Farewell, Beautiful Land.

So I had to leave Prague today :/ it was quite the bummer actually. I have sooo much to write about. I want to share as much detail ad stories and photos as possible so this is just a head start. I will do all the rest when I get back to my computer in Lithuania. Prepare to hear a story about how we almost got TAKEN. It's pretty sketchy actually. Also about the best burger I've ever had, making friends from India and trying Goulash for the first time. There are some good ones in there.
Anyway, Prague is definitely worth to visit. If you had to choose just one place in Europe to travel to, choose Prague. It might sound strange but trust me. It's the most underrated city. I've only even known its existence recently when my friend got called there on a mission. It has the most beautiful old town, the John Lennon wall, castles, a pristine river, an astronomical clock, amazing street performers, amazing FOOD, very kind and friendly people. And the land is soo green. I can't wait to share my stories and photos. Hopefully I can show you a taste of this wonderful place.
We headed to Budapest today. Just a 7 hour bus ride. Compared to 13, that was heaven. As we were driving, we passed through the most breathtaking countryside. Green rolling hills, tall pine trees, and....MOUNTAINS!! Oh good heavens, they were the first mountains I have seen in months. If you know me, you know I do love the mountains. And the forests. So it was a grand moment. I wanted to jump out dat bus and just run around those hills singing.
Well, it's almost 1AM here so I should probably catch some Zs. I'm going to a giant thermal bath tomorrow in Budapest. Ill be sure to fill you in on that experience :) love back home.
-Shelb xx

First Impressions Of Prague.

Ahoj, Czech Republic! Oh my goodness, this place is completely breathtaking. The 13 hour bus ride here actually wasn't as bad as I was dreading. Since I had gotten no sleep the night before, I was out like a light. I woke up about every hour or two to listen to music and such but I probably slept a good 8 hours. Since it was daylight savings, we arrived at the bus station at 4AM instead of 5AM like we had originally planned. When I was buying bus tickets online, the Prague bus station looked so nice! My impression was: it was huge, it had a shopping center, and nice restaurants. So I figured, hey, we arrive at 5AM, we can just chill in the station for a couple hours and then start our day at 8 or so. Well, since we had spent the whole previous day in Warsaw with no place to stay (read my last blog post for this story) we had not been showered, had spent 20 hours on a bus in 1 1/2 days, and we. were. tired. We arrived at the bus station and we walk in to the lost ghetto station in history, I swear. It's just like this white dungeon with a few bunches (tha were all full) and NO food places were open. In most train and bus stations, there are usually convenience stores or fast food places open all night. No, not here. And I was starved. We set up camp on the floor and were all just sort-of...not in good moods. Everyone felt stinky (I don't know what it is about sitting on a bus that makes you feel so gross), tired, and wanted to brush their teeth. And I was hungry (I'm usually the only one who's ever hungry). So we had a grand idea to find a hostel and see if we could buy a night RIGHT NOW. That way we could shower and catch a few Zs before we were to spend our whole day exploring Prague. We started walking somewhere, and found some hostels and hotels on the way. Mind you, it was about 4:30AM by this time, so I was worried we wouldn't find any that were open 24/7. We found a lot of hotels (which I swore I'd never stay in here in Europe after I've stayed in a hostel because they're the BEST) but at this point I was down with anything. I just wanted to be clean! My face was soo itchy and I wanted to brush my teeth. Every hotel we went into was full, every hostel was either closed or full. So we were a bit hopeless. So we went back to the bus station and I remembered there was an actual hostel IN the bus station. So we went to it, sure that it'd be open all night, and luckily it was! We walked in and asked if there was anything available that we could stay in for just a few hours. There was! We had to be separated, but that's no big deal. We got into our rooms, showered and went to sleep. By the time we laid to sleep it was already getting light outside, ha. But it was some dang good sleep. We had to pay $25 for those few hours, which sucked but was honestly worth it. I felt so refreshed and ready to take on the day bathe price included a breakfast buffet though so that was awesome. And it was all local czech cuisine which I LOVE! When we stayed in Latvia, their breakfast buffet was cereal and toast..LAME. I want some local food. I stuffed myself because when backpacking on a budget, when you get the choice of free food, all-you-can-eat, you jump on that. I had 2 huge bowls of blueberry yogurt and musli (fancy granola), these smoky beans, some grilled meat that could have been anything, but was still delicious. A baguette with ham, pepperoni and cheese. Toast, fresh cucumbers and peppers, and a lemon drink. YUM. That yogurt was soooo delicious I couldn't get enough. I wanted even more, but didn't want to be that ugly American, you know? Alright. I will update you when I leave Prague. And when I actually get back to Lithuania to my computer, I will upload all the friggin' pictures I've taken. Stay tuned :)

-Shelb xx

I Totally Neglected Warsaw.

