Days 40-42, July 21-23, Tallin Estonia

Monday, July 21 - Tallin, Estonia

We arrived in Estonia, rented our car and headed to Tallin city mid-afternoon. There is a different feeling here. The area is not as economically ahead as Finland and Sweden, and seemingly a bit more disorganized at least in terms of car rental experience even though it is with the same company we have been using.

When we arrive in Tallin, the streets are quite confusing, particularly at the intersections and could use some roundabout updating where four or more streets intersect. We know where we want to go, but every street leading to the guesthouse has no entry posted. We finally ignore the one no entry sign, weave past street construction to arrive at a very stern looking building. Not sure this looks appealing, but it is very centrally located, and after check-in which was also a bit disorganized seems fine. We are given a double room and share a wc and separate shower with four other rooms. Not great, but for $50.00 a night it's clean, well located, provides breakfast and has a locked courtyard for the car.

We hole up in our room the rest of the day taking care of electonic business.

Tuesday, July 22 - Tallin

We spend the day enjoying the old medieval city of Tallin, surrounded in part by still and existing wall and towers. The only drawback are the cruise ships disembarking 4-6000 people a day into the area. Throngs of people clog the narrow streets. Nevertheless we wove around and through them all through the city visitings points of interest. Prices here are notably less than sweden, Finland and Russis. Beautiful bouquets of flowers and shopping bag of pasteries and fruits can be purchased for 5-8 Euros.

This past weekend, there was an international choir competition in the Baltics. Our highlight today was the opportunity to hear the Russian choir in one of the churches at noon. The singing and acoustics were wonderful.

Anout 2:00 pm we found ourselves a quiet garden restaurant at the Merchant House Hotel, where we spent nearly three hours, drinking wine, eating, and using a fairly fast wifi. When we left the restaurant the hoards had subsided towards the signalling ships, and we were able to walk comfortably through the streets retracing some of our original steps where we were in throngs earlier in the day.

Another great day!

Wednesday, July 23 - Off to Tartu

We are just about ready to leave for the day and heading for Tartu. More later.

All is Well with the Worrall Travel Rs in Estonia

Days 39-40! July 20-21, Swedish Archipelago

Les, Susanne, AnnBritt Top L-R, Kalen, Gabrielle, Freja, Bottom L-R

Sunday July 20 was about as perfect as a day can be. At 8:15 am, we reunited with our Lions
Club Exchange student of 1994. Twenty years later, Susanne is married to Leslie, a Canadian now living in Sweden, and mother of 3 beautiful children Gabrielle 10, Kalen 8, and Freja 3. Still beautiful and looking no older than the day we last saw her on our last visit in 1997, Susanne and her family met us in front of the Grand Hotel in Stockholm. After many hugs, handshakes, and introductions to her family, we gleefully boarded a ferry to Blido Island.3 hours north of the city.

Susanne, had planned a day on the Swedish Archipelago, where we sailed up to Blido, and were treated to a splendid steak bar-b-que by Susanne's Mom AnnBritt who was renting a summer cottage on Blido. On our way up to Blido, we presented some little gifts for the children, 2 sets of Russian nesting dolls for the girls, and a deck of St. Petersburg playing cards for Kalen. Little did we know, Kalen and his big sister Gabrielle were card sharks. In no time they beat me in crazy eights and whist. I taught them how to play hearts, and during her third hand, Gabrielle successfully Shot For The Moon.

Susanne and her family are sailors and had just spent two weeks sailing the archipelago in her father' 34 foot sailboat. The kids had rally honed their swimming, sailing, and card playing skills. Glad we weren't playing strip poker! The girls loved their little dolls too. By the time we arrived at Blido we were fast friends.

The children went swimming, we had a wonderful visit, and delicious lunch. All too soon it was time to catch the steamboat at the dock just below the cottage and return to Stockholm Susanne and Les left the children to spend the night with MorMor and they returned to Stockholm with us. They would return to their home about an hour's drive out of Stockholm, spend the night, and return the following morning with tent and luggage to spend a week with MorMor and kids.

As we sailed back through the pine studded granite islands in the late afternoon sun, we enjoyed beautiful scenery, good wine, and great conversation and catching up. When we arrived in Stockholm, we drove to the area within two blocks of where Russ and I were staying for dinner at an Italian restaurant. Here we had made arrangements to meet up with another friend from America.

Meredith is a friend of our daughter-in-law and son, and we had first met Meredith in Italy at our Garyn and Jess's Tuscany wedding. Meredith had the opportunity to relocate to Sweden with her job so she took it, and has been in Stockholm for about 4 months. We were happy to see her and introduce her to Susanne and Les. The five of us had a nice dinner, and before we knew it, even though it was not yet dark, it was 10:00 pm, and the long mellow day came to an end.
Thank you Susanne and Les for the perfect day! We look forward to a return visit in California.

Day 40, July 21, 2014 - On to Estonia!

