There and back again

This morning I left at 6am for Estonia. The bus was nice and empty, so I slept most of the way there. I had no trouble getting across the border, although it took a while and I was cranky.

My ticket said that I would be in Estonia at 10am, and my clock said 11am Russian time, so I assumed that meant that Estonia was one hour behind. When we arrived, however, the clocks around town said 9:00. Hmmmm...Maybe they hadn't changed their clocks yet, which happened yesterday in Russia.

I got off the bus and it was a beautiful spring day, so I decided to go find the fortress that I had seen from the border and take some photos. Yes, this time I had a working camera!

I basically felt like I was in Russia, except that everything was really quiet and still and cars stopped for pedestrians.

There are a lot of WWII memorials around like this one:

I found a path down to the river on the border.

The fortress ended up being pretty boring close up.

I found the railroad trestle more interesting...

After I had explored for awhile, I headed back towards the bus station to check out the town. I noticed that all the clocks were still 2 hours behind Russian time even though they were supposed to be 1 hour behind, so I wondered if my return ticket had the wrong time. It was very confusing. I even asked someone and she said the same thing, 12:00 (versus 2:00 in Russia).

Finally I went to the bus station to make sure. I walked in and the clock said 1:00. One hour off from the other clocks in town. I asked the man at the counter, "Is it 12:00 or 1:00?" "1:00," he said, pointing at the clock and sounding irritated.

Oh well, at least I hadn't missed my bus.

Before I left, I visited an Orthodox church. Because a Russian experience wouldn't be complete without it....

On the way back I crossed the border really easily. The funny part was that at the border crossing I saw one of my friends from St.Petersburg, driving with her parents. She came over and we chatted. So much for scary Russian border control!

I slept on the way back too. Sleep is good.