Hi! So guess what? Made it to Warsaw, Poland. Here's how my day went:
I arrived at 5AM. An hour early. The bus station was pretty nice, though. It had lots of food stops, and stores inside. We didn't want to go out until at least 9 or so, because nothing usually opens until then. So we napped, played 20 questions, pondered. I got some currency (which are called zlotys) and bought some breakfast at this convenience store. Get this. This is why I LOVE Poland. It's so cheap! I got a banana, a huge yogurt smoothie, and a peach pastry for......$1.98!! And it was all sooo good tasting. Even the banana was just so big and fresh. Everything we bought in Warsaw was soo cheap. Okay so, when it got light outside, about 9AM. We went outside and just started walking. So when we bought our bus tickets, we decided we would skip out on Poland for ourn10 day vacation and then go back to it for out 4 day vacation in November. But in order to get the Austria, Czech Republic & Hungary, we had to pass through Poland. So, we booked a ticket from Vilnius to Poland from 10:30PM-6AM and then would hop on the next bus to Czech Republic at 6PM. So we had about 12 hours to see Warsaw. We had our huge 40 pound backpacks that had to stay with us, which was the only horrible part. Obviously, since it was during the day, we couldn't get a hostel or anything. So we settled on the fact that we would have to go slow everywhere so we wouldn't kill ourself with these heavy packs. Well we headed in a random direction, and stumbled upon a very nice part of town! We found a MASSIVE mall. we went inside looking like homeless people, and found a place to sit. Well, we ended up sitting in that place alllllll day. We just sort of set up camp in the mall. This mall was like 6 stories tall, and had tons of American shops and restaurants in it. I had some ice cream and subway! Gosh I just always have to get subway when I see it nits just the best ever! And it's one of the only places in Eastern Europe where you can get free refills, I swear. We check out the movie theater in there, and though we might catch a movie to pass the time. But none were interesting, really :/ so again we sat. Forever. About an hour before we had to leave, we went to a grocery store which was super nice! I wanted to get stuff for this long bus ride ahead of us. They had so many American things in there so it was comfy! Again, these prices are insane. I got a blue powerade (HELLZ YES), 3 granola bars, a huge, fresh soft pretzel, an asiago cheese roll, and an apple for a bit under $4!! Can you believe that? We go back through on our way home from this vacation so ill be sure to get a pic of this cool mall. The design of it is incredible. We walked back to the bus station, and then caught a city bus to the next bus station that would take us to Prague. Well, thei bus system is a little different than Vilnius, where you scan your card inside the bus or go up the the driver and buy a ticket. Well, on these buses, you have to buy a ticket at ticket booths...how were we supposed to know! So our ride to the bus station was going to be 40 minutes long Ann's there are random bus checks by police officers. When they come on, if you don't have a ticket, you could get fined or arrested. So during that whole 40 minutes, I was scared out of my mind! At every stop we came to, I held my breath and prayed I wouldn't see any of those bright yellow uniforms. Luckily, we made it. I felt bad for taking a free bus ride, but decided I would give those 6 zlotys or $2 in another currency to a homeless person or street performer. We finally made it to the station and waited for our bus. I was sad to have neglected the beauties of Poland. It seems so wrong to just sit inside a building in a European city that you've never been to before, even if you do have to pass back through it to get home. It was strange, but I wasn't about to carry that backpack around. I'm excited to go back though. It was a nice place! Well, onto the 13 hour ride! Wish me luck. Sending love back home <3
-Shelb xx

And So It Begins.

