I found out about the Tallinn free tour ahead of time and penned it into my schedule for my first full day in the city since it begins at noon, and it would’ve been too much of a rush to try to do it after I landed.

During my first evening in Tallinn, I had the pleasure of wandering around Tallinn with Karin, a friend of a friend who lives in Lviv. She’s lived in Tallinn for several years now, and she grew up in the Estonian countryside. Work has been slow during the summer because many people she works with are on holiday, so she was able to meet me at 4:30pm on a Thursday to show me around.

I can’t lie: I was a bit nervous on the way to my first unfamiliar destination. I didn’t know a lick of Estonian, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. But Tallinn looked beautiful even as we landed in the regional jet from Paris.

Grade

C.

Would I fly with them again?

Yeah, for a flight under five hours.

If you haven’t heard of Detour and you live in or are visiting San Francisco, Austin, New York City, London, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, or Marrakech; do yourself a favor, download the app, and experience one of their self-guided walking tours today. My first Detour was Radiolab Austin, which covers the serial killings of servant girls in the late 1800s. The second one I did was Making Market Street in San Francisco.

Today was the day to try Sneha’s food recommendations! I started at Berthillon’s take-out window. After much deliberation, I went with a very French flavor (caramel au beurre salé salted butter caramel), a very non-French flavor (yaourt au yuzu yuzu yogurt), and a huge dollop of chantilly cream (€5.10). It’s very expensive for the small portion size, but the flavor quality makes up for it. There wasn’t too bad of a line when I arrived at 7pm on a Wednesday.

Musée Marmottan Monet was the first of several spots I visited that Sneha recommended. She spent some time in Paris while she was going to grad school, and I get to reap the benefits of her experience.

Paul, one of my TAMS classmates, is currently assigned to Palantir’s Paris office, so I made an exception to visit this city despite having been here a few times already. His apartment is in Le Marais in the 4th arrondissement.

Grade

D.

Would I fly with them again?

Nope.

Just as it’s valuable to know what made it into my 7kg of luggage, I think it’s just as valuable (if not more so) to know what was eliminated and why. All of these items are things I actually tried out in person and took full advantage of great return policies to get rid of later.