We got back to London (well, we’re staying with my sister and her fiancé in Epsom, southwest of London) on Tuesday evening, and spent Wednesday walking around London. We got a nice early-ish start (you want to get on the commuter train to London after 9:00 am ’cause it’s cheaper) and arrived at Waterloo Station…

…in good time to head over to the Tower of London (our goal). We walked along the Riverside walk on the south bank of the Thames…

 

…and crossed over at Millennium Bridge…

We decided to head over to St. Paul’s Cathedral, since it was right there at the end of the bridge. I decided I wanted my photo taken on the steps of the cathedral…

…but what’s this here? Seems like something is going on at St. Paul’s…

There are reporters, barricades, a crowd of people and a bunch of Rolls Royces flying the royal standard.  A quick question to our new friend (seen in this shot) and we learned that the Prince of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall (that’s Camilla, if you’re a tabloid-reader like me), Gordon Brown and a few former Prime Ministers were within celebrating the 1 year anniversary of the cessation of The Troubles (how’s that for a euphemism?) in Northern Ireland.

Yes, we stood around for over 45 minutes to see His Royal Highness, and caught glimpses of Camilla, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. See?

That’s Prince Charles standing beside London’s Lord Mayor, with Camilla in blue behind. Right behind Camilla’s hat, you can see Gordon Brown (Britain’s current Prime Minister, in case you’ve been sitting there thinking, who the hell is Gordon Brown?).

The girls were much more impressed by this:

We did go to the Tower and enjoyed the Yeoman Warder’s tour. The girls liked the Crown Jewels best of all.

Then we trekked all the way up to King’s Cross station for this:

How cool is THAT??!? They even have a luggage cart stuck half-way through the wall. LOVE.

We took a double-decker bus back to Waterloo Station. Check this out:

And then the train ride back to Epsom:

Tune in tomorrow for pics from our amazing trip to Camden Market.

For those not in the know, that’s “good-bye” in Estonian and is pronounced (roughly) HEEyad EYEga.

Tuesday was a rainy, wet day, but we made the best of it and checked out the part of Vana Linn (Old Town) we hadn’t yet seen…from the sea gate to the market square:

 

What a beautiful place Old Tallinn is…so full of history, so many charming surprises down each alleyway.

I had foolishly promised the girls that they could each have an Estonian “lambie”. Only when we found them at the souvenir shop, we found they cost 409 EEK (roughly $40). On our short timeline, after two hours walking in the pouring rain, to two wet and freezing little girls, I just couldn’t refuse:

Well, that was about the last nice thing that happened Tuesday.

Because when we got to the airport we shortly found out that our flight was delayed (again) because the plane had not yet arrived (again – this would appear to be a theme with Estonian Air). So we settled down happily enough to wait knowing that we were all seated together: in seats 6A, 6B, 6C and 6D. And then our plane pulled up to the jetway, and the Estonian Air staff called our names and asked us to come over to the counter. When we arrived, they told us that because the flight was late the computer had been required to “reconfigure the seating plan” and we had been moved. To seats 15A, 15B, 15C and 16B. But they put our 7 year-old daughter in 16B. Yeah, right. That’ll work out really well. When I asked if they could re-seat us together, the staff took my boarding pass, crossed off my seat number and wrote 16B, then handed it back to me. 

I was not impressed.

I firmly asked to be re-seated together, and he refused, telling me the aircraft was full.

When we boarded, we realized what the problem really was. Our original seats (A, B, C & D in row 6) were actually in first class. Which was empty.

This is pretty much how the rest of the flight went off:

Not happy. Not happy at all. 

I feel a letter to the president coming on. Oh yes I do…

Don’t get me wrong. Helsinki is a beautiful city. At least…I think it’s a beautiful city, from the little I got to see of it Sunday.

But boy, did our day trip to the Finnish capital ever go awry.

First: the ferry we took from Tallinn to Helsinki docked at a cargo port, not the tourist port. Word to the Wise: should you ever take a boat to Helsinki, you want to dock at the SOUTH HARBOUR. We docked at the West Harbour.

