You are tourists, it is not safe for you

These are not necessarily comforting words, especially when said by a cop. I`ll give a little background. We woke up in Finland yesterday (I`ll do some back tracking on the rest of Sweden and Finland later) toured around a bit and then took the "high speed" ferry over to Tallinn, Estonia. By high speed, they mean 2 hours time and 30 Euros per person (add 30% to translate to American....we`ve stopped doing the math, it`s just easier that way). So, we got here and needed to head to the room office. They call themselves the B&B office and cooridnate travelers with rooms in homes all over the Baltic States. Great! Perfect even! Except we were later than I thought we`d be. I just couldnt actually find us on the map. When I did find us, we hadn`t gone out of our way, just another route. Maybe a little more circuitous route. We picked up a map at the boat terminal, but when comparing it to the map in Rick`s book, I was a tad confused. It looked like there was only one way into the city from the boats. Ha! Try like 15. But, we got there, and it actually was a fairly good route (I love being lost and then finding out we never were lost in the first place, just didn`t know where we were).

We finally got to the office. And wouldn`t ya know, it`s locked up tight. We went around trying different doors, and Chris banged on doors, but it was to no avail. We were up a creek. Funny thing, I was thinking earlier that day that the Amazing Race would be so much more interesting if they had to find their own hotel rooms. Heh. Anyway, we just sat there on the step for a bit thinking. I got out Rick and started trying to find another hotel that was fairly close. I think I forgot to mention, Rick says the cabs are unregulated, so he doesn`t reccommend using them unless it`s totally necessary, so we walked. Ugh.

I found a place that looked kind of close (there`s no kind of scale to Rick`s maps) and we started walking. As we walked, it seemed like there was a weird feeling in the air. When you get to former Eastern Bloc countries, they look at you, as a tourist, with distrust. But here, they see their fare share of tourists. I thought maybe it was because it was a Sunday, but the city seemed deserted. That was of no concern to us, though! We needed a room. So, we kept walking. Without meaning to, we happened upon the Kalev Spa Hotel, but it was not to be. They were full, and I was actually disappointed. They have a water park, and people come there for a restful, sporting vacation. The guy at reception called another hotel for us. Nothing.

So, we kept walking. The neighborhood looked Soviet-era and rundown. Heck, it literally was rundown! But, we kept walking and came out onto a beautiful street! One one side was a lovely guesthouse that didn`t have anything, but on the other was their associated Hostel which did. Yay! This is easily, hands down the nicest hostel situation I`ve ever had. Lovely place. As travel snafus go, this one was fairly painless. Thank goodness!

By now, it was later in the day, but we decided to go do at least part of Rick`s walking tour (those are pretty much always great) and then dinner. What a lovely town Tallinn is. A mix of old-world charm and Soviet-era remnants. The sun was setting and the lighting awesome. We walked, we read, we took pictures. Some of the buildings have signs on them in Estonian and English. We read those too. Very interesting. We did notice a preponderance of police. And we were getting odd looks from the police. We definitely stand out. First of all, no one wears a white coat over here. I was aware of that coming, but it`s not like I was going to buy a new North Face coat! And that`s not to mention the camera glued to my face. And then there`s our accents. It`s pretty obvious.

Anyway, these groups of five or more cops were everywhere. We also noticed shop after shop with the windows smashed out. One still had the rock in the sill. Of those without the windows smashed, so many had the windows boarded up. It was wierd. It felt like the city was maybe more run-down than we though. Or maybe something we didn`t know about was going on. It was most definitely the latter. We continued following the walking tour and that led us through this terriffically old wooden gate up to the upper town (Tallinn used to be two towns, an upper and lower, and this gate has supposedly been there for hundreds and hundreds of years). We were enthralled by the Russian Orthodox church. Chris had never seen one before, only in my pictures. Weird, though...there was a fence across the street. Huh? Well, all the locals were shimmying between the temporary fence across the middle of the street and the wall. When in Estonia.....

