Factification

I've been meaning to write this post for a while now, but it was like my kimono presentation for History: just not happening. So now I am sitting on a bus to Tallinn to meet up for the St. Petersburg trip and I figured that I had three hours to kill so I really should get this done. The bus is pretty empty, given that it is a 1:30 bus on Wendsday, so I am really not all that surprised. Brittney took the bus that leaves a half hour earlier, so I am making the trip alone. Being alone makes me feel very grown up and independent, especially because I'll have to take a taxi to the ferry terminal from the bus station in Tallinn.

In older news, I changed families last week. I now live with Aime, Valter, and Karl Keis. They also have two dogs: a Shitzu named Trago and some sort of mastiff named Hera. Hera doesn't like strangers so she barks at me a lot and the first time I walked out of the house she tried to bite me, luckily I was wearing my ski gloves so it didn't hurt. She likes me now though. Trago on the other hand is very friendly and soft. He loves being picked up and cuddled with, which is great because I do that a lot.

Karl is eleven years old and we get along really well, almost like genuine siblings. I get a great vibe from this family and they all like having me. My host father stopped by the house today just to make sure that I was picked up as Eve had promised I would be.

Yesterday I went out with Brittney for pizza at Runni Pizza, which is a favorite for students because of the good quality food and low prices, and when we were walking back across Raekoja Plats, we saw a group of people demonstrating in front of the fountain. Several of them were handing out candy and one girl approached us and told us about what was going on once we had gotten a candy. Apparently they were from Belaurus where it was Indepence Day and also the last dictatorship in Europe. The pictures taped to the edge of the fountain were political prisoners being held in Belaurus.

In Kesklinn, the city center, across from Kabumaja, the old Kabumaja has been torn down over the last couple of weeks. The first day I noticed the deconstruction, I stood and watched for a little while and took some pictures. The machine that was being used to tear it down looked like a gigantic iron snake reaching out to tear out large chunks of concrete with its powerful jaws. As I watched the iron snake became a dog retrieving steel meshed concrete bones to drag over the ground to a pile of similar prizes. Stone dust blew through the air and the smell of it in the air reminded me of the Stone Bench Workshop I attended two years prior. I stayed to watch mesmerized until I could bear the choking dust no longer, and left.

School is going great and I haven't been homesick very much at all, especially since I learned exactly what my parents were stalking the fridge with back home.

I had a week off school last week, and I talked with Leann Friday night. It had been such a long time since I had seen or talked to her that I was very excited. During the holiday I also discovered a rather fun pastime: staying up all night and not going to sleep until the next night. I did it twice during the holiday, but the neither time was on purpose. I just wasn't very tired.

As I travel towards Tallinn today, I occasionally look around at the landscape surrounding us. Estonia is really very flat. The ground goes on for miles all around and it gives me the feeling that I'm standing on a paper landscape, one that could drift away beneath me at any moment. The feeling gives the landscape just a hint of subtle fabrication, just a small element of disbelief in its existence.

Paper Wars

In our Civilizations Outside Europe class today we talked about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sadly, I discovered that people over here know a great deal more about US operations in those countries than I do. It makes me think about how little we hear about our own military operations in school and in the news. Personally, I have heard only vague statements about where in the world troops are, but I don't know much of anything of how long they have been there, how long they plan to stay there, and what they are trying to accomplish.

Brittney knew a bit more than I did because in her school in Kansas they have a current issues class where they discuss such things and debate over the merits. I dearly wish we had such a class in Rutland.

I also learned that there are or were Canadians in Iraq and most Canadians support pulling out.

In other news, I went to the Rotary party two Fridays ago. I got my hair done and wore my new dress. My host sister also helped me do my make-up. The party was alright. There was mingling and lots of speeches, and then finally food. I talked to quite a few people and met my next host father. He is very cheery and acts like Grampa, but not quite as boisterous. On that note, I saw another man that reminded me of Grampa at the bus station the other day. He was loudly singing what sounded like a folk song while trying to get people to join in. I'm pretty sure he was drunk though.

Anyway, back at the party there were performances of dancers and a bartender and lots of couples dancing. I met Linda, a Rebound who went to Florida, and we talked for a while.

The party went on until three, but we left around midnight.

