A few of the guys and I took the chance to explore the Baltic Sea region on the week leading up to Liam and Alexandra’s wedding.
RAMM: Rempel, Alexander, Moret and Munro embark on an epic adventure
RAMM began after I caught an early morning flight to Stockholm and met up with Ian, Ashlin and Alex so we could enjoy the legendary Midsummer Festival. Skansen seemed to be the epicenter so we were determined to see what it was all about!
There was a good omen almost immediately when we found our trip mascot just on the edge of the festival grounds. After finding our way into Skansen we discovered that the area was more of a family oriented place and the younger locals tend to head out to the surrounding country side and islands. It was still a pretty sweet sunny day enjoying the food, bands and beer gardens and of course the petting zoo. We also met up with Munden who briefly turned the trip into RAMMM!
The next day we met up with Ed - an old Queens classmate of the guys who was living and working in Stockholm. We stuffed our faces with an amazing BBQ overlooking the city.
After Stockholm, the next stop on our tour of the Baltic was Tallin, Estonia. We boarded an overnight ferry half expecting to wind up sleeping in a bed of hay surrounded by the latest livestock shipments to Eastern Europe. We couldn't have been more wrong. The "ferry" ride was really a cruise ship! It came complete with stage shows, live bands, all night bars and food - and when we were ready for it, our own cozy sleeping quarters.
A live performance of “Welcome to Estonia” (played to the tune of Living in America by James Brown) got us hooked and quickly became of theme song to this leg of our trip.
Treat yourself to this gem of a tune!
Tallin itself is a beautiful old city. Lots of old buildings including this fortress wall guarding the town.
The best tourist destination was hands down the abandoned prison. This was no child-safe-guided tour: for the low price of 2 euros we got to walk unaccompanied through the dank dungeons, guard towers and gutted rooms of the old lockups. This photo shows how the old operating room is still full of equipment that is hard to tell if it was for torture or medical purposes.
Estonia treated us well but after two nights we were on our way to the next stop: Helsinki, Finland. This city is beautiful! (But I'm not sure how i'd like it in their lightless winter months). It is on the ocean, so we took a little ferry ride to see an old military fortification and took this manly pose on the canons that used to protect the harbour. We also got to enjoy the local delicacy of Reindeer meatballs (sorry Rudolf).
RAMM came to a close too quickly but no one seemed to mind because before we knew it we were on a plane back to Sweden to join a massive contingent of our close friends for Liam and Alexandra’s wedding…