Alright .... so yes... we are in Estonia!

been pretty good so far. we are staying in a hotel called the unique stay hotel, which it definately is.

we ferried over here from helsinki and it is about an hour and a half ferry ride. we had the shadiest cab driver but it all worked out ok.

we walked around Old Town today which was amazing. however Estonia is FREEZING!

The Ferry. imagine the ferry taking its sweet time, roughly 15 minutes, to just pull away from the dock. i start laughing "mwa-ha what a stupid ferry, no wonder it takes 2 horus to get to Tallinn" then three seconds later, the three of us are pulled to the back of our chair because they juuuust gunned the engine and we're hitting waves, flying above the water at full speed, and we all look at each other with pure motion sickness (and maybe a little bit hungover from our previous night, and mix's champagne inceident).

The Hotel. So the unique stay is exactly that - unique. we booked online, finding it very affordable to that of the lifestyle in the rest of europe. keep in mind, we are in the Baltic countries now. The hotel has zebra print columns - behind glass - in the lobby and we jump in the elevator to our room. we come to the room, and we're a little confused with the words "ZEN" written all over it. hmmm...that's odd, because none of the other doors have that...but oh man, what a zen room. the bamboo-like wondow shades, the illuminated rock next to rachel's bed, and top it off with a whirlpool bath, with "Zen" in glowing, colour-changing letters above the bath, and mood setting dim lights. Totally Zen. the three of us instantly put on the three long white robes and slippers, lay on the bed, and decide that "Le Sigh, backpacking is just sooooo stressful" so we each take a 20 minutes whirlpool time-out.

The City. quite amazing, we went in to old town, and got around 15% of it in a couple hours. because it used to be part of russia, there is a lot of russian culture (obviously) and influence...old city was beautiful, the church was breath taking, and i much much MUCH more enjoyed that church than Notre Dame...in one word, it was opulent. The gold trim everywhere, the soviet influences, it was absolutely probably my favourite church i've seen on our tour.

The next few hours. we're relaxing now, waiting for our estonian friends we met on the boat to call us after a quick game of basketball. they are going to meet us for some drinks and hopefully explain the city and the history. we had a delicious supper earlier (mum and dad - you'll be happy to hear that i've eaten cheese soup, multiple nights of chinese food, apple-chicken-nut salad, mushroom soup, the list goes on. i may not be the same girl when i get back!)

We have one more day here, then we head back to Helsinki, then off to Stockholm. which is actually a HUGE disappointment because we were supposed to be meeting dad in Helsinki on Friday for a hockey tourney, but Forsberg bowed outdue to a sore ankle (okay baby-baby whine-whine) and now dad isn't coming. so we're choked at baby-baby forsberg for his baby-baby ankle. so now we're prematurely going to stockholm and heading south to meet up with mummy cindi in italy. but we are meeting another one of our friends who is from michigan who plays in Tampere, Finland in Helsinki, and then going on the boat with him to Stockholm. he's an awesome guy, and his daily vocabulary includes a lot of "s*** faced" and "gongshow", so we're guaranteed a good time with this one ;)

Much love from Estonia