Millie was up again at 6 and we were all grumpy. Nick and I let her take the big bed room last night because it has darker shades and we hoped it would mean she’d sleep later. But in reality it meant we slept worse, and it didn’t change what time she was up. After some mutual fits I taught her to read the time on her iPad. I miss her “okay to wake” green light.

Eventually we all stabilized and headed out for the day. We didn’t have a lot on the agenda, other than a loose walking tour of Tallinn. We first headed from our Airbnb towards old town. We walked through the Viru gates into the walled city. It felt fake.

We walked to the old central square and to the town hall, which was built in the 1200s and is the oldest town hall in both the Baltics and Scandinavia. We were very confused by the ticket structure and when they tried to up-charge us €30 for a mandatory self-guided tour (?) we walked out. We kept having very confusing interactions all day. I’m not sure if it was our tiredness, language barrier, or cultural differences. I realize that 1.5 days are not enough time to judge but so far, Estonians have not been as friendly as Latvians and Lithuanians.

We visited all the old churches, one after the other. This made it interesting to compare them: Lutheran vs. Catholic vs. Orthodox.

We started getting hungry and walked to the Telliskivi neighborhood, which felt like the Williamsburg of Tallin. We walked through a hip indoor foodcourt and chose our lunch (Margherita pizza for Millie, veggie burgers for grownups).

The market had a combo of prepared foods, a farmer’s market, and an antique stands. I love a junky antique store and it pained me that we are packing so light. I would have bought these hand painted nudie glasses and a weird painting.

We continued onwards into the neighborhood and found a little playground. Millie played and when she got bored of playing she sat with us and we played uno. Nick won 4 times in a row and Millie didn’t get upset about it. Progress.

I started noticing a lot of people around us wearing backpacks and shirts with a logo of a fintech company that was a competitor of my previous employer.

We walked on to visit the photography museum. Half of it was closed for a private event. I asked what the event was and the ticket person explained it was an internal conference for the company. I heard presentations and cheering and saw breakout groups doing mandatory team building exercises. I was so grateful to be there with my family and not as a representative of a corporation. (If you are a previous colleague reading this I do miss and love you, but I don’t miss the capitalist charade)

The exhibits were fun for Millie because they had little step stools for her to carry around and see the photos at eye level.

We continued our theme of brining her to questionably age appropriate exhibits.

Then she got her long-promised Friday ice cream.

Nick and I had our Friday beers while she ran around and “looked for treasure”.

She got absolutely filthy. This was the treasure. At least there were no needles.

You can mail all the “parents of the year” certificates and trophies directly to us.

We were about to go home to make dinner but were having a nice time and the sun was shining. So we ate out at a place adjacent to the playground. Millie happily ran around while we ate. She spent probably over an hour on the slack line thing.

We walked home at 9pm, even though the light made it feel like the afternoon. I admired the poor fashion all around us. We are not in Paris anymore.

Please join me in prayer that the 17k steps, later bedtime, and clock lesson will result in all of us waking up feeling more well rested tomorrow.