January 16th, 2010 
Sheila Simkin We’ve traveled with Explore Tours U.K. on 15 trips and the routine is always the same. A notice is posted on a wall in the joining hotel’s reception area. It’s important to always look for this notice with the day’s information on it. Wake up time, breakfast, itinerary for the day, departures times, etc. The Explore notice stated “meet and greet” at 5:00 p.m. tonight in the reception area. The first nine tour participants stood out like a sore thumb since we were the only ones talking English. Nine of us to begin with while 11 others were flying in on Estonian Air late tonight. Brenda, Marjorie, Doug and Anne from Toronto, Canada, Mort and Katherine from California, Patty from New York, and of course us from Chicago. Astounding that there were five Americans on this trip since ex-Marine and I are usually the token Americans among all the British.
The group tour leader for the next 14 days is Signe, from Riga, Latvia. A very personable and well-informed young woman. We moved into an area of the restaurant for the more detailed orientation. Filled out the compulsory insurance forms with all the details and gave Signe our tip kitty money. Signe requested 20 British pounds or 200 EEKs from each person. Explore traditionally collects a tour kitty that covers tips for city guides and bus driver, Morris, who would join us in Riga. Saves digging into pockets after each tour.
There would be another orientation talk tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. for the people arriving late this evening followed by a 10:00 a.m. walking tour of the old town. FYI: You can drink the tap water throughout the Baltic States and eat salads. No food worries. A little time group schmoozing. Anne and Marjorie had done the ferry trip over to Helsinki, Finland and were filled with information but I’m still going to table that idea.
Orientation over, the two of us headed back into the Old Town for some dinner at Kloostri Ait, located on Vene Street and recommended by Signe. Kloostri Ait is inside a medieval granary building of the same name and had excellent food.
On the way back to the hotel, we stopped to buy opera tickets at the Estonia National Opera House for Bal de Maschera, (Masked Ball) by Verdi for the evening we return to Tallinn at the end of the trip.
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