The best week of my life has finally arrived! You might think "well, how do you know it will be the absolute best week of your life?" I'm backpacking Eastern Europe on my own itinerary, with good pals and I don't have to teach. How does it get any better? Just kidding. Teaching is great and I love it but its exhausting and hard so getting a week off is just what I need. Nothing sounds more perfect to me. We just had our Halloween parties at school and it was lots of fun. Lots of good treats, games, dancing and some awesome costumes! We had a costume contest and they loved it! Our elementary kids got a little bit too crazy, but they are so much fun. So that was a nice way to leave teaching for a bit.
I'm on a bus right now to Warsaw, Poland. It's a verrry nice bus. It has comfy seats, screens in front of you with some pretty good movies and classic 70s and 80s rock so my dad will be proud that I've been rocking out to that! The ride is 7 1/2 hours and I was so worried I'd have to sit next to someone. It's just hard, especially having the window seat because if you need to get up, you usually have to wake that person up or something. I hate it I hate it. And of course the tallest guy with the longest legs sits next to me so there's no WAY I could even attempt to crawl under or above him. Hahaha. And he's wearing a really long hood that he wrapped up around his face too so he's literally faceless. I saw his face once though. He looks like Kolby! But like a Russian Kolby haha. Anyway, all the other girls in my group can sleep on the buses and I hardly can. I hate that I can't. I fell asleep for maybe 1 hour max. My face is just itchy and my position obviously uncomfortable. And I have a sore throat :( it's already gone away a little bit from when I first got on the bus, so I hope it continues to go. I don't wanna deal with that during the best week of my life!! So I've just been staring out the window at the Polish night and listening to some good music. I hope I will be able to get SOME sleep, because tomorrow night will also be spent on a bus from Warsaw to Prague, Czech Republic. So the next time ill sleep in an actual bed won't be for 2 more nights. Crazy? Yes. And I might hate myself for minute, but I KNOW it'll be worth it. I'll be sure to update when I'm back and share zillions of photos :) thanks for reading.
-Shelb xx

Photos.

I look a bit frightening, but we were jamming to "My Heart Will Go On" so I had to snap a photo.

Gedimino's Tower! I love seeing it up on that hill as I walk through town.

My walk to school.

and my walk home. 

My house! the first on on the end. 

This is our cute backyard. Until now, it was full of flowers and plants.

Our pup, Pinky. 

Walk by the lake.

Pondering On The Weekend.

