don't know which myspace-loving preteen started the trend of adding extra letters to words (i.e. how I just said "lotttt.." ugh I'm so guilty) but the Estonians definitely had her beat. The language is ridiculous, and almost every vowel is not only doubled, but has crazy accents over it as well. I'll have to hunt for some sort of example to give you.
But anyway... we landed in Tallinn late Sunday afternoon, after yet another rocky flight. Our hotel was considerably nicer than anything we had seen on short study tour, further proving that the public health class is kinda spoiled. We went to dinner at Olde Hansa, a medieval style restaurant with some REALLY good cheese. It was probably my favorite meal of the study tour, mostly because of the environment. This was the kind of place that could make you nostalgic for medieval times, even though you know deep down that life actually sucked back then. In addition to the cheese :) we tried a wide array of medieval foods... including tongue! That's right, Mom, I'm getting brave. Still didn't touch the sauerkraut though.
I pulled back the curtains in the morning, and it seriously looked treacherous outside. Dark, windy, spots of hail, the works. Perfect weather for a tour of the city, right? A tour guide led us around for about 2 hours... and even though we were all kind of miserable, it was definitely worth it. Estonia is so different from anywhere I've ever been, and there is a visible Russian influence almost everywhere. My favorite building was the Alexander Nevsky Russian Orthodox church, of which I now have an obscene number of photos. Perfect for BS-ing the architecture sketches I was supposed to be doing throughout the trip. Ooops. P.S. this photo was not taken on Monday --- note the blue sky.
So then we went to the Estonian Health Foundation, where we learned that Estonia has a ridiculous HIV problem, with numbers wayyy out of proportion to the rest of Europe. It was really interesting to hear about how some of the Russian minorities actually believe that HIV is a conspiracy and that doctors are injecting them with the virus. People are crazy. We had another academic visit later that day to a general practitioner outside of Tallinn. snoooore. I don't remember anything. Thank God for our observation booklets.
By this time, Allie, Ariel and I had had enough of Estonian food, so we opted for a nice italian restaurant. The food was great, and the whole evening was super hyggely .. minus the fact that Allie discovered a jail cell in the basement when looking for the bathroom. I'm telling you, Estonia is WEIRD. Afterwards, we met up with a few of the other girls who had eaten at the "Peppersack." It was sooo cozy & we had some of the best drinks ever, including mulled wine and lamumba ... which is apparently the name for hot chocolate with whiskey. Racked up a pretty big bill, but it was definitely worth it.
Tuesday morning was much nicer, so we got up and explored Tallinn before meeting the class at the Museum of Occupation. Estonia has only been an independent nation since 1991... and as the pamphlet on the plane so tactfully described, "the country has been attractive to many conquerers." We had a photoshoot with some giant Russian dictators... but it was hard to get much out of the museum since most of the descriptions were in Eeessttooonniiiaaannn.
We did; however, discover that ---- okay well, let me back-track a little bit. Bill and Mary Nic Harvey are this ADORABLE older couple who accompanied us on the study tour. I still have yet to figure out why exactly, but Bill is very knowledgeable in public health and had something to do with the formation of our new program. Anyway, they are the cutest people ever, and had all these amazing stories .. like how they lead a group of American students across the iron curtain in the early 70s. They had to travel under the Danish flag because they couldn't have done it as Americans. I was so impressed. And I was equally impressed that Mary Nic, who turned 70 on our trip, had noo problem just sitting on the floor with us during our lectures, etc. Even I was getting stiff sitting on the cold ground. Props!Late afternoon we boarded a ferry called the Superstar to travel even further north to Helsinki. We had a dinner buffet (which I of course took full advantage of) and then ended up in a little kid play area, watching the Little Mermaid in Estonian. We're cool.
And this concluded our visit to Tallinn. Little did we know even more excitement awaited us in Helsinki. Ooooohhh.... CLIFFHANGER.
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