Today is a travel day for us. We left Stockholm about 7:30 and drove to the airport, returned our car, boarded Baltic Air to Riga, Latvia, and transferred to another Baltic Air for the last 35 minute leg to Tallin. I am finishing this blog in the air and will post when we reach our guesthouse. I expect that we will spend the rest of our day which will be late afternoon by the time we are settled, catcing up on mail, laundry, and some planning.

In the meantime, all is well with the Worrall Travel R's

Day 38, July 19, ABBA, NOBEL, and MEATBALLS

Today was all Sweden day with a wonderful visit to the ABBA Museum, Nobel Museum, topped off by a great meal of Swedish meatballs in the Old Town of Stockholm.

All is Very Well with the Worrall Travel Rs in Stockholm

Day 37-38, July 17-18 Finland to Sweden

Country Guest Houseo

We spent our last day in Finland traveling from Turku to Porvoo with a nice stop in Hvittrask.
Hvittrask is the home and studio of world famous Finnish architect, Eliel Sarrinen This architect designed the Gateway Arch in Saint Louise and many other projects around the world. We enjoyed visiting the compound that he and his architect buddies built for themselves on 16 acres in the Art Nouveau period in the early 1900's. Quite lovely. The setting reminds of us Lake Tahoe....granite, cedars, pines, and blue water.

We arrived in Sipoo outside of Porvoo in the early afternoon. We checked into our quaint country AirBNB, then drove a few miles more to the old town of Porvoo, where we spent the afternoon enjoying the sunshine, 16th century architecture, and a good wine over a salmon dinner.

Day 38 - Flight to Stockholm

We left Finland this morning at 11:00 a.m. on SAS and arrived in Sweden at 11:01. No, it didn't take us one minute. There was a one hour time change. We rented a car and learned it was not available so we were upgraded to a nice diesel Citroen. After packing in our luggage which was quite easy given the room we headed for Stockholm. We arrived in the old part of the town where our AirBNB was located about 3:00 p.m., found a parking space that we had to pay for until 5;00 and then it was free until Monday morning when we leave.

Our accommodations are in a lovely old building dating back to the 1700's that has a refurbished apartment, a nice young couple as hosts, and three curious cats. We took an afternoon walk into the old section of the city, had an ice cream followed by dinner in a nearby pub. As we write this blog it is about 7:30, we are waiting for our bill, and then we will walk a block down the hill to our apartment.

Tomorrow, we will be be visiting the Abba Museum. Mama Mia! On Sunday, we will be spending the day with our Swedish foreign exchange student of 1994, Susanne, her husband, mother and three daughters. Looking forward to the visit.

All is well with the Worrall Travel R's

Day 36, July 16 -Turku

Russ and Kaveli

Turku has long been on our bucket list as a destination because it is the "birthplace" of our Pacific Crossing Nauticat 44 Pilothouse sailboat.  Seems we are salmon returning to the place of origin, although we no longer have this boat.  When we arrived in this port city, the rain had just stopped, but it was still cool and breezy.






Our accommodation for the night is fittingly on a boat, an old steam boat Bore converted to a Hostel International on the river.

After lunch and a very interesting tour of the Medieval castle Turku built in 1320 and with a long history of upward and inward expansion and intriguing stories of the inhabitants.

We walked back to the boat to check-in and we passed by an older couple (probably in their 80's) on the castle lawn flipping a half inflated ball from behind them over their heads to one another playing catch.  Two bicycles were parked close by.  We smiled and said "Hello" to the couple.  They said something in Finnish as we walked by, but did not pay much attention as it did not sound like it was directed at us.


We walked about 50 feet around a corner of the castle gardens and the couple on their bicylces were chasing after us!

 We stopped when they caught up and in their best English asked where we were from and were we enjoying Turku.  The man introduced himself as Kalevi and his wife Gerda Vallas. Kaveli may have been able to understand our English if he were not so hard of hearing, but he was struggling so Gerda would ask us questions and translate loudly in Finnish for him.  Somewhere in our conversation, Kaveli wanted to know if we had been to Finland and Europe before and when he learned we had lived in Germany, he started to speak to us much more comfortably in German.

Our German is a bit rusty, but with our three languages we were able to have an enjoyable conversation.  Kaveli is a Rotarian and was pleased to learn that Russ is a Lion, and asked if we would take their picture which we happily obliged and promised to send them a copy of photo by email.

We gave them our email address.  They do not have a computer, but they would tell their son our email address and he would send us an email so that we could reply with the photo.  This was all a bit complicated in three languages, but if all was properly understood, we look forward to hearing from the Vallas's son.

Later in the evening, we walked up river looking for Nauticats and absorbing the river culture and old town Turku. Hundreds of people were out walking and enjoying a sunny Finnish afternoon.  A huge motorcycle rally had finnised its day in Turku.  There were rows of Harleys, BMWs, Kawakis, Suzukis, and one lonely Vespa.  All the cycles had Finnish license plates.  The riders in their leathers and helmets were admiring each other's cycles and animatedly discussing in Finnish topics undoubtedly related to their day and hobby.

