Travel Log: Tallinn continued

Another day begins... finally got sleep.. we went for breakfast which I will talk about later... but first I got a hold of a map... to explain where I was ... and what the city is about ... click on the map!

Map of Tallinn

So Narva Mnt. is one of the major streets... at least it was for our group... the next one kind shows the rest of the street and where we stayed.... But for the map above... it mainly shows the old town... I dont even think I need to include this picture in the stolen picture credits down below... Viru takes you right to the Town Square (I talked about it in the previous post) Raekoja Plats!... if you keep going on Viru past the church on to the Dunkri street on your right is an amazing smoking lounge... which has authentic Cuban cigars... it was actually only the second time I got to taste them (Cubans)... but that comes later on... when we were in Tallinn the first time, I got the Romeo y Julieta Churchills Cigars.. a strong but smooth cigar... loved it...
http://www.cigars-review.org/Romeo-y-Julieta-Churchills.htm

Back to them maps...

Click on the MAP!
The green dot is where we lived... our hostel.. the red dot is the cafe where we had breakfast daily... The blue dot I am going to talk about later in this post... you keep going left on Narva and you hit the old town as shown in the previous map... I am sure this description of the map really helped you guys understand the city(Right!)... I might try again in other posts... or not....

Anyways... I am losing trace of all the things we did... and the order... but I am gonna try my best...

Breakfast....Rye bread... as I told before they love this one... kinda has a sweet taste to it... I found it different from any bread I have ever tasted... different from India, US or France for that matter...

Black and sweet! :P

Information Society and e-Government in Estonia lectured by Dr. Arvo Ott, Director of the E-Academy... 10-11:30 (I still got my itinerary)
The whole country is totally connected and managed by an excellent online system. An interesting fact here is that 90% people do their taxes online. This supports tha fact that Estonia holds the first place in Internet Banking. A smart number, similar to a social security number in US, is an expensive and highly sophisticated technology adopted here for its overshadowing benefits. It combines every government related matter with personalized web pages to create a system, run by the government (Estonians trust their government). Other similar topics were discussed here as well.

So ... the blue dot on the map was a place called Kohvik something :D... dont remember...
George, Marika(other instructor) and I went to get lunch here after the lecture, while the girls stayed by the campus to get a pizza... why?... I ask WHY would you get a pizza in Estonia... This is what I had :D

Kuileib... probably spelled something else... cold fish and egg on rye bread...
Eesti Vocab 3 - Leib means Bread

Crab Salad.. and then the potato salad as well with some coffee...

Later we went for the next lecture with Matt. Russian Foreign Policy by Mr. Marko Mihkelson. Mr. Mihkelson is a member of the Parliament and Head of the European Affairs Committee and one of the best experts in Europe on contemporary Russian politics. A four hour lecture re-defined Russia, for me atleast. He started off with a history of Russia and the not so understood democracy. "Democracy is a western tool to control Russia." Origin of KGB and its involvement in the Russian politics was then discussed in detail. Which led us to Putin.

"Putin joined the KGB in 1975 upon graduation from university, and underwent a year's training at the 401st KGB school in Okhta, Leningrad. He then went on to work briefly in the Second Department (counter-intelligence) before he was transferred to the First Department, where among his duties was the monitoring of foreigners and consular officials in Leningrad, while using the cover of being a police officer with the CID." -Wiki

Putin, according to Mr. Mihkelson, used a Tsarist-Soviet legacy to build a different Russian identity depicting to a lot of similarities between Russia and Soviet Union. Though the whole point of the lecture was to understand an intelligent and up to date. The Georgian war was briefly discussed in the end, as the four hours designated to the lecture proved to be not enough.

Later we went on a city tour which was conducted by a very informative guide. Some pictures