Off to the Baltics (and Poland)

March 27th

Despite all the stress with Finnair (they canceled my Helsinki to Tallinn flight on Tuesday afternoon, but eventually rebooked me) over the "planned industrial action (which I assume from what I read meant a strike), I arrived in Helsinki early.  This was quite helpful as my newly booked flight gave me only 35 minutes to get from one end of the airport to the other, as well as go through passport control (I was entering a Schengen Area country).  For those unfamiliar with these terms there are Euro Zone countries (part of the European Union and using the Euro), Shengen Area countries (who have agreed to remove border controls, it includes EU and non-EU countries), and then countries in the European Union (sharing common institutions and a set of specific laws). Interestingly enough, Schengen countries may not share physical borders, as in the case of Cyprus and Ireland.

Terminology aside, the terminal was very quiet and I got no inkling that three trade unions were going to "demonstrate" in just 30 minutes.  My flight took off and across the Baltic Sea we hopped and almost before you knew it we landed in Tallinn, Estonia.  I caught an Über to my hotel with minimum fuss and was soon checked into my room at the Radisson Blu Olumpia.  Although I had been unable to sleep on the red-eye from JFK, I wasn't able to nap before the tour meeting; I tried, but it just wasn't happening.

Simona, our tour director, is also my age, and is a native Lithuanian, married to a Slovenian man.  They split their time between Vilnius and Ljubljana.  Our Welcome Dinner was pleasant enough, no matter the country, no matter the tour guide, the welcome dinners are pretty much always the same.  Details on how the tour will run, how to reach her, giving out the "whispers" (small devices with earpieces so that we can hear the guide without the guide yelling), and introductions.  Our group had 39 people in total, so full, but still a handful of empty seats on the bus to allow for some freedom of movement.

 A bit more about my first destination. The capital's name is Tallinn (pronounced tah-lin as Estonian always emphasizes the first syllable). Estonian is their only official language and it belongs to the Finn-Euro language group (related to Hungarian and Finnish). Unlike English, Estonian has no prepositions, they simply change the ending of their nouns (there are 14 cases or endings to their nouns). The letter A is always pronounced the same (ahh), no matter the location inside the word.  The colors of the Estonian flag are the colors of their winter: blue for sky, black for forest, and white for snow.