Friday

On Friday we left on the five o'clock ferry, so we pretty much just checked in to the hotel and went for a dinner to Beer House that night. The guys had only one tankard of beer each meanwhile I had a... well, you guessed it: a Long Island Ice Tea.

I slept really badly that night, the weather was hot and the hotel had no air conditioning. You could choose between opening the window and hearing all the noise from outside including the screaming of sea gulls and trucks passing by or keeping the window closed and feeling like you were running out of oxygen.

Saturday

On Saturday morning we had some spare time for shopping and walking around the city. Hooray! The Town Hall was open, so we finally got a chance to see it. We had tried and tried, but earlier it had been closed for one reason or another and once we just forgot that you could visit it. Now all the four floors were open for public, from the cellar to the attic. The cellar had also the exhibition The Town Built on Salt - Trade in the Hanseatic Tallinn which was very interesting, especially when the texts included also excerpts from old laws.

We also found some stairs we could climb (the stairs to the attic) and the view was nice.

On the yarn shop front there is something old and something new to tell.

Larina Lõngad seems to have moved to a new location from Narva mnt. We did not have the time nor the energy to check where the shop would be, but if you happen to find it, you could let me know how to get there. The new address is in the photo.

There were also new places. (New to me at least.)

Madeli Käsitöö on Väike-Karja 1 (near Hotel Barons) sells mostly knitwear, linen and souvenirs but there was a basket full of the multicoloured yarns at the back of the shop. 250 kroonis a hank just seemed a bit expensive to me (I think you could get the same yarn at a better price from other shops).

Poeke is located on Kullassepä 5. Wow! Me likey! There were wool yarns, both multicoloured and solid ones from two spinneries, a wall of unspun yarn and another wall of wool for felting (and knitwear and funny felted hats). The service was friendly and, what's best, they even had a bargain basket.

Saturday and Sunday: Joel and Lina's wedding

The bus to Nõmme Kõrts left at five, so we had to head back to the hotel, take a quick shower and change the clothes. Here we are, waiting for the bus to leave, looking quite OK even though the weather was still hot. See also the scarf in action and my lovely pink skirt with a small train!

I guess I don't have to tell you that the groom was handsome and the bride was beautiful.

The 70 guests came from many countries: there were of course Joel's family and friends from Estonia and Lina's parents from China. (Joel and Lina live in Japan now and I understood that they had had another reception thereabouts for Lina's family and friends.) There were 10 of us from Finland, some people from Russia, Latvia, even some from Canada and at least one from Mexico. I hope I did not forget anyone!

This is us from Finland. Could you believe that we sang voluntarily? The Estonian people seemed to know a lot of songs and they started to sing every now and then. Maybe it was the ice cold Viru Valg... I mean wine... I think it was the cold water that did it or maybe it was the influence of a bass player at our table that we found a song we could sing. Unfortunately there aren't that many Finnish songs you could sing and the Swedish songs wouldn't have been appropiate (the one and a half songs we could think of).

The Estonian people do not only sing but they also shout. When the party started, two guests got extra tasks: one guy was nominated "toho" and a girl was nominated "nono" (or something like that, I do not know how those are spelled). If you ran out of drinks, you would shout "toho" and he would have to come and give you another bottle of Viru Valg... I mean water. If you ran out of appetisers, you would shout "nono" and she would come and get you some more.

There were also games and they were fun. We were divided into groups and in the first game each group won prices based on certain criteria. Here I take part in the part called "who's got the highest heels". I did not win. We also lost the "most colourful tie" and "the youngest participant" parts...

...and that's not all, folks! We also lost the "untie the knot" game.

Lina changed to the traditional Chinese wedding colour red at some point of the evening. Here they are cutting the cake.

The party was fun! I did not understand much of the music as the band sang mostly in Estonian, but at some point Joel played the drums and the bass player mentioned earlier joined the group and played his first international gig.

Oh, there was also sing-alongs. We learned the traditional song Ma lõbus õllepruulija (I just can't remember if the lyrics were exactly the same as on the linked page) you sing sitting down, standing up, standing on your chair and under the table. I was told later that when you're singing under the table, you try to steal for example someone's shoes or handbag and if you succeed, the someone has to perform all kinds of tasks to get the property back. My handbag was stolen but because I was a first-timer, they just gave it back to me. It was very kind.

I have to say that this was the best Estonian-Chinese wedding I've ever been to!

Sunday

On Sunday morning I woke up at seven when my left calf cramped. It's a terrible feeling; you wake up just to realise that there's nothing you can do to prevent the cramp.

At nine I woke up when my right calf cramped. I stayed up just in case even though I ran out of calves that could cramp... No, in fact it was time for breakfast.

On Sunday we did not have much time, the ferry was supposed to leave at five (but at the harbour we were told that it is late and it left finally at 5.40) and we wanted to eat before that. We did go to Filati on Müürivahe but I bought only few balls of yarn! Is there something wrong with me?

Yarn

Anyway, here's the yarn. It's not all for me, I thought I would bring some yarn as a souvenir.

On the bottom left you have some frou-frou yarn I bought as souvenirs. The reddish wool yarns are for me as well as the orange wool yarn. (I bought some orange Maali yarn from Liann Lõngad just in case I need more of it.) The colourful yarns on the top right corner are also souvenirs...

These I'd like to mention separately:

The white yarn is 25% silk and 75% super kid mohair (almost like Rowan's Kid Silk Haze). It was 79 kroonis a 25 g ball in Liann Lõngad. I saw it the last time we went there but did not buy it. Now I did.

The lurex yarn - yes, you've seen it... or something like it before. I bought one ball from Riga. At a knitting meet-up I wondered what I could do with one ball of lurex yarn and people said I would need two balls so I could use them as cheerleader pom-poms. Unfortunately Filati did not have the yarn the last time but now it did, so I bought the one missing ball.

What should I cheer now?