Strumming Lithuania: Tallinn and Riga

Sorry it's taken me a while to recount our trip this last weekend. I had a lot to do once we were back as far as prepping for lessons and re-cooping from my lack of sleep. Sleep did not come easy on our trip and not because I was up partying all night either. We were so far north that the sun was shining at all hours of the night. For instance, we took a bus from Vilnius to Riga. At midnight when I finally fell asleep on the bus, the sun hadn't completely set yet and when I woke up at roughly 4am, it had already begun to rise. Sleep on that bus ride was also hard to come by as a creeper sat a few rows ahead of Janese and me. Our friend with the hat was not so subtle as he sat turned around in his seat for the first hour and a half of the bus ride, staring at us. I even got the wink. In response, I pulled out my bright blue lemur stuff animal (Kobe), who is a super comfy pillow for the record, and sang "Look at me now" under my breath. I think it deterred him a little bit because he finally turned around.

DAY 1-TALLINN

Apparently, we're just prone to creepers because after getting off the bus and making our way to our hostel, we were badgered in the street by two guys asking for money. We walked away silently as they screamed "You have to help us or we'll die" behind us. They ended up following us into our hostel and even tried to come find breakfast with us. No worries, we lost them after that. At this point it was about 8am and people here like to sleep, so accordingly nothing was open yet. We walked around looking for food till finally we found this literal hole-in-the-wall cafe. They weren't serving food yet but they did have hot chocolate, which is good enough for me, and we sat there for a long while, drinking (hot chocolate) and telling fortunes.

Soon enough though, after enduring the bus ride, the creepers, and the sunlight at 4am, our day in Tallinn really began. I had visited Tallinn briefly once before and loved it so I was thrilled to be back. The day was spent walking around Old Town. Here are some highlights:

Seeing Bernt Notke's Danse Macabre in St. Nicholas's church. Aka the Dance of Death, which became a popular allegory during Medieval Times, especially after the Black Plague. I was thrilled to see it after reading Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, which takes the story of the Jungle Book but changes the setting to obviously a graveyard. In the book, the Danse Macabre takes place and it is a wonderfully written scene. I need to reread the book and I highly recommend it. Neil Gaiman also wrote the script for the movie Stardust, which I also loved.
Going to this awesome bookstore and buying pins for 1 euro a piece. I love pins!
Eating at the Draakon! This place was so cool! It was a little medieval style restaurant that serves elk stew and pies. I've been dying to try elk lately and the stew was absolutely delicious. The sign says it all. I loved it.

Definitely Worthy Elk Soup

Going to the Museum of Occupation. That was a sobering experience. They had so many artifacts from the time of the Soviets, KGB, and German invasion. In all reality, that time isn't so far away and it's still a very real experience for the people here, who have only had their independence for so long. It just made me think of how privileged the U.S. has been as a country and how many of our citizens take it for granted and don't take our civil responsibilities and privileges seriously enough. Learning about the occupations in this part of the world shows how easy it is to take all of those things away and how difficult it is to regain them.

Last, but certainly not least was seeing my first opera! La Traviata! I must publicly thank Janese for organizing this because I loved it. I definitely need to add to my music collection because I have a newfound appreciation for the opera. So if you are a closet opera lover, please fill me in. As a musical theatre performer, I definitely understand and appreciate the endurance it must take to sing full out for 2+ hours as a soprano, particularly when opera has you hitting notes all over the place all the time. And even though we were totally in the cheap seats, it didn't make a difference. It was beautiful. Really, I'm excited to go see another one hopefully either here in Vilnius or on our next break from teaching.

Me at a Lookout Point. I have a picture of me in this exact spot when I first came at age 16. I definitely need to post a before and after shot.

A hotel where the devil's wedding took place. If you look closely up at the upper left window, you can tell the curtains are painted. That is because after the devil got married in that room, fearing that the city would be cursed, the hotel owner was left with either closing and blocking up the room forever or closing down his hotel. Later that year, Tallinn had a drought, which they blamed on the Devil getting married in their city so they sacrificed cats into wells like the one pictured below.

Then when the water came back, they all got sick from the dead composing felines in their wells. Forehead smack.

Built in the name of the Town Pervert who used to look over from the windows in this building into the Girl's Dormitory across the street.

In St. Nicholas

Just chilling with my kin. You know.

This cathedral is cursed. It's always under construction.

Independence memorial

Prison doors at the KGB Museum

Opera House

DAY TWO-TALLINN
Day Two was pretty relaxed. We spent the day at a section of the Town Wall, climbing up the turrets and taking pictures. We also were in Tallinn during some kind of Flower Festival, which I expected to just be craziness and people everywhere. In reality, it was more of a display of all sorts of landscaping designs. It was pretty cool! We ended the day popping into an art gallery that specialized in mushrooms and giraffes (heck to the yeah) as well as finishing up our gift shopping and sight seeing.

DAY THREE AND FOUR: RIGA

In Riga, we stayed at the best hostel! Or at least I loved it. So if you ever go to Riga, I highly recommend the Teddy Bear Hostel. That being said, Riga was a beautiful city. The architecture was amazing and I just loved being a new place. I could definitely go back. Some highlights included:

Going to church! Definitely a highlight. The members here in the Baltics are amazing as are the Elders serving here. I loved going the Riga branch as much as our branch here in Vilnius. Serving in this part of the world I can imagine would be quite frustrating as not many people here are very receptive to the message, but yet the work goes on. The missionaries are very hardworking and the members are kind, despite the language barrier.
Seeing the Museum of Photography. Very cool. Not only was seeing the evolution of photos awesome but they had an exhibition on display called Territory of Broken Dreams by Alexandra Demenkova. The whole collection was in black and white, taken of people at mental hospitals and rural regions across the Baltics. It was an incredibly powerful display, the use of black and white film just adding to the binary spheres portrayed within the photos themselves. Happiness, sadness. Healthy, unwell. Persistence, defeat. Hope, despair. It was incredibly powerful and I was trying not to bawl my eyes out as I looked at little glimpses of their lives.
The Art Museum! The Art Museum here was awesome! I love art museums. Really, plugging in my ipod and analyzing artwork for a little bit. Ah, divine.
Going to grab sushi! We had money left over and Latvia has their own currency and since I'm never going to use it again, we figured hey let's get some really good food. And yes, it was totally worth it! It was so, so, so, so, SOOOOOOOOOOO good. And I tried eel in my sushi too. Oh my goodness, one of the best decisions of the trip.
Seeing the Occupation Museum here in Riga. This one was totally gut wrenching. It made me think deeply about what I would do if I loved in a world like that. Contrary to popular belief, stuff like that can totally happen again and does happen all around the world. When I hear of those who lived under such conditions and especially the people brave enough to do something about it despite the forces against them, I really do wonder where I would be. People's characters shine in tough situations. Would I be broken by the desperation of it all; Would I simply accept it and try to go on; Would I justify it; Would I be willing to risk my life and fight against it. Of course I'd like to think I'd do the right thing, but in times of such confusion and manipulation, things don't seem that black and white.
I've never been to a city with so many people in love! Really! Couples and love and romance just spread across the city. It was actually pretty cute though. Most of my photos from our days here were more of people watching/creeping photos than photos of the city. But I think I got some pretty good dang shots. So I'm kind of a creeper. Shrug. Whatever.