For more old news, a couple weeks ago, my History class that we have with the whole class went to the printing museum for a field trip. It was great; unlike most museums, they didn't keep the old printing equipment on display, instead they put it to use and used it for making all kinds of cool printed materials. While we were there, we got to make notebooks for ourselves. We also got a tour of the all of the equipment.

The tour started in Estonian, but when she realized that four of us weren't fluent, she switched effortlessly to English after confirming that we all spoke it. We got to see the letters for printing as well as the frames that they were held together in and we got demonstrations of most of the machines, except the one that is really hard to set up and hardly ever works right anyway.

There was also a cat as well. There were four people there, and I saw an instruction sheet for volunteers. I'm pretty sure most of the people there were volunteers, and almost certain that at least three of them weren't from Estonian at all. One of the guys wasn't from Europe, maybe from Russia.

I had a great time, and I have to say that it was one of the best field trips I've ever been on as well as the best museum by far. I wish we had one at home in Vermont somewhere. I am certainly of the opinion that museums are better when the old things are being used for their purpose instead of sitting behind glass.

I got sick a while ago with the flu and Brittney had it for a long time, almost two whole weeks, but she's back now and feeling better.

I have started feeling slightly homesick and missing my family and friends, but I am good at distracting myself. I don't feel it too bad, but it's still there.

Estonia's day of Independence was Monday so we didn't have school. There were song festivals all over the country and we watched them on TV. We had a nice dinner with celebratory champagne which I was assured was non-alcoholic, but it still tasted like alcohol none the less. I definitely like the kids stuff better, but champagne is alright.

I made brownies yesterday from a recipe that I found online. They turned out really well and were very fudgey. I brought some to school today to have for snacks. They did not outlive the first class.

I managed to gather up the paper work for my visa application and sent it yesterday. With luck, it will arrive on time.

That's all I can think of for now. I will try to update more often, I promise.

January

Today I walked into school and was told that there was no biology today. That means that I did not have to come to school until 10:45, two hours and fifteen minutes from now. I could go to town, but honestly, it is freezing as all hell and the wind is sharp, stabbing the body with slivers of cold. So I decided to sit in the library and write this as well as getting my English newspaper homework done.

It hasn't been a great couple of weeks. I was under the weather for all of last week and then got worse over the weekend. I ended up staying home from school on Monday and now I feel much better. I think it was the rapid change in temperature that wreaked havoc with my health.

Last Saturday I went skiing with Eve, my Rotary Counselor, and her daughter who is in her early twenties and snowboards. The "mountain" was very small and flattish, but still one of Estonia's only ski areas. It was great fun and I'm glad I went even though it probably wasn't good for my health because I was already sick. Oh well.

My Rotary Club has its tenth anniversary party in about two weeks. And I'm going to wear a dress. One lady from my club is making the dress. I went to her house on Tuesday so I could try it on and she could finalize the sizes. I will go back at some point to try on the whole thing put together so we can finalize the lengths. The fabric is dark purple with vertical lines of light green flowers. Also Eve and I are going to find shoes at some point since when we went on Sunday we had to end early because I was very sick.

Also, as per request, my host mother's name is Tiina, my host father's Marek, sisters Gerli 16, Gerda 14, Marta 5.

Clara's birthday is on Friday, and she's turning 17. I have been invited to her birthday party on Saturday.

That's all I can think of for now. Facebook reminders to write on my blog are great. Thanks Mom.

New Years

December 31st we had dinner together at six in the evening. There was meat, potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, and gravy, and champagne to drink and use to toast the upcoming year.

The TV was turned on after dinner and we watched the pre-New Year shows together on the two couches in the living room. The shows ranged from music performances of popular music to peoples dancing to knocking down piñatas to all the bloopers from the years news and films. The best of the latter was an Estonian news reporter stopping a woman on the street and asking her a long complex question in rapid Estonian, and then the woman immediately responds, "Thank you, I'm visiting from America and I have no idea what you just said." At which point I burst out laughing at something that strongly resembled me at the beginning of the year.

Just before midnight we put on hats and coats and went out into the street to meet up just down the road with a couple other families. The sky overhead was dark with one horizon colored the ever present shade of orange from what I can only assume is light pollution from the city.

