Breakfast was at... 7:00. Pamela thought I had understood wrong, and remained doubtful until we were seated in the dining room, -and she had her coffee. (Only then, could she also be sure that she wasn't just dreaming still.) The night before, I looked a bit of a wreck when we checked in; somewhat dirty beige shorts, damp, sandy sandals, mosquito bitten legs, two day beard, and salty sea hair sticking out in clumps at strange angles. I was... embarrassed of myself.

So, in the morning, I had dressed as well as I could, with the long pants, black shoes, full shirt (not yet wrinkled or anything,) AND... clean, combed hair. I felt quite good about myself. THEN, I didn't see the lady who was at the desk the night before. Ah well though; I still got the boost to my self esteem.

We went to (the Ruins of) the Bishop's Castle in the town after breakfast. It must have been ever so lovely a place in it's time; on a small hill, overlooking fertile fields. I, of course, changed in the car, so as not to get my "pretty" clothes dirty. Hmm... and I became curious about the past; When I read there about the Livonian wars, and the conflict between the Bishop, and "The Order." -What oder? the Teutonic one? Were they at such extreme odds with the establishment in Estonia? In Europe? Who exactly were all the parties involved? I now am curious.

We headed on towards the island, (Which was our planned destination; The Estonian Islands are quite nice,) but I didn't tell Pamela in time to take the right turn-off. (I HAVE said that I had the responsibility of navigator, haven't I? Well, this was another small time which I failed at it.) So... I navigated "blind" through the town of Haapsalu -which turned out to be at most, only a two km. detour.

Passing through that town, we stopped for a little so I could take pictures of some wide-gage railway engines. There is a bit of a museum of them at the train station, which we were passing by. Incidentally, Haapsalu also had the longest covered railway platform in Europe.

At last, at Long, long last, we got to the ferry going to Hiiumaa, (the second largest island of Estonia.) we pulled up to one of the booths, and I hopped out to ask at it's open door which side of the booth we should go to: the one with a "ö" in the word, or the one with an "ä". The lady at the doorway was very rude, seemed to say something about not coming through her door, and half slammed it closed. So, I decided the best side of the booth for us, was the side which wasn't hers. We found out about ferry times, prices... and that we needed the registration for the car, to be allowed to have it taken on.

So, we made a quick little ransack of the compartments we could think of, and found, nothing. we called Ruta from a pay telephone, and she said she'd call Silver at his work to find out where the registration was. (It was interesting to me, that she was able to call back, to the public phone. It's ringing Did sound odd though.) And...

The papers were stashed under the seat.

So no more worries. We caught the next ferry, and had a relaxed hour sailing to Hiiumaa. Sitting inside, we saw sea birds sailing along, stationary relative to the ship, and I enjoyed the challenge of photographing them.

Once on the island, we went first to Suurmõisa manor house. This is about two hundred years old, and at present, is the location of the primary school for the island. We walked around the grounds, and looked at the out buildings, which were in various states of repair, ranging from renovated roofs, to only a single, crumbling wall.

One wall which certainly wasn't crumbly was the border to the garden It's been kept in good repair, and has lovely iron gates in it. I've gotten a half-decent photo of it, with the light all coming through the trees and making everything green. The manor house its self didn't impress me too much. From the outside... it looked like a standard manor house. -Although it had an especially lovely carved wooden door. We looked inside, at the entrance hall, and stairs, but they failed to catch our interest.

We drove up the island to look at the farm museum, "Soera," which we missed the turn off for. And then there was no practical place to turn around for a couple of kilometers, so we kept going on, and then, I asked a moment too late if she'd like to look at a meteor crater. -I asked just at the moment that we were passing it. So, we went a little further, found a place to turn around, and headed back. I then became absorbed in reading about what there was to see on Hiiumaa, and Pamela didn't see the turn off for the crater. Having missed that a second time, we were both paying extra attention, and found the turn off for the Farm with no problem.

We drove into a large, deserted, grassy parking lot, and watched a man moving a heap of hay into an organized, tall stack. we wandered in, and he said to wait a moment, while he fetched someone who spoke english; a round-cheeked-type smiling older woman named Õie. (Older yes, but she didn't have that "grandmother" feeling about her. Not like some other people do.)

She was the one who gave us a tour of the house, which was a few centuries old, and under one roof combined the threshing room, drying space, and some "recently" added living rooms, which were a mere two hundred years old. (They even had windows!! And a wooden floor! How modern is that!?) The whole place was packed, but not cluttered, with museum pieces; chairs, pails, farm tools of all sorts, nets, various apparatuses, and woodworking, blacksmithing, and weaving tools. It felt like quite a complete... farm. With everything it would have once required.

Pamela was very clever, (at least I, and Õie felt so,) when she could identify the oval wooden barrel on it's side, with a handle... as an antique washing machine. And it was intriguing to learn that the benches were always placed against the walls... because everyone slept in a sitting position. They just lent against the wall, and drifted off. More unique still, is that if there was an especially honoured guest... he had the privilege of sleeping on the table. The One Table. (Although I guess this would mean he'd have to lie down, but I'm sure he managed to get to sleep somehow, even in such an awkward position.) When the newer section of the house was added, there were also beds put in... but these were very short, because even with special furniture for sleeping, it was still done sitting up.