It's been such a good day today. What made it so good? You might think I went on a nice weekend trip or perhaps met some new friends and or something like that. Nope, actually my weekend has been very calm! And I loved it! Friday night, I didn't feel like spending money on bus fare and food in Old Town so I decided to stay home. I completely organized my Pinterest and watched Ice Age, Shrek and had some Oreo Milkas with banana cookies. It was quite divine! It was so nice to just have a chill night. One of the other girls came and slept over and we slept in til about 11 :) It was so nice! Saturday morning, we found out our host dad had been taken to the hospital because his lung collapsed. This obviously wasn't a good part of the weekend, but he IS okay. Kelby & I cooked dinner for the family while our host mom went to the hospital to be with her husband. Kelby made creamy garlic mashed potatoes and I made some Pico salsa! We kind of had to just throw something together quick, but it fed everyone so that was good! We then went to meet one of our friend's from church, Louisza, so she could take us to a few cool places we've yet to see. First was the country within Lithuania called Uzupis. It's this little district that decided they wanted to be their own republic so they branched off and became their own country. They have their own constitution and everything which includes things like "Everyone has the right to own a cat if they'd like to." and "Everyone has the right to love and be loved." and "Everyone has the right to die, but this is not an obligation." Hahaha, awesome right? :) It's just a district full of peacemakers and artists and hipsters. There was art all over the place like sculptures, statues, photographs, paintings. Cool shops and cute houses and it's all along this BEAUTIFUL river. Especially with these fall colors it was just breathtaking. After that, we headed to Gediminas Hill. It's a huge tower on a green hill that overlooks all of Vilnius. It's the last tower standing of the castle that was in Vilnius, so it's very ancient and beautiful. I loved it! The hike up wasn't too bad either except for the last like 30 steps was torture! It was so steep, my calves were on fire! When we got up, we got on the wall and hung our feet off and aw'd at our city that we have come to call home. It was a beautiful feeling to finally SEE the city I live in. We haven't seen too much outside of Old Town. There is so much to see! I can't wait to do more exploring! All of the green, yellow and red trees are so beautiful. they are everywhere! It was pretty cloudy and misty so you couldn't see the red roofs as good as I wished, but I will definitely try to make it back up when it's sunny again. After that, Louisza invited us to our favorite restaurant "Tres Mexicanos" for her dad's birthday! She said we could have free dinner! So we FLIPPED OUT and made our way down the hill to the restaurant. Her dad was the most precious thing. He's Costa Rican! So that means Louisza is half Costa Rican half Russian which is like the coolest mix I could ever think of! He just had this permanently happy face that you can't help but feel so warm and happy when you talk to him! Inside there was a big celebration with his friends from all over the world and a Cuban singer was playing guitar and everyone was singing along with him! It felt just like we were in South America! They were singing so loud and happy and were harmonizing like mad men! It was so jovial! I got my usual chicken enchiladas and was so so happy. We thanked her father and wished him a Happy Birthday and went to Coffee Inn to get some cheesecake. Nom Nom. Then went home and slept. I was soo tired! I woke up this morning and decided I was feeling very productive. Luckily, Kelby felt the same so we cleaned the entire basement! We did all of our laundry, I washed my sheets, we sweeped and mopped. We scrubbed the bathroom to death and washed the rugs. I re-organized all my teaching supplies and clothes in the closet and oranized my side table. It looks SO good! And feels so good to have everything clean! We listened to a bit of conference which was very good. The first time I've actually listened and paid attention to conference, that is. Some things in it made me emotional, which felt good. I love to feel the spirit, I realized. And pushing it away all the time is not what I truly want. Even though sometimes I think I want worldly things, all I really want is a good relationship with Heavenly Father. And a good understanding of the Gospel. It inspired me a lot to fix things in my life, so hopefully I can continue to feed off of that inspiration. Did I ever mention how much I LOVE Grandmothers? They are the absolute best. Our host dad's mom comes over whenever our host parents go to the countryside or go out of town. In this case, she came over for the day so our mom could go to the hospital. She deep cleaned the house and cooked us the most amazing Pumpkin soup! Freakin' pumpkin soup! It was creamy with potatoes and pumpkin and garlic. With a side of bread. And she kept telling me to eat more and more. And then about an hour later she made mashed potatoes with delicious meatballs! hahah! It's just like a grandmother to feed you and feed you. That's why I love them :) They always want to make sure you are well fed and that's just so cute to me! And they are just warm and lovely and beautiful. I love my Grandma Jenny :) She's so smart and clever and beautiful! I've been reading her book while I'm here and it' so interesting to read about the things I didn't know about her and her childhood. A lot of it is quite heartbreaking and I've shed many tears over it so far, but she has such a good way of writing! I am excited to finish it and then talk to her about it when I'm home. Then there's my wonderful Grandma Margie. She passed from breast cancer a while ago. She was the epitome of beauty. So sweet and soft, but also tough. She fought that cancer until she possibly couldn't any longer. Some of my favorite memories in my life are pulling up to her house on Easter and Thanksgiving morning and seeing her already out in the parking lot waiting to welcome us! It was always just her because my Grandpa passed years before..But I will never forget that. And then we'd hop out of the car and she would hug each of us and bring us inside to the DELICOUS smells filling up her small home. She had cups with all of our names on them so we always had our own cup! I remember mine was white with green pine trees and brown deer on it. And then she had that old dart board in the back that I'd always bug someone to play with me. Whether it was my brother Kolby or my dad or my cousin Justin. It was so much fun! Gosh I miss her so much. Making that trip to Overton, Nevada on Easter and Thanksgiving was so fun! I haven't visited her and Grandpa's grave site as often as I'd like but I plan to make it a goal when I get home. Gosh, aren't Grandmothers the greatest? :) Here are some photos of the weekend Love Shelb xx

Good People.