Distant fireworks popped quietly along the orange strip of clouds. From the opposite horizon reddish orange lanterns drifted upwards one at a time from behind the trees. They glided over the houses and into the distance. After a brief struggle with the wind, we managed to light a multitude of sparklers that ecstatic children and teenagers whirled about.

With a crack, fireworks began to explode around us as the people on the next street over began to send them up from the driveways and backyards. Then light cascaded overhead from behind us and I turned to see the people a couple doors down setting them off from their driveway. As I spun to take in the colors blasting away in the dark heavens, I noticed a box sparking just down the road and soon enough fireworks began to whistle upwards to explode right overhead.

The fireworks from those three source seemed to war across the sky overhead to the backdrop of swirling and bursting color of the fireworks along the horizon. The rockets shrieked and screamed blasting our eardrums with waves of concussive sound. The whole sky lit up with dazzling color as the ground was covered in smoke the reeked of rotten eggs.

As fireworks battled for attention in the darkness, the New Year arrived with cheers, hugs, and beer (or wine, I really don't know). Everyone shared enthusiastic hugs and handshakes, drunk on excitement and the spectacle of the explosions overhead.

More sparklers flared, illuminating the dirt road for short intervals before fading away. Dozens of boxes of fireworks went shooting into the night sky in just under an hour, at which point they all but stopped completely. There were a few to keep going as people fought to expend all the ones they had bought for the holiday.

I now realize exactly why I kept seeing fireworks stall everywhere I went. New Years is definitely a holiday that Estonians take celebrating seriously. It was a like a canopy of ever-changing light and color or one of those overhead IMAX theaters.

We also set of a couple of on the ground spinning fireworks, some of which only flared off and on in such a way that left spots on my vision afterwards. One man had a hand held firework tube which he used to send up four more fireworks, but his hand dipped on the second, causing it to explode a couple meters above the ground.

After all of it stopped, some of the neighbors came back to the house for more alcohol.

Mishaps Mayhaps

The sky was dark when I woke up at seven thirty and a small window had been left open, so everyone with beds on the floor, four out of six people of which I was not one, was cold during the night and all of my clothes were freezing.

After breakfast, most of us left to ski, but several people stayed behind to do snow sculpting. At the mountain I got my stuff on and began to ski immediately. I went up the lift with Alaska the majority of the time, except when I lagged behind to help someone up after they had fallen or lost a ski.

Then one time, as we were being pulled up the steepest part of the slope, the rope attached to the T-bar snapped and sentAlaska and I tumbling off to either side. We lay there shocked for a few moments before collapsing into helpless laughter. It took a little bit before we could stand up and everyone on the lift was dropping off on the exit below us. When we made it onto the trail, I had to carry the plastic T-bar down which attracted odd looks from those that had not seen what had happened.

Around eleven or eleven thirty, the horizon began to turn magnificent shades of pink and orange graced by slivers of light blue. The sky remained darkened, with only the east horizon coloring for the rest of the daylight hours. Sunrise melded seamlessly into sunset and the sun never actually rose over the mountain, leaving the biting wind to scour the landscape.

We had lunch at the base of the mountain near the ski rental building, hot juice and cooked sausage, cold juice and cold sandwiches. After lunch, we had two more hours to ski.

A couple runs later I spotted a guy tele skiing and stopped and talked to him about the transition from tele to alpine for a bit. I was really wishing that I had brought my skis just for those two days of skiing because I was really missing them.

After a while, Alaska got me to go with him down a trail covered in deep powder, one that we later found out was closed, but there was no indication of that. The powder was almost knee deep over most of the trail, and much deeper in the rest.

My first run I fell early on and it was a struggle to get out, even with some friendly unhelpful help from another skier. I had forgotten how hard it was to ski powder and I had to stop frequently to rest.

The second time I managed to stay close to Alaska until he tumbled into a snow drift. I glided closer while laughing at him, and tripped and fell sideways down the trail. We were both laughing then and he got up. I couldn't get up because my leg was fully extended up the trail and the ski was stuck. It hurt to move, so I had Alaska release my ski. Once I got it back on, we skied to the bottom with no further mishaps.

As we rode the lift up for the third run, we saw a man teaching a little girl how to tele ski. It reminded me of Dad teaching me when I first started several years ago.

