Tallinn, Estonia!

Hi! So last week I spent in Tallinn, Estonia and Stockholm, Sweden with my class for our long study tour.  I have a ton to tell you but unfortunately coming home coincides with midterms and I have tests to take and papers to write so I am going to have to update in installments. Overall, the trip was great -- we learned a lot and had a ton of fun with my class. The long study tour is set up so that you travel with your core class (mine is Child Development: Children with Special Needs) and have some academic visits as well  as some cultural and fun visits.

Estonia is this really cool old medieval town stuck in the middle of a kinda creepy Soviet city.  The inner city was hundreds of years old but the country itself is actually younger than I am as it was recognized as a state after the fall of the USSR.  We went to a deaf/blind school, a school for children who have behavioral problems and also a Jewish school. The Jewish school was interesting because all of the Jews in Estonia had been relocated during WWII so the community started rebuilding from scratch when they moved back 20 years ago.  My short journey into Eastern Europe was eye opening to a world very different than the US and Western Europe. Also, I spent a lot of time with my roommates mentioned previously - Julia, Leah and Jamie. When I say we, I am most likely referring to them.

These are two views (inside and outside) of the wall around the city. It is so cool looking and could definitely keep anyone that wasn't supposed to be there out. Can you imagine the knights and damsels? 

The architecture was spectacular.. as was the weather for the most part. It was really sunny but really cold and windy.
This is inside a medieval restaurant we went to for dinner one night. We ate old fashioned food and had old fashioned beer in old fashioned steins. They spoke to us in Old English (normally they would speak in Old Estonian) and the whole place was lit by candles. It was a really cool night and the food was delicious and exotic. Among the strange/new foods I tried was their cinnamon beer and tongue.. both of which were really good. 

We went to a wool/linen market in Tallinn.. they are famous for their linen apparently. I bought handmade mittens :)

Marzipan was invented here! This was at the marzipan museum/shop that sold some really delicious marzipan treats. I like marzipan a lot better here in Europe than I did in the US. 
We had dinner one night in the Beer House, a brewery in Estonia. The current food of Estonia is a lot like Germany. 
We also went to a special small cafe to enjoy some Tallinn Coffee, which is a lot like an Irish Coffee. It includes some special Tallinn liquor with coffee and whipped cream. It is supposed to warm you up from the cold outside. If the drink itself didn't do it, the cozy atmosphere of the cafe will do it. Everything is candle lit and you sit in really cozy big comfy chairs next to fireplaces and they have blankets for you if you want to use them. It was really really nice. 
This is looking out over the city from a high point! So cool. 

So not all of Russia's influence here was bad. This church is absolutely stunning on the inside. 

This is the ferry we took from Tallinn to Stockholm. It was really fun and had a bar, a night club, a disco and a few really night restaurants on board. We had a great night doing karaoke and just enjoying getting to know everyone in our class.  I'll talk about Stockholm later!