14/8 Tallinn Estonia

Tuesday 14^th Tallinn Estonia (where?)

That actually worked very well. We were there for stretch and abs at 0700. Brimming with virtue, we had a small brekky which we took through to the sports bar – a very comfortable little nook which the heaving masses of Spaniards haven’t discovered yet. We were the only attendees at morning trivia, which was run by Anastasia – born in Russia but living in NZ ( I guess that makes her an All Black Russian? boom boom). Sorry.

It was a moderate and pleasant stroll into Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. They won a war of liberation or independence in 1919-20 with the help of the British Navy – not sure who from. Then they were overrun by Germans and Russians. They should be used to it because they have been constantly conquered by Danes and Swedes for centuries.

We went ashore with modest expectations and were pleasantly surprised. There were a mix of large and ornate buildings and cute little houses fringing cobbled streets. Lots of restaurants and tourist shops and lots of street vendors selling tasty little snacks. Particularly the roasted almonds with cinnamon, garlic or orange. We sampled a couple and then lashed out and bought a little bag of the cinnamon ones. Delicious.

A leisurely stroll took us to the top of a moderate hill, by which time we had ticked off the twelve major tourist attractions. The people were all very friendly and most spoke good English. Not a bad place to visit.

We got back at 3pm and lunched. Yet another delicious coffee dessert! J fiddled with the pictures and then went back ashore to post the blogs at the cruise terminal, which offered free wifi. She got back just in time for 5pm trivia, which we did with another English couple. J somewhat swamped them with answers and we ended up in a 3 way tiebreak, which we lost. There were a couple of strangely worded questions that we interpreted the “wrong” way.

I headed up for the free aerobics class while J tested her patience at another art auction in order to qualify for the draw for a free trip to the Hermitage museum in St Petersburg tomorrow. This is the $230 trip we have been agonising over. AND SHE WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just as well she got over the annoyance at sitting through endless sales promotions because this is a magical prize.

The tour desk closed at 8, which kept us busy getting her signed into a tour. By then, they had sold out the English tour group so she will be going with a bunch of Spaniards. Still a fabulous outcome. We wangled around trying to get them to give us two tickets and then trying to pay half price for a second one but that failed to get a Guernsey. By then we had little time for dinner and I ended up having to head off to Deal or No Deal without my main course.

I wasn’t drawn to play on stage and failed to win the lotto consolation prizes. Good fun anyway. I was hoping to win a few hundred spending money to go on the tour as well. Thence to the production show – keen and high energy but a little short in finesse and not helped by cheap sets etc. Not as good as the Italians put on.

Finally, we turned up at the casino to convert the voucher for a bingo ticket for the $500,000 jackpot. Their computer was offline and they were unable to issue the ticket – stay tuned on that one. We seem to be on a roll.

Fat Margaret Tower