Estonia (trip end)

I would be the worst tour guide ever. Above my desk at home is a postcard which reads “I had my patience tested... I’m negative.” Imagine me herding a group of paying tourists. Thank goodness we all have different talents and personalities. Which is one reason I enjoy observing from the introvert team dugout. It’s just fascinating what plays out in this colorful world of ours. But enough about people...

I am in Tallinn, my favorite of the three cities, and ironically the one with little to do but wander the old city streets over and over. They curve and meander, narrow to dark alleys, widen into huge majestic squares, slope up or down, turn into a bunch of steps, or old city gate entrances. It’s delightfully confusing and perfect to just float with the foot traffic over cobblestones. I suppose I could find a museum or take a short cooking class but I don’t want to be inside. In the air is an intoxicating Northern European early summer vibe with the smell of lilac blossoms and the outrageously green canopy of trees. Winters here are long and brutal, these same streets with ice and snow almost impossible to manage. Temps went down to -30C (that’s -22F) a few months ago. Tough people. Tough history. The guide shared personal stories of her two grandfathers having been sent to gulags in Siberia. Everybody here of a certain age knows somebody who was punished for something.

It was what I call a “perspective-slap in the face” moment when I saw myself from very far away, zoomed out to the max, a speck in the history of time, privileged to have emerged when and where I did in this lifetime. A mere wimp of a person in the scope of things.

The center is medieval and some Estonian restaurants feature servers in traditional garb saying things like “greetings, my lady, are you finding yourself in need of sustenance?”. This sounds ridiculously cheesy but it all looks the part and when the half loaf of warm herbed bread with whole hazelnuts gets put down in front of you with a generous pile of creamy butter, you just go with it.

This chapter too is now coming to its end, I am heading to Germany and will be there for three months. This was a good way to travel, a trip worth squeezing in. I was reminded how much I like traveling solo, why I travel at all. Expansion and introspection. Perfect companions.

Riga