It’s Friday, meaning this time two weeks ago, the SALT group went on a weekend adventure to Tallinn, Estonia and Rīga, Latvia!
All twenty-four students, four interns, and one of the recruiters, Jennie, boarded a bus on Thursday and drove through the night to Tallinn. This is the second overnight bus I’ve done (with still more to come) and it’s slowly getting better. Students slept on the floor of the bus, while others attempted to spread out or cuddle next to their seat buddy. There were the few who slept very comfortably and then there was me, who woke up every hour or so to readjust and attempt to get some good shut eye so I’d be ready for our day.
It didn’t exactly go according to plan, but it was fun nonetheless.
We arrived in Tallinn early the next morning and were welcomed with a buffet breakfast. Everyone indulged themselves with pancakes, bacon, smoothie shots, and coffee before we loaded back on to the bus to get to the hostel. The bus couldn’t take us through the narrow streets of Old Town, so we were dropped off at the edge of the cobbled streets and navigated our way to our rooms. Entering Old Town was like entering a fairytale. Centuries-old towers stood tall and medieval buildings still lined the city square with cafés and shops at the foot. It was absolutely darling. Once we reached our hostel, we only had a few minutes to freshen up because we had a scheduled walking tour. Our tour guide was a little late which gave us an opportunity to act like little kids as we watched a man with a massive bubble blower take over the streets. We were all trying to catch the bubbles and I’m sure nobody thought we were educated adults in that moment. But oh well.
Despite the length of the tour, we were able to see all sorts of the city, including two major viewpoints that I had seen in dozens of Instagrams and Pinterest photos. Red tiled roofs and church steeples stood tall through all the trees and I fell in love then and there (although, fellow SALT kids will tell you that I wouldn’t stop ooh-ing and ah-ing at every single cute building and cobbled street).
We then had free time to explore and a group of us grabbed coffee at an adorable coffee shop, as well as bought some Estonian goods in a store that sold handcrafted goods. After that we headed to the tallest church to get another view point! The stairs were killer and uneven, but with the sun setting over the changing trees, it was most definitely worth it.
Once we wrapped up at the church, we went back to the hostel for naps and to officially freshen up before dinner at a medieval restaurant! This was quite the experience. There was no electricity and all the waiters wore medieval garb and spoke like they were in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. We all had a blast though and the food was super good, including the bear sausage and onion jam (sounds absurd, but it was actually delicious. Especially with the duck pâté). After dinner, we broke off into small groups again as mine headed to yet another coffee shop for pumpkin spice lattes and then – bedtime!
The next day we were up early for breakfast and then meander through the flea markets! Now, what I was expecting were cute little booths set up in the city square, but instead what I got looked like it was The Hob from The Hunger Games. Nevertheless, it was entertaining and we even found a kitty! We then went back to the viewpoints for final pictures and souvenirs before getting on our bus and heading to Riga!
The four hour bus ride was much more endurable this round and we stopped for lunch half way through which helped split up the ride. Once we arrived and checked into our hostel, we headed out for our walking tour. This time it was in the evening, so it was a little chillier this round, but we managed to see the sights. While Riga was a little less enchanting, it was still a very cool (literally and figuratively) city and we all had time in the evening to run around town. I stuck with the smaller group and we had a girl’s night at one of the restaurants that had a live rockabilly band! It made our evening infinitely more fun and we eventually headed back to the hostel to meet up with the rest of the group where we sat out on the patio all talking and drinking tea before bed.
The next morning we went to an Anglican service in English where I found myself reverting back to my Catholic school days and ended up staring at all the stained glass and attempting to remember hymns. It didn’t work too well, but it was still a good service. Once service was over, we went to a restaurant at the top of a building for yet another rooftop view. Except this time I didn’t have to hike up a hundred stairs. We enjoyed coffee and the view out floor to ceiling windows before picking up some last minute souvenirs and peeking into a Russian Orthodox church and heading back to our bus.
Our last stop was dinner at a place called Lido which was like HBH. It had a massive buffet with great food options (literally anything and everything you could ever want) and rides outside. Once dinner was over, we got on our bus one last time and headed home!
Since Riga/Tallinn, it’s been back into the rhythm of writing papers, readings, presentations, and soon… midterms. We had our first midterm today and I have four more in the next two weeks before we head to Russia! We’ve begun learning Russian and Cyrillic in Cross-Cultural Seminar and I’m so happy to say that the language part is at least semi-similar to Bosnian. Now I just have to get out of the habit of using Lithuanian and remember all my Bosnian. Oof.
I’ve gone out for coffee much to often and was introduced to the best brunch in Klaipeda – a restaurant called Monai. I have some of the best roommates and they’re always down to talk about their day and tell me about Ukraine. Family dinners are still the highlights of the week, but I’m hoping to branch out and get more Lithuanian friends and more Lithuanian experience. I love my SALTy family, but am also living in a foreign country and need to truly embrace it.
As for now, it’s time for homework and then I’m babysitting for my “host” family. They’re an American family to be here for us if we’re having any difficulty adjusting or if we want just a taste of home. We’ve had one meeting with fajitas and my host mom gave me puréed pumpkin for pumpkin bars which was a huge hit! I’ve also managed to carry out an entire transaction in Lithuanian so I’m pretty proud right now.
Anyway, two weeks until Russia and three weeks until Prague-Vienna!
Until more cultural adventures,
Kate
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