This town has an old, medieval castle that's been turned into a sort of interactive museum. It is the greatest place!
While here in Estonia on the mission we had a day called "culture day" every three months or so where we had a chance to take the day to visit a place in the country that we otherwise wouldn't get to visit in our regular, everyday missionary work. For my first culture day, when we were trying to decide what it was we wanted to do, one of the elders told us about this awesome castle in a place called Rakvere. It was hands down, the coolest thing we could think of doing. I loved it so much the first time, I didn't even complain (too much) when 6 months later newer missionaries wanted to go there again. I liked it SO much that I was NOT leaving Estonia on this trip without taking my parents and Spencer to see it.
You start off at the gates by decking out in the medieval attire.
There is a very large, open courtyard with all sorts of activities set up for you to try.
This was the first thing Spencer saw
We had to pretend like we were the castle's royalty
And THEN Spencer found his REAL joy... Doesn't he look so happy?
We got to try out some jousting - here I am teaching everyone how it works
We then got to test our balancing skills while smacking each other with these bags. Spencer won this fight... Sad, but true :)
And the race was ON when we came across the stilts.
My dad cut Spencer off, so Spencer tripped him, taking them both down
And Spencer Wins Again!
We all got to take a shot with the bow and arrow, here's my mom getting her aim perfect. The guy kept telling her to pull back farther and farther, but it didn't work and ended up bouncing off the target and falling to the ground.
Spencer got a bonus shot at the end. Here's where all the arrows ended up. Guess which one is mine
Hint: I'm quite proud of my aim
Believe it or not, holding onto your horse and fight with a sword and shield is quite difficult/nearly impossible to do.
The old-fashioned handicrafts were enthralling. My dad loves the blacksmith stuff.
It took a couple tries, but spinning this pottery wheel quickly became second nature for mom. She looks like a natural!
I think this is called a lathe - but it took some serious muscle to get this thing turning. It's amazing they could make beautiful woodwork back then with tools like this.
Dad and Spencer found the swords. Pretty sure that was Spencer's favorite thing about the castle.
LOVE this picture ;)
Dad thought he would put his preaching skills to the test, considering he was wearing something that looked like a priest's robe.
We took a quick trip through "hell" and the torture chamber, where Spencer was placed in the Spanish Violin as a demonstration of one of the old devices of torture. Apparently they would leave people like this for days without food or water. Then they would put food on the violin so they could smell it and not eat it. THAT would definitely be torture!
Exploring the castle was a lot of fun too. There are some really great passageways and tunnels throughout the walls.
We felt like we were finding secret passageways and hideouts with every tunnel and staircase we walked down.
We even found a tunnel for our waste!
And finally, after 2 1/2 hours of playing and exploring in the castle, we found a table and some mugs to have a toast with - something my dad had been wanting to do since the beginning.
When we were done at the castle I had one more place in Rakvere I knew we needed to hit up. The hard part about this was actually finding our way there. I didn't even remember the name of this place. After quite an exhaustive search of the city, we finally found it! This wonderful little cafe is where we stopped to eat on both of our trips to Rakvere when I was here before and I just couldn't leave without eating there again. 
I made sure that we got a picture of it this time so that if we ever get the opportunity to come back, I'll at least know what to ask for.
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