Day 15 - Going to Tallinn

On Thursday we worked until noon and then dropped off Isabella and her stuff at Irina's and headed out to Tallinn. It is about 606km and we planned to make 2 stops along the way. We were shooting to get there by 9pm.

First we stopped on the rest area 100 km from Riga where we stop every time when we go to Riga. I used to think that they used to have a decently sized zoo, but I was wrong. Even now there are still only ostriches, clearly suffering in the heat, 2 sleeping bears, and deers in every remaining enclosure. Some of the play areas on the playground are not working anymore. The bathroom is dirty. In general, it looks dated.

The second stop was at about 300km from Tallinn, in Latvia, courtesy of the Latvian police. We were going 95 in the 90 zone. They were originally facing us, they've started flashing their lights, turned around, caught up with us and we stopped. The cop said that our license is wrong - it is supposed to be international, it is a law all over Europe. Somehow we were not told about this law by two rental compainies we used. And also "we were going too fast." He said he has to write up a protocol and left. Dan grabbed a 100 Euro note (mental note: should have taken dollars and in smaller denominations too) and headed to the police car. He asked the cops (there were 2) that perhaps they can work something out. The passenger cop got out and Dan worked it out within the next 20 seconds. Dan got back in the car and we kept going. The cop said that there is another one in 20km so we were extra slow.

Essentially the profession of road robbers has never been eliminated, the robbers just changed their name and appearance. In more civilized countries like US they deal with it by installing cameras in the cars and better monitoring the cops. However, for example in NJ, you can plead guilty and get your points off with a hefty fee. This way your insurance does not go up and the state plays the role of the robber. And you can do it twice in 5 years.

A final note about cops and traveling between LT and Estonia. We passed a good number of cops on the way. A custom of flashing ones' lights seems to be forgotten.

In about 100 km there were several areas where you can get off the road and go on the beach. We went into one of those areas. There was a nice parking lot, a bathroom and great clean beach. The water was light amber because the sand was brownish. It was also very shallow for a good distance in, which is characteristic of this region. Because of the color and depth, it was really warm. We changed and spent maybe 40 minutes in the water and on the beach. As we were trying to dry off to continue our trip gadflys and flys attacked us. We got into the car as we were - in the bathing suits, and drove on until Tallinn.

Georgia was good all the way. We did the most extensive role playing ever. She also watched a few cartoons and slept a little too.

We arrived, checked into our awesome Merchant House Hotel steps away from the main square. It was incredible change from Etap: The room was facing the courtyard, lined with the pots containing various herb plants. The room had a king sized bed, armoir, a comforter, and real fluffy bathrobes (yeah, that kind of hotel). But the best thing was the bathroom. It was almost the size of the room, a few steps down into the basement. With the gleaming modern bath hardware and a shelf full of various creams, salts, and other goodies. The bath! Georgia and I both hopped into it at night and it was large enough for us to float past each other. It is so enjoyable to watch CNN after almost 2 weeks of Al Jazeera.

We spoke with Irina to check on Isabella, changed and headed out into the city. Even though it was 9pm, it was still light out. We had dinner at one of the touristy places on the main square. The meal was nothing to write home about but what was impressive was that the waitress appeared to speak at least 4 languages fluently. And that was the case with most people in the tourist sector we met later. The service was superfast. Faster than the fastest Lithuanian. The only thing was that the prices were quite a bit higher and the Lithuanians still got Estonians with their beer. And women.

Georgia complimented the waitress on her butterfly clip and got it as a present. It is nice to be a kid!

Check out the pricing on that muffin on the menu on the left. I would bankrupt the family if we were to stay here for extended periods of time.

After dinner we walked around. Turns out that just like with Riga, there was a whole bunch of "new" streets that we missed on our prior visits. Perhaps they were not as nice and safe looking before. And maybe we learned better ways at looking at the cities from living in Vilnius for such long stretches. We walked into the courtyards and looked at different hidden nooks along the way. Finally we decided to leave some for tomorrow and headed back to the hotel.