Ah... and it differed from some other rustic cultures I know a little of, (but which I don't know well enough to be able to fix a name to them.) These island Estonians didn't have the Barn as part of their house, to take advantage of the animal's warmth in winter. The only animals which came into the house were the baby lambs, who would otherwise freeze during their first winter. (So, they were brought in, and stayed with the children the whole winter long beside the fire.) The other animals were across the yard in a barn. Like most of the buildings, it too had a thatch roof.

This one barn was not used much this last century though, I'd guess. They've let the entire roof be covered with thick moss. Lovely, thick, moist moss. Pamela loved it, though I personally couldn't understand her enthusiasm for it. I like it, and thought it had a pleasing, countryside effect... but Pamela seemed to feel something more than that.

We went into the little gift/souvenir shop (which was Tastfully done. No lighted signs outside for icecream, coca-cola, or fuji film. And mostly handcrafts inside. Many of them were tacky, or kitsch... that's true. But what can you expect from a cultural... museum? I mean that their sense of culture remained centuries old, and then they found that tourists really, really liked the windmill motif, as long as it was simple enough for them to understand. Does that make any sense?)

I talked to Õie about the smoke sauna, because Pamela and I wanted very much to find one to use. (Does Smoke Sauna need an explanation? Oh dear...)

If you don't know what a regular sauna is... then think heat, steam, and sitting on wooden benches dripping sweat. Now... smoke sauna is a very old Estonian, -or Perhaps Finnish, version of that; There's a little closed room with a heavy metal stove in it, But, there is no chimney. So you light a fire in the stove, a big roaring fire, and leave the door and the small window open, for fresh air to get in and keep the fire burning. But the smoke is still everywhere in there. Everything gets truly sooty and black, -but Also, very hot. The heaps of stones on top of the stove get very hot, and the giant pots of water on top of the stones get very hot. Then you let the fire go out, close the window and the door, strip down, and go in and enjoy the heat. The only other thing to mention, is the fact that saunas are common in the countryside, because for centuries, that was where everyone washed themselves, (with the hot water from the stove.) It was also, as Õie informed me, where the births all took place. -Again, with the hot water handy right there.

SO... I was asking about getting to use the smoke sauna there, but Õie said it was already booked twice for that evening; once at 6:00 and again at 8:00. -And after that, it might not be hot enough for us. But I said we really, truly were interested, and I got her phone number, so that I could check in the evening, incase someone didn't come, or if they left early. Then off we went, to our next destination: the Wool Factory, (Museum.)

I had thought this would be near the house of the Wool-Baron. So we headed north. Pamela was a little worried about not getting there in time, but I convinced her she could stop, just for a moment, at the meteor crater. -This time. It was only ten meters from the road, and I promised her not to make more than three pictures. So, she stopped, I hopped out, bounced up the stairs of the wooden observation platform, -looked around me three times, and bounced back down again, and we were off. So, you see, I was good to my word, and the time we lost was less than a minute.

But what did I see? Trees. Only stubby little trees. And bushes. Perhaps, the trees beside me had been growing in a depression, but it was awfully hard to tell. After having explained that to Pamela, I located our exact destination on the map, -and found it to be directly south. "Oops, I did it again."

Soon after that, we got to a nice road, going across the middle of the island, directly to our destination.

We got there with half an hour before the little museum closed. we first went into the café though to see if there was any of the strawberry cake left, which Pamela had read about. Well, there had been none at all that day, but there was lots of Rhubarb cake left, so we decided to look at the museum first, and then come back for tea afterwards.

The museum consisted of a number of solid, iron machines, which carded the wool to an ever finer degree, (There were three of these monsters, with progressively smaller teeth.) Then there was one machine which separated the mass into separate thin groups, (proto-threads,) and another one which then twisted these groups. Then it was two last machines which would twine up to seven of the twisted threads together, -making the finished wool.

I was very taken with the look of soft sunlight, (through dirty windows,) falling on the heavy, massive iron gears, which were covered here and there with with finest wool fluff. My pictures of it didn't turn out though; my exposures were too long not to have a tripod.

We looked through the woolen goods that they had for sale, and Pamela joked about a thick pair of tights. I found them rather practical though, and got them for myself. They itch a little on bare skin, but for warming up for work, they're just nice. We ate our cake and drank our beverages, sitting in the sun, and then left to see the Junipers.

The guide book said that near a certain swampy region, these mini-trees/large bushes grew up to ten meters high. That's huge... for a Juniper. So, we found the place, parked the car, and walked down the cow-track through the forest. And we saw small Junipers, about one meter high. And some bigger ones, one and a half meters high... and some time later, some which were perhaps even taller than two meters. And then they were only one meter high again.