Second: even looking at a map, we somehow thought we were at the South harbour, and couldn’t figure out why the streets weren’t going the way we expected and why the market square wasn’t…well…right there.

Third: by the time we figured out how to get to the market square, we walked 40 minutes and hubby’s infected toes were killing him.

Fourth: by the time we got to the market square, the only tour we could get on anymore was a boat tour. And it was leaving in 14 minutes. That left us about 12 minutes to explore Helsinki’s HUGE Sunday market.

Fifth: by the time our boat tour was over, we had to get in a cab right away! to make it back to the West harbour for our return ferry to Tallinn.

Having said all this, with a little advance planning we could have taken the trip sponsored by our hotel in Tallinn – a bus ride from our hotel door to the ferry terminal in Tallinn, ferry passage to Helsinki, guided bus tour (in English) in Helsinki, return ferry passage to Tallinn and bus ride back to our hotel.

But why didn’t we? Nobody seems to know.

HOWEVER. Never once did I take any responsibility for the trip, so I shan’t complain anymore. And in the end, the boat tour was interesting and informative, and Helsinki looked like a lovely place. And we did manage to get over 100 photos, so it can’t have been a total bust, right?

Okay, we walked down this street to get from one harbour to the next.

Walking along Pohjoisesplanadi. And that is one of the easier Finnish words. Really. Try this one on for size: saippuakivikauppias. It’s actually the world’s longest PALINDROME. The Finnish word means soapstone salesman (must have been a legit trade at one time). And I thought Estonian was tough!

Esplanadipuisto (Esplanade Park) is incredible!

A view from our boat tour. Sorry I don’t remember exactly what this is or why it’s significant. eep.

An old fort on one of the islands (there are thousands) off the Finnish coast.

The gals on the boat holding the Finnish flag.

Okay, lots of stuff to get you caught up on – two days worth of sightseeing (and more) here in Tallinn, because tomorrow is Helsinki!

So. Thursday; Dave, Ivar and I spent the first part of the morning at the Canadian Embassy building getting the girls’ (and Melissa’s) Canadian paperwork legalized/authenticated.

And then we met up with the rest of the crowd and walked around the old town walls, stopping near one of the towers. There’s a museum in this tower now, called the Kiek in de Koek museum. Kiek in de Koek means, roughly “peek in the kitchen” (from low German, dating from days of German/Danish occupation back in the 13th-16th century). It gets its name from being one of the tallest towers on the wall – the guards could see down the chimneys of all the town houses and see what the women were cooking on cauldrons over the fire.

From there, we were off to the Museum of Occupations. What an interesting and depressing place. It’s one thing to read about the history of this country – it’s been occupied by one foreign power or another (Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Germany, Russia: in that order) for almost its entire history – but it’s quite another to see the artefacts of those occupations. The Museum of Occupations focuses on the most recent occupations: the Russian-Nazi-Russian Occupations during World War II. Here’s the Coles Notes Version.

1918: Estonia wins independence from Russian Empire
1918-1940: First Estonian Republic
1940: Soviets Occupy Estonia
1941-1944: Nazis Occupy Estonia
1944-1991: Soviet Occupation
August 20, 1991: Second Estonian Independence

Here are some pictures from the Museum of Occupations:

On Friday we made our way out to a place called Rocca Al Mare. It’s an open-air museum chronicling the agricultural history of Estonia from medieval times onward. There are acres of exhibits, and you could spend several days there if you wanted to see it all. It’s a bit like Pioneer Village or Heritage Park, except on a much larger scale -both in terms of size and timeline. Here are some of the better shots from our visit:

Nana bought the girls traditional toys…mice made out of felt! The poncho and sweater come from a traditional knitting workshop we found in the Old Town.

Boy, give the kids an old-fashioned playground with wooden horses and they go crazy! Believe it or not, they’ve had more fun playing with acorns (yes, acorns they picked up on the ground) than any actual ‘toys’ here.