The third run I collapsed into knee deep snow and spent at least five minutes trying to free myself. It has been so long since I had to get up on alpine skis, so I found myself trying to do it the way I usually get up, and failing spectacularly because the alpine boots don't bend that way. Eventually, I gave up and detached both skis so I could stand up and then put them back on.

After that run, I did two more on the main trail before deciding that my muscles could not take any more.

At two everyone had returned their skis and was on the bus back to the hotel. The sunset faded from the horizon, leaving the sky dark and cloudy.

After we returned, it was time for sauna. The hotel had a huge sauna that could fit a ton of people. The girls got the sauna rooms in the hotel and the boys had the ones outside by the river. The sauna also had a door that led outside so people could cool off by jumping in the snow. I, myself, jumped into the snow twice.

 I got really hot in the sauna and then ran outside. I threw myself face first into the snow and immediately felt the cold start to seep into my bones. I quickly rolled over and jumped to my feet and ran to the door. As I ran, I could feel the snow crystals melting in rivulets down my naked body. I felt my hand almost stick to the frosted metal as I yanked the door open. Once I was back inside, I hurried to return to the warmth of the sauna.

After sauna we had dinner. Then we got back on the buses and drove to a nearby school for a Rotary gathering. During this we sat down and watched some performances. There was a group of four girls who danced and sang two songs and an old Sami man sang several songs in the Sami language. He had a beautiful voice and was dressed in the traditional Sami garb: reindeer skin shoes and pants tied with colorfully threaded belts, a dark blue tunic with colorful embroidery, and a tall embroidered dark blue hat with four points, one for each compass direction. The hat also had ribbons hanging from it. They functioned like the triangles on Nachi women's headpieces: they indicate marital status, but these are for men. Worn on the left means that the man is married, right means engaged, and down the back means "still looking for beautiful ladies". Worn over the face the mean, in his exact words, "woohoo, carnaval!"

After him, groups of exchange students went up in country groups to perform. The Australians sang Among the Gum Trees, which I half sang along to, the Mexicans made a flag backdrop to Alejandro doing his spinning tricks, and the Canadians went up and apologized for not having anything one at a time until the last person said, "yah, we're sorry, eh." in a stereotypical Canadian accent. Then Alaska decided to go up on his own and did a very excellent impression of Golem. He voice was dead on and it was quite hilarious. Then someone forced the single girl from South Africa up there and she sang a traditional song in African about an old man pushing a wheelbarrow.

After that there were a couple weird contests and a snack before we went back to the hotel and went to bed.

Sauna Scuffles

Sauna Scuffles

The first day of Lapland tour was almost like a dream, as most of us were running on inadequate amounts of sleep. I, myself, had about five hours of sleep during all twenty two hours of travel that it took to get to Lapland. I left Tartu after school at one thirty on a bus to Tallinn. We, the Tartu exchange students, took a taxi to the ferry terminal where we met the other two Estonian Rotary exchangers and a guy who travelled with us on the ferry.

We had to wait for the bus to arrive at nine in Helsinki. While we were waiting, two drunk guys came up to us and asked us something, but the guy with us shooed them away. The drunks then went over to a taxi that already had occupants and tried to convince the driver to take them. We all watched this and were laughing hysterically.

The bus ride was very long, but very fun because of all the exchange students that we could meet again.

We arrived at the hotel in Lapland at twelve noon. Out of all four busses, ours was the last to arrive. Everyone was assigned rooms and I ended up in room 160 with three others from Estonian, Michigan (state of origin that is now name), and a girl from France. Because we had a room for six, we also got a sauna in the bathroom.

After dropping stuff in our rooms, we had lunch and then dressed very warmly for skiing. We drove over to Olos to ski. When we arrived, we had to brave the crowded ski rental hut to get our equipment. Once I had mine, I put it on and immediately went straight to the top of the mountain. It was very dark, but there were rows of lights lining either side of the main trail. The lift was a T-bar lift, and was extremely hard to ride solo.

At the top off the mountain it was freezing and the wind howled all around. But as the cold bit at my face and nipped the rest of my body like a thousand pinpricks, I could see out across the rest of Lapland like a blanket spread out before me. Although Lapland is the most mountainous part of Finland, it still does not hold a candle to Vermont. Needless to say, the mountain I was standing on was the tallest for miles around and I could see others in the distance. The only mountains of similar heights were gaint piles of snow that were barely distinguishable against the sky. Those particular mountains are actually part of Sweden.

