Yikes we’ve been here three weeks and I’ve not written a thing once. My family probably thinks we’ve gone off the grid! Sorry family.
We live on Suur Ameerika 37 which is a very busy road but we’re five floors up and away from the street so it’s actually pretty quiet. The sweet sounds of the wind in the gigantic trees is ever present here, like it was in Riga.
We’re minutes away from the national library but it closed before we could get there and only opens the day we leave. There’s one streak broken! Maybe in Brussells we’ll hit the national library. We can walk/scooter 2 minutes north or 10 minutes east and we can take any number of trains to Old Town; this is where we spent our first two weekends hiking around.
One awesome thing we did was paid a few Euros each to climb a tower and walk along the Tallinn Wall. You can quickly see how well defending Tallinn was back in the day, even if she did have some trouble holding on to her own land. The tower is tall, with lots of arrowslits, wider than normal, and we wondered how many stories this tower, and the wall, could tell if they could only talk. We walked about 80 meters along the wall and climbed up a second tower. I’m amazed these things could be built in the 12th century; would have been a massive effort back then.
In the shadow of the wall there’s a Town Garden. Simple, so well thought out and cool. Truth be told they had the most amazing mint there I have ever tasted, and we used to have more than we knew what to do with right outside our old place in Auckland. It’s an outdoor, usable art space and a celebration of the warmth and fertility of summer. I took the kids here one day to study; we sat next to the mint and I got up every now and then to sample it.
We went to St. Olav’s Church and Tower, it used to be the tallest building in the world for a good while and it did not disappoint. Inside it was grand, but going up all those steps in that narrow tower was pretty awe inspiring. How could they build something so tall back then? I reckon “slowly” and “carefully”. The view at the top is spectacular and you must put your trust and faith into the iron railings that are the only thing keeping you from sliding off the tower roof.
No jaunt anywhere in the world for us would be complete without a playground. Check out Alpha photobombing one of the towers on the wall.
One more week to go. More posts to come!
Nathaniel Flick
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Lovely post and update. xoxoxo M
Thanks mom, love you!
Phew, hope you guys are keeping a written record of all that you have seen and done so far. Mum wants to know how well things are working out – work, play, school, etc. Are you taking the kids out before school like you did here? Are the kids doing their schooling via the computer or do they still do paperwork? Bet the postage costs a lot! Had a brilliant day with Aunty Val and the rest of the family (even had a piece of chocolate Guinness cake) yesterday. Val, Kelvin and Jeanette had seen Nana at lunchtime. All good. Say “hi” to the kids and catch you later.
Hi Warwick! Yes this blog is a big part of our memory record. We find it’s hard to do anything 100% right – we are working a bit too much to school the kids as much as we want (and we’re doing this a little wrong anyway, we need to do it more naturally out and about instead of their heads stuck in books, oops!) and teaching the kids too much to go out and see stuff, so we really just pick our spots and take a day off here and there when work is light.
Great news about the Guinness cake and that the family’s well. We miss you guys and think of you often. This coming Monday we go to Germany, Luxembourg, France and Belgium (driving a car) so we’re stoked to see that many countries in that many days.
Much love, Nathaniel.