Today was the day the whole trip was for, really: Granny’s funeral. It was a very nice service in both English & Estonian (there are lots of Esto expats who grew up in Canada who’ve moved back here, and the Lutheran minister is one of them) and then a short interment at the graveside. It’s Estonian tradition to give all funeral guests a chance to throw three handfuls of dirt on the grave and each of us did so before it was covered and the grave marker and candles were placed.

Then we had a wake with members from both Elsa’s (that’s Granny to you and me) family and Kitty’s father’s family at a local restaurant. It didn’t take Maddy long to make friends with Eric – a little Estonian boy who is almost 4 years old. For those who remember (Jen) he is Maris’s son:

Every now and then Maddy would turn to me and say, “what does he mean?” but for the most part, some things need no translation. Oh, and by the way, don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret, but Maddy tells me she kissed him “a thousand times”!

Maris was just lovely, and we went back to her house for a visit after the wake at the restaurant. The “old people” went to her mother and father’s house (Saima and Andres), but the “young people” stayed mostly at Maris’ and the kids played and watched Cartoon Network

Maris’ house is lovely and modern and feels like someone took the different displays from inside IKEA and put them together…kitchen, family room, bathroom (dont’ forget the ubiquitous sauna), bedrooms…it was beautiful!

Maddy even made friends with the Estonian tortoise. Charlotte wants to bring her (him? Maris said she called the zoo to find out and even they said it’s too hard to determine so don’t bother) home with us.

Yes, that’s the back end of the tortoise. See what they meant at the zoo???

Well, that’s it for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Don’t miss tomorrow’s post with pictures of our ferry ride (2hrs each way…bring on the Gravol!) and our visit to Helsinki. We are all speculating whether we’ll get another stamp on our passports…we don’t think so as we got EU stamps when we landed in Estonia, but we’re holding out some hope!

See you then!

Yup, we’re in Tallinn. Tere Tulemast means (as far as I can tell) “welcome!”

We’ve been here 3 days now and have had a bunch of adventures.

Estonia seems to be more like a Scandinavian country than any European country I’ve been to. When you get off the plane at the airport you feel like you’re at IKEA:

But there’s no shortage of Old Soviet architecture to be found outside the old parts of the town:

When the Soviets occupied Estonia in 1940 onwards, they bombed much of the city of Tallinn, then built those big, concrete apartment blocks. Then they filled them with workers from rural Siberia in an effort to overwhelm the ethnic Estonian community. Ethnic cleansing, soviet style.

Anyway, in our first two days we did a lot of sightseeing around the Old Town, or vana linn. The old town has been around for oh, about 1000 years now, and is still encircled by a mostly intact wall. The original wall had over 45 towers and 26 of them still stand:

Inside the walls is a beautiful old town, with a really cool town square:

But we’ve done more than sightseeing…Dave had to take a trip to the emergency room of Tallinn’s Central Hospital (where both Kitty & Ivar were born). He had an infection in his right baby toe that was mostly cleared up by the time we left, but it came back with a vengeance just after we got here. All that walking we did in London and in our first day of sightseeing here in Tallinn. Amazingly enough, we were in and out within about half an hour, and that includes walking to and from the hospital! Evidently Estonia has a very high-tech and modern health care system.

Day Two took us to the Canadian Embassy (again) to authorize paperwork in order to get Estonian citizenship issues for Dave, Melissa and the girls (it worked, they’re all citizens now), to the Museum of Occupation and more touring about town. But that’s for another day’s blog.

Insofar as it’s possible to see London in one day (it isn’t), we did it on Monday.

We rode one of those double-decker buses!

Outside Buckingham Palace…we missed the changing of the guard, though. But judging from the crowds, we wouldn’t have been able to see anything had we been there, anyway.

Taking photos at the Canada Gates to St. James Park beside Buckingham Palace.

The Canada Memorial in St. James Park.

Yes, I found a 10 pound note on the ground (!) in Hyde Park. Woohoo! That paid for our lunch!

Diplodocus skeleton in the Museum of Natural History. Of course, it wouldn’t be a vacation without some dinosaur skeletons!

A little treat at Victoria Embankment (that’s Big Ben in the background). Now they have an ice cream stand as well as a pancake hut and a souvenir stand right in front of the statue of Boadicea!