We skied for round about two hours. I did a lot of runs with Alaska and the T-bar was considerably easier to ride with two passengers.

When it was time to go my muscles were very sore and I was quite cold. Everyone was freezing, but we still had to go have dinner outside. We ate in a small cluster of huts with a fire burning in each one. Dinner was fish and potato soup with hot berry juice and pancakeish things for dessert.

Back at the hotel, we all went back to our rooms and everyone in ours tried to turn on the sauna. Eventually some boys managed to turn it on and the we were inundated with tons of people who wanted to sauna.

We only let in the three boys who turned it on and shut everyone else out. Once they had finished they left saying that they were going to cool off and then come back, but we decided not to let them in.

So, three of us girls went to sauna, leaving our clothes in the bathroom. Once we were naked the boys came back and someone let them in. They were standing outside the bathroom door and one of them said that he had left his shirt in the bathroom. Jennifer and I hid in the shower while Brittney tossed out their clothes.

Once she did that we went to sauna. It was wonderful. Then we heard a shout that there were Northern lights in the sky, so we rushed out to throw on clothes so we could go out and see them. However, when I looked for my clothes, I couldn't find them. I looked at Brittney and said, "Did you throw out my clothes?"

We all looked at each other and started laughing. Then I opened the door and there were my clothes crumpled on the ground: we laughed harder. We dressed quickly and hurried out the door, but the boys were back and they tried to get into the room. We blocked them and one, clad only in a towel, picked up Brittney and tossed her out of the way. They forced themselves inside and I gave up and ran outside to see the Northern lights, but by the time I got out there they had gone.

Sorry for the Wait

Hello everyone!

Sorry it's been so long, I've been concentrating on novel writing for NaNoWriMo and I can enthusiastically say that I am losing. I'm round about ten thousand words behind, with little hope of catching up, but that's not to say that I'm giving up. I have the story idea down solidly, but it is just so hard to write so much at once. I am very proud of myself though, as it is by far the longest story I have ever written. Usually as I write in class, classes I have little to no hope of understanding, physics, biology, etc., Clara, who has ended up next to me in quite a lot of classes (German) spends her time writing a long story for her sister with pen and paper in German. All this writing has made this blogging come easier: all this that I've written so far came in under half a minute.

In other news, the District Governor is on a round of visiting Rotary clubs and came to ours on Monday. My host mother wasn't able to attend so Kristal, a close friend of my second host mother's, picked me up and brought me home again, which was very nice as I would have otherwise had to take the bus. Fortunately for me, the District Governor did not speak Estonian, so the meeting was in English. Afterwards, I learned that I will be switching families on the 24th of November and my next host family lives about ten minutes from the school by bus. Score.

Also, I have been getting out with friends a bit more. On Halloween, Clara, Brittney, and I went to the Kiik, a gigantic wooden swing. We conversed and Clara held firm on her belief that trick-or-treating is stealing candy before us two flabbergasted Americans. After we abandoned the swing because we got too cold, we went to an Italian restraint for dinner that I recommended after having had dinner there with Peg a couple weeks before. That night we saw only a few costumes, such as a zombie and a witch, but there were apparently some small groups of small children running around in some towns. Halloween isn't really celebrated here, but that doesn't stop schools from doing lots of English, writing, and research projects on it.

The next day, however, Brittney and I were offered the opportunity to put on scary masks and scare the living day lights out of small children. We accepted with great pleasure and had even greater pleasure in actually doing it. I even managed to sneak up behind my Estonian teacher and make her jump by squeezing her shoulders.

My Estonian is progressing wonderfully, I actually am capable of a simple conversation now and I am continuing to learn the cases. Some of the ones that I have memorized are due to watching TV when it says a show is from Monday through Friday, the cases being from and through.

Also, Brittney stayed at my house for about a week quite a few weeks ago, as her host parents went to Spain and she couldn't go. We had a great time and we went to see Peg together and joined her in making apple crisp. I found out that Brittney rocks at making map outlines and she made one for a story of mine at my request. Yay!

I think that's about it. If I think of anything else, I'll just write another post. Oh yes, Aksel just had a girl over. A stranger. Girlfriend? Maybe. I might just ask him.

Anyways, I have to write about another thousand words before retiring. Talk to you all later.