Thing is, though, they all turned right, we were to turn left. Where there was noone but a couple of cops...this time in riot gear. We turned with the crowd for a moment, and a cop said something. They said things back. It was all in Estonian, which, suprprisingly, I don`t speak. We shrugged our shoulders and went on about the little tour. Weird thing is, the cops let us. Finally, I asked one if he spoke English. He said, "a little." That`s what they all say. I suppose I would too if I were them. You always feel weird speaking in another lanugage. I asked if this area was closed or something, and he said yes. You should go that way and go down. Hmmmm....okay....just a few more pictures, though. I guess none of the police bothered us because our tourist status was obvious and we wouldn`t be bothering them.

We took a few more pictures, saw the front of the church and noticed much more activity in the direction the first cop had pointed us. There, we saw a group of 6 or so cops, and down the hill they were putting up another fence across the street, but this time reinforced with concrete barriers. We asked them what was going on, and the first one didn`t have a fabulous command of English, so he brought another one over who might know the right words. This guy says, "It is like Germany and France." So what pops into my little head, "Riots?" No response. "Strike?" "No, not strike". "So it`s riots." Then, to make us feel better, he says, "You are tourists, it is not safe for you here. You should go to your hotel and stay there." And he and his buddies try to figure out the best way for us to get home because it really isn`t safe. Oh my!! At this point, we both got seriously nervous. And by nervous, I mean scared. About this time, they were arresting somebody up where they were putting up the fence. Finally, the cops asked us where our room was, and decided that was OK as it was in the old area and there are enough police. Again, OH MY!

There was a little problem in this scenario. We hadn`t eaten yet. And we were hungry. And for Jamie to not eat would be baaaaaad. Really. My blood sugar goes wonky, and if you`re not careful, you might just become headless (maybe we shouldn`t have eaten and then run into some rioters! Ha ha!). So, we went to this place we`d seen on the way called Old Hanse. It`s set in medieval times and totally toursity, but totally cool. Chris had wanted to go to this cool beer hall, but decided drunkeness & rioting do not mix! Anyway, it`s almost entirely lit with candles, and the food was out of this world! The mushroom soup was to die for! Our waiter was awesome. He seemed to be helping almost all of the tables in our area, and those he wasn`t waiting on, he was helping to translate into English and telling what is going on.

Here`s what he told us: the city/state decided to take down an old Soviet WWII memorial. It is Soviet and all. Well, there were some unknown soldiers buried underneath it and they wanted to exhume them, identify them, and give them a proper burial in a military cemetary. I guess this memorial was in the center of a sidewalk, so people were constantly walking over the grave. Well, this set off the Russian minority, who started protesting. And things started spiraling out of control.

Walking home after dinner (it was past 11 by this time), we felt more at ease. We didn`t have far to go, and there weren`t THAT many people out. We did stop for a picture or two, but there was noone around, and the old city wall was beautifully lit. As we walked down the even more deserted street that our hostel is on, we were just a touch more nervous. Actually, the most unnerving part was the bands of cops. We`d see one after another after another, in just a few blocks. At least we knew we were being looked after....as we were virtually the only ones on the street.

We made it back uneventfully, but neither of us slept well. Every little noise woke us. Well, for me it was the guy at 3:15 running down the street screaming. After that, I had a hard time. Part of what got me was the winow breaking, and we were in a street level room with a window. Everything is fine, though, and Chris is still downstairs sleeping. I´m on the one computer here. I`ve had a doozie of a time finding internet cafes in Finland and here. There`s wifi access everywhere, but what good is that with no laptop (though we have 2 sitting at home waiting for us!).

The cops said everything should be re-opened today. Should being the operative word. They weren`t sure. We shall see. We have until 5:00, then we take another cruise boat back to Stockholm. Where, we`ll spend the day, and then hopefully go to Denmark. We`re not really sure about the night train situation. We may be taking a last minute flight!

Here`s the only story I could find about there riots.