On the Thames riverboat, with the London Eye and the London Aquarium in the background.

What fun…seing tower bridge from the middle of the river. The cruise was the highlight of the trip, and best of all the Thames river cruise is FREE with your tube pass. Actually, sightseeing in London need not be that expensive at all. We spent only 16 pounds for a travel pass (train into London, unlimited tube and bus rides and Thames river cruises), the museum of Natural History is free, too (as are the other museums & galleries). We estimated we only spent about 40 pounds (actually 30, since I found 10 pounds!) for a full day of fun, a meal, treats and coffee, plus all our transportation. And that is for a family of four. Good value!

The Tower of London and the famous Traitors Gate – from the river, as the traitors would have seen it! Actually, we did the same ride — from Westminster to the Tower via the Thames — as any old convicted traitor would have done back in the reign of Henry VIII.

Lemme in! Lemme in! Oh, wait, this is the safer side, anyway! Looking at the Tower of London from outside the moat. We’ll visit again when we have time to go inside and do the tour.

Don’t lose your head at the Tower of London!

I made the girls fling out their arms…that’s what you were supposed to do when you were ready for the headsman to strike. I don’t think I could have done it, myself!

Time to head home…hop on the tube to…

Waterloo Station. Texting Allyson with the details of our train back to Epsom.

All in all, a busy but WONDERFUL day!

Well, we arrived safe and sound after a highly satisfactory British Airways flight from Calgary International to London’s Heathrow Airport.

While we were at our gate, we were able to snap a shot of our aircraft:

And then, right there as well, a Zoom Airlines jet!

I do still feel bad for all the folks who worked for Zoom – I once worked for a company that went bankrupt and it really is quite a terrible experience to live through – but I have to say that in the end it worked out better for our family to be on British Airways. The service was impeccable: I have flown business class many times in my working life, and apart from the size of the seat, coach class (known as “World Traveller class”) on BA is every bit as good as business on Air Canada (and the flight crew are much, much nicer!).

RING, RING

Hello?

Oh hi Kath. It’s Allyson.

Hey! How are you?

Not bad. Listen, I’m just calling to tell you that I heard on the news that Zoom has filed for administration.

Administration?

Yeah, you know, bankruptcy protection.

Oh no. No no nonono.

Thus began the lead-in to our much-anticipated European Vacation. Not exactly what we were hoping for a mere 48 hours before our scheduled flight.

No, not so much.

But not to worry. After 6 hours of phone wrangling, we have initiated the refund process for our canceled Zoom Airlines tickets and have secured seats on British Airways flights on the same days (if a few hours later).

Thank you, Amazing Race! As die-hard fans, we knew that it was the teams who were prepared with a back-up plan who prospered in times of stress. And that knowledge sure helped, as we were on the phone with BA as soon as we heard the news about Zoom. And they – amazingly – agreed to hold our 4 tickets for us for 48 hours, free of charge.

Once we got the whole VISA situation sorted, we called over to BA to confirm our booking. Except that the agent we spoke to the second time around couldn’t get the same rate. Oh no, not at all. Not even close. She explained that the reservation was merely to hold the seats, not the rate. While the BA agent was checking with her supervisor, I was checking the Air Canada website (they agreed to offer special rates to former Zoom passengers). In the end, I needn’t have bothered. The nice folks at BA agreed to let us have the seats at the originally quoted fare: a mere $500 more than our original discount rate on Zoom.

Thank you, British Airways!

And just while I was composing this post, we got an email from our host in London:

I have been checking the situation over here with Zoom and the national news (bbc radio) have been saying that all zoom flights are suspended and that anyone booked on them should make alternative arrangements as their flights will not be operating with immediate effect. There was someone talking from Calgary who is booked on the same flight as you and she said that she had looked at other airlines and that they were putting their prices up so fingers crossed that BA will honour the tickets you have reserved. Have got my fingers crossed for you guys.

See? That lady would have been the last to arrive at the pit stop. We, on the other hand, will be on the first flight out of here…fast forward all the way.