So, I have a story.
Kelby left her phone on one of the city buses yesterday. On our way home from church, she had it in her pocket. After we got off the bus and got home, she realized she didn't have her phone in her pocket anymore. She searched her purse with no luck either. So, losing your phone at home is one thing. But in another country where you can't communicate with anyone and you can't call it (no phone service) what do you do? We re-traced our steps back to the bus stop which is like a mile away. No sign of it. We decided we'd get back on that same bus and check the are she was sitting in to see if it fell through a crack or something, hoping nobody picked it up and took it. Well, the bus wouldn't arrive for 45 minutes. So we walked to the store and got a treat (we deserved it, okay?) and then sat at the bus stop for 30 minutes and waited. Finally, it came. We hopped on. Honestly, I wasn't expecting we'd find it on there. It had been at least 2 hours since we left church, so the odds of finding it still in the same spot were slim. So nope, no sign of it. We got off at the next stop. Walked back to the previous stop and then walked home. Freak, we walked like 2 1/2 miles just to look for that phone. She was completely stressing out, which I would too! We called our coordinator and asked him if he could call the bus station and see if they've had it turned in. Well, it was Sunday so he couldn't call until Monday morning when they were open. We kind of gave up, and she talked about other options she had like getting a new one or just dealing without it. Which either would just suck. Well, we get a phone call on our Lithuanian phone, and it's our head teacher. She asks "Hey, did Kelby lose her phone?" And we're like, K how does our head teacher know? Well apparently, one of our friends from church, Louisza, got a phone call from a man telling her that he found Kelby Gummersall's phone. Wait rewind, whaaaat?! How is that possible? And how did he know her name?! Okay so we called Louisza to ask her what the guy said. Apparently, he got on the bus sometime after we did, and found this phone just sitting on one of the seats. He picked it up and noticed it was all in english so he knew it had to be an american's phone or something. He looked through her notes trying to find any info about the phone and it just so happens that Kelby had Louisza's phone number written in her notes. The man noticed that it was a Lithuanian number, so he called her! And he also opened up her Facebook just to see what her name was. So he calls Louisza and says "hi, I have Kelby Gummersall's telephone, I found it on bus 55." Louisza was just like "What the?" But then she figured out that Kelby must have dropped it on the bus. We met up with the man and he gave Kelby back her phone. She even offered him 10 Litas and he wouldn't take it. He was just glad that she got her phone back. He said it happened to his sister in England, and it was so stressful for her. So he wanted to help! Isn't that amazing? So, before you decide to think that Lithuania is a "scary" place and that there are only mean people here..think again! There's good everywhere :)
-Shelb xx
P.S. do you like my new blog header? I was tired of the "too girly" flowers. Peace!

Riga, Latvia.

Hey! So now I'm going to tell you about our trip to Riga. If you haven't read my post about Tallinn, Estonia yet, you should scroll down to the next post and read it first! Just because that's the order we went in ;) If you want. Doesn't matter.
So we left Tallinn at 10:00 AM Sunday morning and got back on the bus to go to Riga. It was only a 4 hour drive, so I took the back seat again and slept the whole way there. We checked into our hostel, called "Fun, Friendly Frank's." Hahaha. Sounds like a feeding ground for child molesters if you ask me. But really, it was nice. We were pretty much the only people IN the hostel. There were maybe 5 other guests staying there too. It was really bright and nice! The stair case was waaay steep and curvy and I swear, one wrong move and you're dead. But other than that, it was lovely. Our room was right across the street from the main river in Tallinn, so we had a beautiful view of the river and the bridges! AND the reflection of the sun on the river was just divine. We hadn't seen much sun for a while :p We dropped off our luggage and started around town. We immediately wanted to find food because we were all starving. We scoped out a few places and then decided which would be the most budget friendly for a good amount of food. The Latvian currency are Lats, which are about double in US dollars. So, when something says 5 Lats for a taxi ride, it SEEMS cheap, but really it's 10 US dollars or freaking 24 Litas (Lithuanian currency). So we weren't used to spending that much in a while, since Lithuanian currency is sooo cheap. So we did our best not to spend too much. We found a nice italian restaurant and had grilled chicken with tomatoes and salad. It was nice! And a huge coke, of course. We walked around town for a while after that, looking at the beautiful buildings Riga had to offer. We noticed that NO ONE was out? Was it just because it's sunday? Heck, I thought that was only a Utah thing. We figured that maybe at night, more people would come out into the town. Well, as night came, there were a bit more people, but still it was just a dead town! I didn't understand it. And how there was like, no one in our hostel either! I was kind of bummed. The people we met in our Tallinn hostel are really what made the Tallinn experience so wonderful! So we were so excited to meet even more people in Riga. But turns out, we didn't meet hardly any! We talked with a guy from Bangladesh for a bit and a guy from Singapore, but that's it. Anyway, we went to a little cafe called "Sweetday Cafe" and ordered some dessert. The fanciest dessert ever! I got a mug of hot chocolate and whipped cream and a chocolate cake with strawberry ice cream. Just look at it:

