Birthdays

This past weekend was a busy one, with two birthdays to celebrate. My daughter's on the 3rd, and our country's on the 4th. On the 3rd we took our daughter to the zoo here in Tallinn. It's not the largest, or nicest zoo we've been to, but it was still enjoyable. It only cost $16 for all four of us to get in, so we didn't feel cheated when it began to rain and we had to leave early. We got a few pictures before the rain started; sorry I can't show them here.
On the 4th of July we did have lots of fun, but not in a traditional Independence Day sort of way. We attended the Estonian Song Festival, with singers from all over the country coming together to sing in one choir. Those involved began the day with a parade, walking from the center of town to the Song Festival grounds. The processions began at 2:00 and didn't end until 7:45! There were SO MANY participants!! Here's just one shot of the parade....
We walked, and walked, and walked some more until we got to the place where we could set up camp on the grass to watch the performance. We had to wait about 4 hours before everything got started, but there were plenty of merchants there selling their wares and food, so we had enough things to occupy our time. Finally, the singers filed into their places and the concert began. There were almost 25,000 people in this choir!!!....
You'll really have to click on the picture to enlarge to get the full effect. Sorry it's a little dark, I guess I should have had my flash on.
You might also be able to tell from the picture that it began raining on us. We had rain coats on, but considering that we still had to walk several miles to get home, we decided to leave early. It was a great experience though, and we're glad that we went. My friend Penny tells the story of the day much better than I did, if you'd like to go read her account.
Tallinn will be having their Medieval Days this weekend and we hope to attend at least one day. Hopefully I'll have more pictures for you soon!