Kalda Talu Puhkekeskus Valga

... s salad, beef fillet with mashed potatoes and red wine, I had Baltic fish soup, grilled pork filet with boiled potatoes and a pint of Saku. The final bill was 410 EEK. The food was ok - nothing special but not bad, either. We spent the rest of the evening in hotel's large back yard, enjoying grapes, smoked local cheese and a bottle of dry cider (Venla) and dark beer (me).

Our room cost 45 EUR, sauna was 16 EUR.

Today was our longest daily trip - 81km. We left Otepää 9.00, enjoying long downhill rides and some long uphills as well. I made my max speed record (so far) today, 52km/h with full cycle bags. Our motel was in Jaanikese, which is a road 5-6km away from Valga in the middle of nowhere. The motel was ok, but pretty overpriced - the room was small and costed 64 EUR, plus we ...

After 56km trip we are in Karupesä Hotell in Otepää. We left Tartu at 9.00, following the Estonian cycling route 3 which follows the main road number 3. The road was in a pretty good shape,
with wide, 3-4m gravel road shoulders. Drivers were very friendly, every bus, truck and car gave road to us in intersections and passed us by at safe distance. Weather wasn't so nice, though - it was raining for first ...

... a half more weeks until I visit London and Cambridge and I'm already getting excited about it. I mean, it's definitely going to be awesome to see Gail, Bessie, and Brittany, but I'm really looking forward to being able to roam the streets of London and continually recognize names and places of things I've read about in so many books. This week we solidified some more plans for the Norway trip at the end of April as well....if everything goes well, we will get to canoe in a fjord AND hike ...

... setup. A note about Elita. She at one time had played on a Latvian national women's basketball team. From the church we walked to the center of Smiltene past the big Lutheran Church and then bach home. Elita showed us where the former Lenin statue had been which was now decorated with shrubs right in the middle of town. At 12 noon three ladies came. They were Antra, Enita and Dace. It was Xmas day, but none of them had kept ...

... means street, plats is square, and mnt denotes a longer street that probably becomes a highway. Buses are comfortable and run on time (it's slightly eerie just how punctual they are) and a three-hour trip will cost less than 10 Euros. Bussijaam means bus station and www.bussireisid.ee has schedules with prices for the whole country. There is generally a 25 cent charge for using the restroom at a bus terminal, but they are clean and all I ...

Today, I found myself in Riga. It had not been my intention to get there until Wednesday or Thursday, but when a Russian mob-looking Lithuanian businessman offers you a free ride to the Latvian capital in his mafia-mobile, you don't say no. And so it was that at 7:30 this morning, I was whizzing through the Estonian countryside at 140 clicks, listening to Baltic pop, including "Pretty Woman" and "I Need You Baby"...in Lithuanian, of course. For the ...

... description as "the Switzerland of Estonia," minus the Alps, of course. The highest point in the country and all of the Baltics is a paltry 318 m - about the elevation I lived at last summer. It is a beautiful part of the country, though, and I'm quite glad I put it on my itinerary. I spent the majority of today hiking the 12 km loop around Lake Puhajarv, south of here. According to legend (one of several regarding the lake's creation) the ...

... March April issue. Postage rates have almost doubled after the first of the year and that will be a challenge for us to send mail not only within Estonia but to adjacent Russian speaking areas as well. Services were about to begin. We have eight of us at the apartment plus Toomas Schvaak in Tallinn and Imbi Kuuskalu in Dublin, Ireland connected by Skype. With Imbi Kuuskalu in Ireland in Estonia, we will not be able to have the usual Estonian translation ...

... requests we have received. On the Study Course, we will mail out the first lesson and make it mandatory for them to request the remainder of the course. Johnnie has two large tables put together in the living room for spreading out literature. I only have the Swedish booklets with me to drop off in Sweden next week. He is one of the most dedicated people I know who has done so much to move the preaching of Gospel forward here in Eastern Europe. He ...