We ate in an excellent Mexican restaurant, sharing a chicken ceasar salad and beef fajitas.  By the time we walked back to our accommodation at 9:30, the sun was still in the sky, but the bikers had all rumbled away.

We were in Turku and saw a lot, but never saw a Nauticat, Nevertheless, our visit was quite pleasant and will be remembered because our conversation with the Finnish couple on bicycles on the sunny side of Turku Castle.

All is Well wih the Worrall Travel Rs In the Birthplace of Worrall Wind

Days 34-35 - Helsinki, AirBNB and SERVAS visit

Our home stay with SERVAS Host Hanna and her two curious black cats.

We arrived at the train station in Helsinki on the 33rd day of our trip, and had arrangements through AirBNB to stay in a studio apartment for our first night. Te owner of the apartment was out of town, but we knew where t find the key. A taxi took us directly to the address within a few minutes for 12 Euros. We let ourselves into this cute little fourth floor apartment (hank goodness it had a lift for us and our bags.)

We got ourselves situated and went for a walk to a local supermarket where we picked up some pizza bread and cherry tomatoes for dinner and some yogurt, fruit and orange juice for breakfast. We had access to Wifi at the apartment, so we spent a lazy afternoon and evening catching up on making arrangements, answering emails, browsing the web and reading. The sky finally darkened around midnight and we realized that we needed to close our eyes and go to sleep.

Day 34 - July 14
After our breakfast, Russ and I walked about 35 minutes to the car rental agency and picked up a little Skoda, brought it back to the apartment, loaded our bags, Having had enough mosques and churches for awhile we chose to go to an outdoor museum Seurasurri (sp). It is a small island connected by a wooden bridge to the mainland. Historic windmills, chruches, farms, storage sheds, and manors have been relocated to this place. Docents are appointed to open and guide visitors to designated buildings.

We spent an interesting day here absorbing old Finnish architecture, artifacts, gardens, and wildlife. At the conclusion of our day we headed to our first SERVAS visit. We would be spening the evening with a woman named Hanna. Before arriving, we stopped to buy some flowers, some cheeses, fruits, and pastries and some cans of apple and cranberry hard cider. We weren't completely sure whether we should be expecting dinner when we arrived so we came prepared to supplement our cup of soups or to add to dinner.

Our host Hanna has a two bedroom apartment that she shares with her two curious cats full time and with her teenage sons part time when the boys are not living with their father. While we enjoyed the sights of Helsinki, our time with Hanna is by far the Highlight of Helsinki. Her home was comfortabe]le, quiet,and friendly. Hanna, herself was warm, helpful, and welcoming. Through our many conversations, we identified many similar points of view and enjoyed each other's company. We could become close friends if our proximity from each other were not on the opposite side of the planet. Making friends through peace is the goal of SERVAS home visits, and our first experience was a shining example of how one to one relationships fosters understanding about culture and differences.

Day 35 - Juky 15

After a leisurely breakfast with Hanna, Russ and I left our rental car safely parked in front of Hanna's apartment house and took the trolly to the downtown area where we first explored the open market


filled with fruits, vegetables, cheeses, wine, and merchaandise with appeal to both locals and tourists. We visited a deli type stall where we bought sandwiches, salads, soft drinks,and dessert, then found a place on the pier to have a picnic.















 Seagulls around the world we have found are all the same. After tiring of begging, one of them flew from behind me swooping down and grabbing a hunk of my dessert right out of my hand!

A visit to the furniture and decor sections of a large store is always a good way for us to experience modern day culture of the country. Similar to Scandinavia, the designs lines are sophisticated clean simplicity. We visited a rock church designed from an old quarry and was currently in use as a performing venue for a performing girls' choir from Canada. The acoustics were amazing.

We found a geocache on our way to the National Museum of Finland where we spent a couple of hours exploring Finland's prehistory and history.

Natural Cultural Outdoor Museum

 Between the museum and our conversations with Hanna, we have learned much about this independent country, that was once a part of Russia and fought against Russia with the Germans in WWII. There are about 5,000,000 Fins whose language is completely separate from any other language. Hanna works for a publishing company where she secures Finnish authors international rights for their intellectual property outside of Finland. Part of her work involves arrangements for translation of Finnish into other languages.

We ended our day with a lovely meal that Hanna prepared for us including a huge bowl of vanilla ice cream and fresh Finnish grown strawberries and raspberries. All to soon our visit was coming to an end, and we would be leaving the following morning for Turku, birthplace of our beloved Sitala, Nauticat 44 ketch.

Day 36 - July 16 - Heading to Turku in the poring rain.

I will write about Turku when we get there. Currently we are driving in the rain westward after a farewell breakfast with Hanna and two black cats Licorice and Luigi. Thank you Hanna.

All is well with the Worrall Travel Rs in Finland