Baltic Cruise Notes, Day 8: Talinn, Estonia

It is hard to believe that we have reached the halfway point in our trip. Yesterday, for the first time, I thought about how it would be nice to get back home, in the normal swing of things. Then I woke up. We started early this morning, to board the bus for Talinn, Estonia, old town. Now, this is the first city on our tour that has the sorts of buildings I thought we would be seeing. Frankly, we have been mildly disappointed in the architecture on this trip, having become acquainted with buildlings that were extremely ancient, in Scotland. Talinn has buildlings that are that old, some even older. For instance, the city wall is mostly intact, built in medieval times. One structure that was pointed out, a church, was almost dismissed by our guide as being modern, built in the 1700s. We stopped in the higher area of the city, next to their parliament building and across from a Russian Orthodox church. Since it was Sunday morning, we noticed the faithful gathering at the foot of the steps and crossing themselves repeatedly while looking at the ground, then up at the icon that was on the high parapet of the entrance. We were allowed to go in, even though their service was starting, as long as we were very quiet and respectful. Denise had brought a scarf that she put on, and we stood and listened to the choir as the priest began preparations for the mass. In these churches, there is no instumental music, and there are no seats---all of the congregants stand throughout the services, whieh can last for two hours or more. The singers' pitch was variable, but their harmonies were lovely and haunting, and very worshipful. Inside the church were multiple domes that must have been 40 or 50 feet above us, so the acoustics were amazing. After the church, we followed our guide through a maze of very narrow medieval streets paved with extremely uneven cobblestones. This was the first guide we've had who was not so good at describing the history of the surroundings. He was very young, and spoke excellent English. The language here is Finno-Urgic, and our guide explained that it has been voted by some group that votes on things like this, to be the most beautiful language on the planet. Well, maybe. Anyhow, we're almost becoming jaded with all the architectural wonders in the various cities. Talinn is a city of about 400,000 people, which is about 1/3 of the population of Estonia. This is a very old city that has been important for centuries for trade on the Baltic Sea. It was conquered in the fifteenth century by the Swedes, who brought Christianity and education to the masses, and it was then sold off and on to other countries, including Germany. In the early 1700s, the country was taken by Russia after its successful war with Sweden. Then all education and building of the country's infrastructure stopped. In the early 1900s, Estonia won independence, until the Russians invaded in 1940. A year later, the Nazis occupied Estonia, until 1945, when the Soviets took over. They deported or killed 35% of the population, and moved a large group of ethnic Russians into the country. It's a pretty grim history, and yet the country has thrived since 1991, when it won independence again from the collapsing Soviet Union. Estonia is part of the European Union, so they use the Euro here, and the average Estonian makes about €19,000 per year. The country has avoided many of the problems other small EU countries like Greece and Spain have suffered, by a program of careful spending and austerity. Sort of like the U. S. Oh, wait.... We returned to the ship for lunch, something I can't remember--all the amazing food is running together--then a nap on deck chairs. It's a hard life, but someone has to do it. Laundry figured in somewhere, as well. In late afternoon, we listened to a lecture on Riga, Latvia, so we are a little better-prepared for tomorrow's tour. Following the lecture, we had an ecumenical prayer service led by Willie Aames, a former actor who has been in dozens of well-known productions. You might remember him as one of the teens on the show "Eight Is Enough." He had, according to Wikipedia, troubles with alcohol until his conversion to Christianity, and he is now an ordained minister, who worked with Franklin Graham on a project with a superhero named "Bible Man." Look, I'm not making this up. Anyway, he is the cruise director, and he gave a nice talk on First Corinthans 1:11-13 that fit well with a very mixed and small congregation. We had dinner, then there was a show, the first one we've made it to. The "headliner" for the show was Jimmy Travis, a guitarist and comedian who has, according to the cruise notes, written over 150 Christian children's songs, as well as jingles for many different ads for companies including Toyota and Nascar. He is an excellent guitarist, and sings in a mostly country-western style. The whole audience got enough belly laughs to cause abdominal pain. For instance, he lamented how much Adam suffered for Eve, and all men since the Garden of Eden, as God took a rib to form woman, the rib that held in the belly. Okay, I can't tell a joke, but it was really funny. Tomorrow, Latvia. Good night.