Baltic Wonderland

Today is the last day of the Convention. Some good speakers again and in the afternoon they had the closing ceremony. We then went to dinner with Linda and Greg.

Today we went to the third day of inspirational talks. We listened to a number of good speakers like Chris Wells a rotaractor from England, and an Egyptian minister.  That night we did home hosting and went to dinner at the house of a lovely couple Jan and Karin. There were 3 other couples there as well.

Today was the first day of the conference. It was a great session particularly listening to Steve Farber and Daniel Flynn, founder of the thank you group of products. We looked around the House of Friendship and at night we went for dinner with friends, Clare, Craig, Sandy, Allan, Janice, Arie, Linda and Greg

Today we went to Messe Hallen to watch the opening of the Conference. There were so many people there. At least 10000. They had 4 good entertaining acts with a few speeches in between. After lunch we went to the House of Friendship and then left. That evening we walked down to Lake Alster. Surprisingly it was very close and absolutely beautiful.

We arrived in Hamburg yesterday and we are staying at Alster One. We went to the conference to register and received a bags. Today we took a trip on the Hop On Hop Off bus and did the Classic line around the town. We saw many buildings although not as old as in other towns. There were also some very unusual shaped houses like the Opera House. We also went for a boat trip on the harbour which was very interesting.

Happy Birthday Doug. After a lazy morning we headed off to town. We got to Alexanderplatz to find everything closed and very few people around. It was a public holiday for Ascension Day. Anyway we headed off to see the Deutsches Historiches Museum. This museum gave a history of Germany from the very early days until today with particular emphasis on the World Wars. There were so many amazing buildings out on museum island and it was a beautiful day. People everywhere out here.

What a lovely city! We went on a tour of the old city which is World Heritage listed as there are buildings here dated 1470. There are lovely churches like the Russian Orthodox and the Lutheran church. There is an Upper town and a Lower town with cobbled streets and lots of stairs. There is a lovely market place with many restaurants and shops. There have been many times of fighting with various nations eg Sweden, Russia, Germany. Finally Estonia is a independent nation.

Tallinn, the capital of Estonia is a thriving town with a medieval upper part that's been around for centuries and was one of the important towns in the Hanseatic League (a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Northwestern and Central Europe.) Since independence from Russia in 1991 it has established itself as a centre for start-ups and is the birthplace of SKYPE and an important centre for the IT industry.

Today we travelled to The Hermitage Museum. It was the winter palace for Catherine the Great. The complex is made up of 5 buildings but we only walked through 4 of them. Our guide was excellent telling us about the beautiful floors, walls, ceilings, chandeliers and paintings found throughout these buildings. Today was St Petersburg day so there were lots of celebrations going on. After lunch we did some shopping and then returned to the boat.