And boy, it was good. It was milky, and cheese-cakey and creamy. And the bananas and strawberry ice cream went so well with it. I'm a foodie, that's for sure. I talk about food like it's a person. Heh :p
We went back to sleep and I slept really well! The next morning, we knew our bus back to Vilnius was to leave at 2:45 PM so we tried to get the most out of our morning. We had breakfast at the hostel, which we were SO excited for! Free breakfast for the first time was going to be so nice. We imagined eggs and bacon and toast and what not. Well, we go down to get it and it's a couple assorted cereals..and toast. It was filling, but I wish there was more. But what can you expect when it's free? We ate and then headed out to the outdoor market, which is supposed to be HUGE! Well, it was. And we saw lots of nice shoes and coats and bags and FRUIT galore! I wanted to buy some shoes, but decided to save the money for better things like travel. Haha. We wandered to another cathedral and saw some other really nice things. Then Jenna gets a text from our German friend Felix whom we met previously at the Tallinn hostel. He told her that he was in Riga now and wanted to meet us for lunch! Um OKAY! Our international friends want to hang out with us, no big deal! He told us to meet him at the Freedom monument at 12:30. We make our way over there, but had so much time to spare. We went into a cool vintage shop and wanted to buy just about everything in there! They had the cutest pair of oxfords and so many records and english books. But I've made a vow to myself to only buy things I NEED from now on. So I can have more money to spend on travelling, because that's what I've loved most so far :) We stopped at a little park right by the Freedom Monument and found a lock bridge, so we studied them a bit. Little did I know, my friend Courtney had a lock there from her previous trip to Riga! How cool would that have been if I had stumbled upon it? :) It had a beautiful river as well, so I sat and watched the ducks for a bit. We finally met up with Felix, and he took us to a restaurant called "Street Burgers." Okay, so we all know I'm very passionate about food. But Lord Almighty, look at this thing

It's called the Ghetto Burger, and yes, I finished it ALL. Every lick. It was the most amazing cheeseburger I've ever put into my mouth. And cheeseburgers are my all time favorite food. The bun was a little tough to work with, because it was so crumbly, but it was that good bread, you know? Not just a regular burger bun. 2 Super thick patties, seasoned to perfection. Real good, creamy cheese. Garlic mayonnaise, lettuce and pickles! And fries are always good. You can't go wrong with just plain ol' salted french fries. Gosh, I can't even handle it. I'd give anything to go back and have another one of these burgers. Mmm.
We said goodbye to our new friend Felix, and headed back to our hostel. We packed up our things, said goodbye to Riga, and got on the bus to head home. The ride home was only about 4 1/2 hours so it wasn't bad at all. It was so nice to have a break from teaching! It's very exhausting, to be honest. This trip was just what we needed :) Can't wait for the next one!
Hope all is well xx
-Shelbi

 Cobblestone is so nice! 

 The sky was threatening! 

 Huge pomegranates. I wanted all this fruit.  

 Freedom Monument :) 

Tallinn, Estonia.

Sorry for not updating in a couple weeks. I really wanted to keep it as a weekly thing, so I apologize. But the past couple of weeks of teaching has been the same. Things HAVE gotten better though. It's now become a routine and is very easy to come up with lessons and the teaching goes very smoothly. Well, except for when the kids want to bite me and play bunny ears. But other than that, it's great! Our host family went to Sardinia for a week and a half so Kelby and I have had the house to ourselves. Which is pretty strange if you think about it. This family we've known for just a month is trusting us with their house and everything in it. Not that they shouldn't, obviously. But it makes me feel good that they like us enough to trust us. Do you know what a house to ourselves means? Pancakes. Every night. 

The main reason for this blog post, though, is to tell about our 4 day vacation to Tallinn, Estonia & Riga, Latvia. If you don't know where those places are, here:

So, Vilnius is in the South Eastern part of Lithuania. And Riga and Tallinn are both on the Western coasts of Latvia and Estonia. Right on the Baltic Sea. This post will be about Tallinn. Get ready, because this was definitely the best experience of my life, so far.

