Tartu

We are now on a train headed to Tallinn, where we will then catch a ferry to Helsinki and then fly home tomorrow morning... but I haven't kept up very well. So this post is going back well over a week ago to our 3 day visit to Tartu with my parents.

We started out visiting Helmi and Jelena.

Helmi is a 90 year old woman who joined the church about 5 years ago. She is living with another member named Jelena. It was perfect! We got to visit 2 people in one visit, and I loved letting my parents and Spencer get to know them.

Helmi's first request was that someone play chess with her. Since my dad was so kind as to inform us know that he was the 6th grade chess champion, we thought it would be a great idea to let him be the one to play her.

He put up a good fight - but alas, Helmi won.

Jelena then played and sang some wonderful Russian songs for us on her guitar. I loved listening to her play and sing again. We used to go over there every once in a while and we would sing with her. I love it!
Jelena took off early though, and wouldn't eat with us. Here she is with Spencer and I.
Helmi then proceeded to feed us about everything in her fridge. We were SO full and THEN she offered us cake. The cake looked great, so we didn't really complain - but just as Spencer is reaching for his piece she says, "Wait! You are the biggest and need to eat more! You must eat more bread, meat and cheese before the cake!"

Oh the enjoyment we got out of that! We couldn't stop laughing. My mom especially got a kick out of it and probably laughed harder than all of us put together.
After this visit we headed over to Nadezdja's apartment. She of course had food for us also - even though we had no more room left in our stomachs - but we ate anyway. The greatest irony of it all though is that when we were all convinced we weren't going to touch another piece of food, Nadezdja looks at my mom and says, "You are the smallest and skinniest! You MUST eat more!"

Oh the good times! I love these ladies!

Nadezdja, Me, Mom, Dad and Spencer in the front.
After both of our visits and being stuffed full of food, we then had a lunch date with Kaisa :) My dad was thrilled to hear of how well I'd planned out our day. Spencer, my mom and dad just got some smoothies, while Kaisa and I got some real food. I have to admit I was a little more stubborn with eating at the other two places because I knew I didn't want to make Kaisa eat alone. It was so fun getting together with Kaisa again and seeing her cute face again. This girl is absolutely amazing and is a rock in the Tartu branch here. I love her and am so glad that we got to see her while we were here.

Kaisa, me and Spencer
The next day we went on a full-on walking tour of Tartu. I'm pretty sure I walked my family miles. It was so fun for me to walk around as I did when I was a missionary there and to see all the wonderful beautiful sights again. I loved every minute of it! Not sure my family was grateful for all the walking as I was :)

This is an old church with some sweet, old stairs and falling apart tower that they let us climb. It was a fun adventure!
These stairs were built along the walls so we could walk up safely
Cute!
My mom was FLIPPING out of these stairs. Again, she could see through the holes in them to the floor and was absolutely and completely convinced she was goin gto die. Not sure why I find so much joy in this.
A platform partway up the climb.
The top! It was such a beautiful day!
We then headed to the river in Tartu. There's an actual beach here where people swim. It was fun to stick our feet and do some of the things we weren't allowed to do as missionaries :)
Dad's taking a rest on the bench. We'd walked a lot!
This is what I call the massive Sorry piece. I actually have no idea what it's for or why it's here, but I always found joy in seeing this as a missionary - so I had Spencer stand in front of it so I could get a picture of it.
At the market - this carved watermelon was SWEET!
Our lunch stop in the hill! I love it here!
It was originally a gun powder cellar that they've now made into a restaurant. It's literally INSIDE the hill.
LOVE HIM!
This was the end of our stay in Tartu. We didn't get to do EVERYTHING I'd wanted to do - but in order for my parents to see everything REALLY special to me, we needed to head to Pärnu, and I knew Spencer and I would be back the next week after my parents left, so we could finish our adventures in Tartu there.