Today we woke up to a sunny day. The window was warm when I leaned against it, but it’s still "jacket weather". Finally made it off the ship by 10:30! and caught a shuttle bus into the heart of Tallinn, Estonia. I intended to go directly to the Monastery of St Catherine, but our maps are in Estonia language which is a mix of Germanic, Dutch, etc. hard to compare to street signs so we missed Katerina Kaik and headed into town a block or so south… Saw a wonderful little cafe with lovely young people authentic Hansa clothed people inviting tourists to eat, so, determined to return we headed "up" the hill towards the St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. We climbed up a windy cobblestone narrow road past artists displaying their paintings on the town walls and emerged at Cathedral square. I visited the magnificent Orthodox Cathedral. Walked around a bit and then decided to go down and find our little cafe. That’s not as easy as it sounds…. We’re up on the top of a walled hill and keep coming out at overlooks of different sides of the city! We finally found our way down and to the little cafe and had wonderful salads with herring and smoked salmon… yum. And snaps and beer. burp. After a while, with the sun still shining, it was time to go so I led us to Katerina Kaik which is on Vene 12. Found it! We entered St Catherine’s passage hoping to find the Monastery and the "Energy pillar" thought to be a source of physical and spiritual healing. I walked on Chuck’s left (his wallet side) and he was carrying a small bag with his jacket and some other small stuff like sunglasses on his right. I got joggled and a skinny tall guy was trying to give me some papers. Suddenly Chuck yelled "Sue" and I turned to see him with hand on his pocket, "They got my wallet!" I ran and took the bag from him and he ran back out the way we came in… It was absolutely calm on that street. No one around. It’s like we got hit by maybe three guys who made a distraction by bumping me away from him, picked the wallet pocket, and flew away. "They’re gone." Chuck said a guy grabbed his pants leg and another must have picked his pocket… "They got my badge and patrol ID, he said." I said, "They got the credit cards." We hesitated a few minutes scanning the street and then headed back into the alley… All I could think of is how sorry I was that this happened. What a violation of our privacy and rights. and how I would handle cancelling the cards. We gave up the search and headed back down Katerina to the ship but in front of us came running 2 boys with Chuck’s wallet! We were stunned. The boy with the wallet tried to talk to us. I thought he sounded like a deaf person speaking and Chuck said he just doesn’t speak English… Chuck gave him what looked like a few $20s maybe Euro bills, I’m not sure. I was near tears, when I said, "Look where we are! At the Monastery!" I took a photo, but we headed back to the ship without going in. I think this just took the stuffing out of us. And so I offer thanks to St. Catherine. She knew my intentions. What can I say. This was a surreal event! Try to explain getting the wallet back with everything in it? Were the robbers stopped when they saw the badge and there was no money, and two boys saw it all and brought the wallet back? … we will never know. Can you imagine losing Chuck’s driver’s license and we have rental cars booked for 30 days? YIKES. Bad things happen; good things restored us. Thank God.
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