We got on a bus Thursday night at 10:30 PM. We found a very cheap coach site. Our bus ride to Tallinn round trip was $65. So this bus ride was 8 1/2 hours long. Thankfully, it was through the night, so we were able to get some sleep. I got the whole back seat of the bus to myself. That's 5 seats!! Well, until another teacher came and took half of it. But you better believe that I sprawled out like a sleepy baby :D So we arrived in Tallinn at 7:00 AM on Friday and walked about a mile to our Hostel. At first, Tallinn looked pretty similar to Vilnius. It was SO cold, though! Like it immediately dropped 30 degrees or something. Sheesh! We got to our hostel and it was pretty freaking awesome. My first hostel experience! It was called "The Monk's Bunk."

Sadly, this is the only photo of it that I have, but it was the swankiest, most chill place ever! It had a bunch of couches, a pool table, a huge painted map of Estonia on the wall, and a huge picture wall of past visitors. It had a movie room, a huge kitchen, and very nice bed rooms! The receptionist was from Colorado, haha. So that was refreshing to meet an American native, for the first time in a while. We were in a 10 bed mixed dorm, so after us 5 girls took up half of it, we ended up staying with a German guy named Felix, a Japanese guy, a Slovenian named Nates, a Ukranian, and then some other guy who was all of a sudden just there. Hahaha. We became good acquaintances with Nates and Felix. They are both just backpackers, taking time off school and such. They were really amazing people! We had good discussions about books and movies and life. 

So we dropped off our bags and took off to discover Tallinn. Tallinn is known to have the best Old Town in all of Europe. And there is no way you can deny it. It's literally the most beautiful city I have ever seen. Even in photos on Pinterest of Venice and London and such. It beats by 1,000. You're immediately engulfed in winding, cobblestone streets, uneven red roofs, and the most exquisite cafes and bakeries. We stopped at a cafe called Reval Cafe, and it immediately was like a Starbucks. But better, obviously. 

We had hot chocolate (the best I've ever had) to warm ourselves up from the cold. There was something about that moment. Drinking this delicate hot chocolate, staring through the windows at Tallinn, at this sweet, little cafe in Europe. It was bliss, really. 

We wandered so much that first day. We found many antique shops, cafes, souvenir shops, Cathedrals. We met a really neat guy at an antique shop. He was talking to us about how he's never owned a cell phone or electronic device. Not even a watch! He just owns this little antique shop, not to make money, but to meet people. That's what he told us! I absolutely adored that! By the way, everyone in Tallinn knows english. Yes, they speak Estonian. But it was very simple to communicate there. I have no idea why? But everyone speaks it! I liked that :) It was comforting. We ate lunch at an Italian restaurant called Vapiano. It was so open and fresh looking! They give you a card and you go up to either the pizza, pasta or salad window. You choose an option, they swipe your card and you go sit down and they make everything fresh right there. Even the pizza dough. It took a while, but it was so worth it. I loved how fresh it was! I got a friggin' huge Caesar salad and a Salami pizza. Both gigantic. But delicious. And I finished every bite, obviously.

I don't know how I've lost weight here. But I most certainly have. Though I eat like this often :p

Next we explored this really really fancy mall. It had nice shops and lots of cool little cafes and chocolate shops! I want everything. Even after this huge meal I wanted a cake and a pie and pastries. Ugh. I have a food problem, we all know. Estonia was torture because I've NEVER seen food like they have in Estonia. So perfect. After that, we went to a little carnival they had. We rode a ferris wheel, which costed 5 euros. We though it was expensive, but after we went around about 20 times, we realized it was worth the money. It gave us a breath-taking view of Tallinn AND the Baltic SEA!! We didn't even realize how close we were to the sea until we saw it on the Ferris Wheel! It was a lovely surprise :) The guy operating the Ferris Wheel was a super creep and was just in LOVE with Kelby. But he was nice, nonetheless. 

 This is us completely freaking out about the sights on the ferris wheel! Prepare for little girl shrieks!

When we got off the ferris wheel, we headed straight to the sea. It was nice to just sit, hang out feet off the boardwalk, and just soak in the sun. 

A cool graffiti wall we found on the boardwalk. 

