Day 4 - Madise, Estonia - Yet Another Twist in the Case of the Missing Bike!

Joan's View

Tony was up most of the night (again) watching the bags move around at Dulles. He said it was freaky when the bags showed that they were at a restaurant outside of the airport, but then relieved when they pinged over the Atlantic. Great story about that in Tony's extras too.⇊ Tony let me sleep while all this was happening so I woke up to the exciting news that our bags are in Frankfurt! Tony, being up most of the night, had already researched our redesigned strategy for the day, assuming the bags/bike made it to us around 3:00/4:00pm our time. He cancelled the car rental and planned to take an Uber to the airport to get the bags, then an Uber to our first Airbnb outside of Tallinn, and put the bike together there. 

We had to be out of our Tallinn Airbnb by 11:00 (that host was very strict with his policies), so we loaded our backpacks and set out to eat and roam until our bags arrived at the airport. First stop was a bakery for some pastries and a cappuccino for Tony.

After that, we decided to go to Mass since it was Sunday anyway and mass time at St Peter and Paul. The small cathedral was packed because their Bishop was celebrating the mass. We ended up sitting on a bench in the back. Tons of people were coming in and out during Mass either taking pictures or just being snoopy, I guess. Tony decided to try to call United about half way through Mass and stepped outside in the courtyard. After mass was over, Tony was still in the phone queue waiting to speak to someone. We sat a while longer at a bench along the street until an hour and 15 minutes of hold time went by and then said that is enough. Somewhere during that time, we realized that our bags did not make the first flight out of Frankfurt, so now we would go straight to our next Airbnb once we could check in there. We decided to find the volleyball / basketball games and watch some more action again in the mean time. On the way there, we passed this sign (see picture on the left) near one of the restaurants. In another cobblestone road there was also a long anti-Putin street memorial set up asking for peace for Ukraine and our world. There were memorials to fallen Ukrainian military, and even more interesting is that there were 2 police officers guarding that make shift memorial. It is definitely a heightened sense of concern what Putin will do next because Estonia is such a vibrant country and has grown so much in the short time that they have been free.

Tony wanted a picture because he thought I looked humorous with my backpacks.

We stopped to eat at an Irish pub before our Uber ride to the next Airbnb so that Tony could taste test their beer too. We found a nice park bench where our Uber driver could find us.

Our Airbnb for the night is very remote and sleeping is going to be great with the blinds open. Maybe some critters will come visit us at our window tonight. 🐻

The Airbnb has a toasty warm sauna, and a perfect place to watch the sunset.

This last picture is the road to the Airbnb. Tony says that many of the roads we plan to bike on will look like this. Our Uber driver stopped because he thought he had made a wrong turn.  Michael and Janet, is this a little similar to Alaska? We are pretty far north.

Tony's Extras

Okay, the bags made it to Frankfurt and it would make sense that they would put it on the next direct flight to Tallinn. Nope can't do that. Well, there are two more direct flights to Tallinn today. They will for sure be on one of those. Nope can't do that either. It looks like they will be in Frankfurt for one more day, at least. There is a flight that comes in after midnight to Tallinn and we can hope they get on those.

It is frustrating making plans everyday by getting everything all lined up and involving a bunch of people, and then to have the plan blow up and start over. There are so many pieces to the puzzle to make everything work. Besides making the plans, it is staying up all night trying to think about all the what if's and plan for those (that's not necessary, that is just my brain won't shut off). However, we are onto our next plan. Just need the luggage to show up in Tallinn then to our Airbnb, whenever and wherever that may be.

I did get a hilarious story in a text from Ron Fairbanks this morning (the great friend that made many trips to Dulles Airport trying to get them to send the bags), I will just share the text he sent me:

Funny story:  Tina and I saw on the "find my bag" (AirTag) app on Tina's iPhone that the bags were in Purcellville VA behind a Dominoes Pizza (2) and at a home down the  street (the third) at 4:03pm.  We thought "stolen bags" and quickly set off for Purcellville about half an hour from our house.  We went looking everywhere and found no bags or bag tags anywhere.  On the way back home, we talked about the possibility that a flight leaving Dulles going to Europe might fly over Purcellville, did some quick research and saw a Lufthansa flight left at 3:30 for Frankfurt.  Fingers crossed, we came on home. Back in the Wi-Fi, Tina's iPhone got an update that the bags were over the Atlantic!  So here I went dumpster diving behind a pizza joint looking for either an AirTag or luggage for the fun of it!  Beats sitting at home though. 😂😂😂. 

Ron wants to know if anyone knows how to get pizza sauce out of shoes, clothes and hair. 😂

Also, Ron just sent this picture of stuff they took out of the dumpster. They wanted to get the picture, just in case these were some of our clothes. 😂 They were really getting into this investigation. Ron said Tina had her phone and was trying to pinpoint the location. Tina wanted to go up to the house where the one bag showed. Ron wisely convinced Tina that they better not do that. 😀

Ron has a way of keeping me grounded in the mist of all my complaining. What a great friend to go dumpster diving because he thought someone stole our luggage and he was going to catch them.