We had walked the full ten or fifteen minutes to the swampy borders of the lake, and No big Junipers. Pamela was ever so disappointed, so I tried explaining to her that these were just Dwarf Junipers. I also struck on the idea of Juniper-Meters. (Like dog-years. Seven dog years for each human year, will give a clearer concept of the dog's relative age. So... Seven Juniper-Meters to each normal-tree meter, and you'll have an idea of it's Relative size! In Juniper Meters, they ALL were ten meters high!!!)

Well, if I didn't convince Pamela that this was the truth, at least I got her to laugh. Also, Pamela was very happy to sit in the reeds, and look upon the peaceful nature. (The swampy place we had come to was one of great tranquility and seclusion.) What she really would have liked, was to paint the scene, but her watercolours were in the car, and she wouldn't have me going back to fetch them for her.

One thing I found of interest, as we were turning back to the car, was that Pamela noticed cotton growing wild there. Cotton? I always knew it grew in southern states of America, and I suppose in other places on earth too. But wild in the swampy shores of a lake on an island of Estonia? It's not one of the places I Ever would have expected to see it. I was surprised.

To drive to Kärdla, and our bed and breakfast, we took a bit of a longer rout, along the nearby island of Kassari, (this surrounds a lagoon sort-of-thing on Hiiumaa. -Actually, the swampy bit we were sitting at, was the edge of this Lagoon.) Anyhow, along the road, we saw Juniper trees that actually Were four meters high, and perhaps even taller.

We found the Bed and Breakfast with out too much trouble, on the oddly named little street of "Tiigi Poik." Now, the main lady who runs this place, and with whom I'd talked earlier on the phone to make the reservation, was not around; She was on vacation. So I was met by the mother in law, an old, Estonian Granny. (Well... I wasn't "met by," -I was walking all around the yard, and into the hostel, and eventually asked a neighbor over the fence if that other house belonged to the same family. Only after that, did I knock on their screen-door at the side of the house, twice, and meet the Granny.) But, we got a very nice little room, and were shown the Sauna, which I thought we might use, if things didn't work out with the smoke sauna.

We went into the town, Kärdla, to find dinner, and it was a decent little restaurant. Only the music was annoying -some bland pop stuff, but all sung in Estonian. Afterwards, we walked here and there, around the town square, looking for a public phone, which we eventually spotted, and used it to call the lady from the farm museum, Õie. It was probably a quarter after ten, but she said the two guests were still not done with it. She said that she'd go and ask them when they expected to finish, and call us back in ten minutes. I didn't know how to explain that we were using a public phone in the middle of a park, so I said "OK" and we ended the call.

Anyhow, about five or seven minutes later, back at our B&B, I sent a message to her, explaining how things were, and asking her to sent and SMS back to me. And this is what we got:
"Draive in Soera there is a woman who show sauna Please do it now Õie"

Soera being the museum's name. We got our stuff into the car, and off we went.

It was nearly dark when we got there, (being about 10:30 PM... don't you just love the north?) and the middle aged couple told us where the hot and cold water was, made sure we knew how to lock the doors when we left, and wished us a merry time.

We went in, and sat down, in the dim twilight coming through the one small window, and I explained (for the second time) to Pamela How a Smoke Sauna Works. It was very easy to do that time though, as we were actually inside of one. I also introduced her to the little bundle of branches. This is another strange Finnish or Estonian thing, for saunas. One cuts off small branches of birch, as long as a forearm, and tie them into a little bundle, just big enough that the stems fit comfortably into one's hand. so, there should be something like one hundred leaves on this, and it gets a little, little bit dried, but just to the point of being tougher, not to a point of prickliness or brittleness.

Now, in the sauna, you dip it into water, and proceed to flagellate yourself with it. (In case I don't know the use of that word, I mean to whip your self.) And all the leaves go "thack-thack-thack" on your shoulders, your back, or wherever you desire... and can coordinate. (I like it also on my thighs.) It sounds severe, and it looks downright masochistic, but then, so does swedish massage, right? And the relaxing effect of the two are similar.

All the same, for some people... well, they'd be like Pamela, and say "not my cup of tea." But at least she knows what it is now. We were probably inside for twenty minutes that first time, until we could take the heat no longer, and went out into the night air. We hosed each other off, with ... "nice" cold water, or, at least very refreshing, if not "nice." Then we lay in the dewy grass, looking at the stars for a bit.

Going back inside, we saw that there was an electric light hanging outside the window. So we could sit in the light, instead of the dark, -if we were able to turn it on. Well, I searched for a witch, and Pamela searched for a switch, and we both found nothing. But we didn't mind too much; a very, very dim twilight remained, which went creeping through the little window. And that was enough to keep us from stumbling over the pots of water, or into the stove, or to force us to grope for the door.

We sat in the sauna for decreasing lengths of time, and in between sat in the antechamber, or outside eating the fresh peaches we'd brought with us. The whole experience was so refreshing and relaxing. And it felt so, SO good to be near to Pamela in words, in body, and in soul. I do not remember details of our long, long discussion, -or discourse, lets say. I can only assume that it ranged free of barriers, wherever it wished to go.