After a bit more sight-seeing, we headed back to the hostel. We sat in the common room, hooking up to the wifi for a bit and a nice Greek man starts talking to us. He was in Tallinn doing an internship. We played a few rounds of black jack with him and then our roommate, Nates, came and joined in! It was so much fun getting to know them. That is the best thing about hostels...you meet so many people from around the world. It's invigorating. As we were playing cards, I kept eyeing this guy who was playing pool with his buddies across the room. He was super handsome and was wearing salmon colored pants. How could I resist, right? Hahah. Joke. But anyway, I couldn't help but keep glancing up at him while they were playing. They seemed to be having a lot of fun by how much they were laughing and stuff! Then I realized they were all just drunk :p Well, after the card game, Kelby, Hayden & I were hungry so we left to get a quick bite at Hesburger. When we got back, all of the pool boys were sitting down around the table playing cards with Jenna & Joni! I was so stoked! They asked if we wanted to join, so we took it to the bigger table in the kitchen. They taught us a game called "Presidents and Assholes" which was pretty similar to Scum. hahah. Oh, and they were from Australia! GAH! Their accents were B-E-A-UTIFUL. I was sitting next to a big teddy bear guy named Baaz? And the handsome one was named Hobs, and the 2 others were named Jonny and Jonn-ay! hahaha. It was really fun playing with them. They kept offering us beers, but obviously we didn't take any. After the game, we told them we were mormons and they were all stunned. Like, jaw-dropped stunned. A couple of them even said they have never even met a mormon ever in their lives! It was pretty crazy. They thought we all lived under rocks and went around handing out pamphlets and flowers to people. So, it was kind of cool to show them that we're not like that. 

 Baaz and I.

From left to right: Hobs, Joni, Hayden, Kelby, myself, Baaz. And in the front: Jenna & Jonn-ay. Jonny isn't in the photo for some reason. Disclaimer to any ILP people reading this: We weren't drinking those beers. Those belonged to the Australians. 

After a few rounds we went to bed. I slept sooo dang good in that hostel bed. In the morning we went back to Reval cafe and got more hot chocolate, but this time I added a raspberry, granola parfait and a apple pastry. Gosh, even their parfaits are better. I swear, every ingredient they use is top grade. So everything just TASTES better no matter what. I even had a meat pastry at one point and it was divine! It was like a flaky croissant and inside was this seasoned ground beef that tasted just like a pot pie! mmMMM :) We found a HUGE cathedral called the Alexander Nevsky cathedral. It was by far the most beautiful building I have yet to see in Europe. 

For the rest of the day, we explored some more, found a really neat exotic goods store, where everything they had was home-made and imported from all over the world! They had an instruments section which took me straight to heaven. They had the neatest banjo I have EVER seen. Tons of didgeridoos, rain sticks, drums, tambourines, flutes, etc. I bought a couple of souvenirs there. Not too expensive either! We went to Subway for lunch (Halle-frickin-lujah) it was amazing. And McDonald's for dinner. We decided to try and eat cheaper that day, so we resulted to american food. Even though, honestly, it's not much cheaper. It's about the same! But hey, the american food in Europe does taste better than in America. Ironically :p I got some roasted almonds that smelled like Christmas and gingerbread but tasted like fire! I could only eat a few before my throat was burning. Sadly :/ I just wanted some simple cinnamon almonds. We went to St. Olav's cathedral, which used to be the tallest building in the world at one point, and climbed up about a zillion stairs in a stone passageway. We reached the top and were treated to a 360 degree view of Tallinn. Pictures can't do it justice, but look anyway!

It's hard to show in pictures because there is a feeling that comes with it. A feeling that cannot be captured. So you need to experience it for yourself. Go to Tallinn. Trust me, you will never regret it. Skip Italy, skip England. Go to Tallinn <3

We headed back to the hostel and played a few rounds of pool with the Australians. Baaz & I against Jenna & Hobs. Hobs was obviously torturing me with his good looks. hahah :) But we won after he shot in an 8-ball in the wrong hole. So that was fun! They were very heavy drinkers. Pretty much going around Europe just to drink. They were headed to Oktoberfest next so that should tell you enough. But they were still pretty great. Baaz & Jonny were douches, but Jonnay & Hobs were sweethearts. Hobs and I talked a lot and had some good discussions. He showed me photos of his dog that he misses a lot and I talked to him about the teaching and things like that. We became facebook friends and made plans to meet again someday. I just love that :) Making friends in a foreign place and making plans to meet again in the future. Nothing tops it. 

 So that's Tallinn for ya. I'm sorry for how long the post was, but there was just so much to share! If you did read it all, thank you :) If you only scrolled through the photos, that's fine too. Here are a few more photos before you go.

Love Shelb xx