Tallinn, Estonia

Well Estonia´s population is about 1.3 million making it about 1\3 the size of San Diego. Tallinn being the capital and biggest city had130,000 people so about the size of Freiburg. Our plane landed at 7 PM and we hit the streets of Tallinn hoping to find a delicious resturant reccomended to us. We arrived at the town square and heard 3 people speaking english- so i rushed over and asked them for directions. One was a young guy from Estonia and the other two were university students from France. So we decdided to all go to dinner together. We talked about everything, and their favorite subject- Obama. We hurried off to go to bed since we had an early morning the next day.
The next day we meet with an assistant professor at Tallinn University and learned about Tallinn and its history. Next we got the chance to visit the singing revolution stadium.
In 1997 in an effort to be freed from Soviet occupation a cycle of mass demonstrations featuring spontaneous singing eventually collected 300,000 Estonians in Tallinn to sing national songs and hymns that were strictly forbidden during the years of the Soviet occupation, as Estonian rock musicians played. This time nearly 300,000 people came together, more than a quarter of all Estonians. On that day political leaders were participating actively, and were for the first time insisting on the restoration of independence. On 16 November the legislative body of Estonia issued the Declaration of Sovereignty.The Singing Revolution lasted over four years, with various protests and acts of defiance. In 1991, as Soviet tanks attempted to stop the progress towards independence, the Estonian Supreme Soviet together with the Congress of Estonia proclaimed the restoration of the independent state of Estonia and repudiated Soviet legislation. Through these actions Estonia regained its independence without any bloodshed.

Then we got a chance to roam around the city for a while. A city so steeped in tradition and constantly working to be Estonia, and not a baltic state or a former soviet territory. constatnly fighting to forget its dark history of soviet occupation and working ot be a leader in eastern europe. But at nightime the city transforms to a hopping young vibrant city. With bars and nightclubs every couple of feet. We went to a Irish Pub- and sang Karaoke. With reuglar singers singing Estonian songs (harder than you think) and then every American song like Summer Lovin, Born to be Wild, and It's Raining Men. Of course the most famous song, sang by a group of 7 americans including yours truely was YMCA...

Fun Facts about Tallinn and Estonia:

1. Tallinn the capital if Estonia is only 70 km away from Helsinki, Finland and can easily be reached by ferry (although when i inquired about it i was told there was no sense in going to Finland- so i didn't)


2. Tallinn was first recorded on a world map in 1154


3. Skype was created in Tallinn, Estonia, aswell as Hotmail


4. Scientists in Tartu (town in Estonia) are having a great success in creating vaccine to fight HIV. The last tests are made in the Republic of South Africa.


5. Estonians have one of the biggest collections of folk songs in the world, with written records of 133,000 folk songs.


6. Estonia was the first country to allow people to vote online in 2008. With hopes to make the 2012 elections the first time in history to allow people to vote by mobile phone.