Not Your Average Spring Break (Part 1)

 I have just returned from the best Spring Break vacation I have ever had. (Nicole, I am sure it is not grammatically correct to capitalize Spring Break, but I am going to do it anyway.) It is a little deceiving to claim it as the best, because I think it is the only Spring Break vacation I have ever had.  When I was younger, Spring Break always fell in the middle of tax season…which for those of you who are part of the nerd world understand this means no fun for the Reilly family because dad was always really busy. Then, when I finally broke free to the wild college years I was shot down by BYU because they don’t even have a Spring Break in their schedule. So, I had to graduate from college and travel all the way to Russia to have my first Spring Break experience, but it was well worth it.

Our first stop was Tallinn, Estonia. I had never even heard of Estonia before this whole Russia experience and now I am pretty sure I want to live there for the rest of my life. It is like something right out of Disneyland, only it is real. It is very sad that when I see things in real life, I compare them to Disneyland, when I am pretty sure it is supposed to be the other way around.  However, Tallinn is absolutely wonderful and the only word I can use to describe it is charming, which is how my host mother helped me describe it as when she asked how I liked it. It’s a little embarrassing that she can pick out better English words than me when it’s her second language. These smart Russians…

Here are some highlights from our time in Tallinn:

This is Town Hall, the center of Old Tallinn.

Town Hall Square is the main square of Old Tallinn.

Another shot of Town Hall.

Tallinn is a series of quirky little shops, restaurants, and cafes.

The streets are all cobblestone. I felt like I was walking through a Simon and Garfunkel song.

This made me miss my mom...less touching when you notice Allison making a ridiculous pose in the reflection of the window.

Lots of cool alleys.

These are towers and walls from the original infrastructure from the 13th and 14th century.

This is the entrance to Old Tallinn. That tower is from the 14th century, and the building you see right behind it is definitely a McDonalds...I'm telling you, Ronald replaced Colonel Sanders in the Pentavirate when he went "tets up." McDonalds is everywhere here.

A Russian Orthodox church built during the time the USSR occupied Estonia.

A view of the city

We went to a place called the Open Air Museum. It's basically an Old Trail Town times 100.  They gathered lots of old buildings and windmills from all over the country and relocated them to this piece of land

An old school house inside the Open Air Museum.

It reminded me a lot of Anne of Green Gables. 

We were literally the only people at this museum, which is just acres and acres of forest and buildings....

...sometimes it felt like we were in The Shining.