"Now it's really Christmas!"

Tallinn, Estonia

I was getting some information from the guy who worked the front desk at the hostel I was staying at when I look out the window and see snow falling like there's no tomorrow. The guy commented "Now it's really Christmas!" And he was right. Every place, even countries that were cold, dark, and Communist not too many decades before look Christmasy covered in a blanket of freshly fallen snow.

Tallinn itself is really a nice city. The Old Town takes you back in time to medieval times. I half expected a knight in shining armor to ride by on a horse, but no such luck. It's a city where parents bundle their kids up in snowsuits and pull them around the town square in sleds and where they duck behind corners of historical buildings avoiding what I presume to be the perpetual snowball fight with their young children. The whole scenario was really quite adorable.

I spent hours just wandering around the Old Town. I got lost looking for a couple of specific things and finally gave up on them because I kept running into the same church even though I could have sworn I was going in opposite directions each time. But that's the joy of getting lost. You find other really great stuff in the process.

The Christmas market was in full swing in the town hall square. There was a giant Christmas tree set up in the middle of the square and vendors were selling everything from hot wine to wooly mittens. And what I thought was a loud speaker blasting American Christmas music, turned out to be a van with a PA system driving all over town spreading Christmas cheer loud enough for all to hear. There are lots of things that other countries do better than the US, but I'd like to argue that Christmas music isn't one of them.

I walked atop the old city walls, finally found Saint Catherine's passage-this really cool part of the old town with arches towering over the walk ways, ate marzipan from the oldest cafe in Tallinn, make the trek up to the Seaplane Harbor Museum to see the Titanic exhibit (I highly recommend this by the way!), and enjoyed one last stroll through the Christmas market complete with a "Christmas Dinner" comprised of sausage and sauerkraut.

Some fun facts about Tallinn:
-It's the first city in Europe to offer free public transportation to its residents.
-They charge for ketchup at McDonalds.