Estonian Day No. 104.

"Choose the unknown and you will rediscover yourself."

I found this quotation on Medeea's blog today and it somehow impressed me. Simply because it's true.

Another thing I need to say before I try to recall the last week: I love you, Jasmin. Never forget that.

Last Saturday (not yesterday but the week before), I went to the cinema with Kaie. We watched "Breaking Dawn". Since I actually don't like the whole story, this movie never really had a chance for nice criticism with me - but besides the fact that I couldn't like it, I liked it pretty much. It was predictable as always (not only because I read the book), but at least the actors were quite good.

Before that, I met Kristi. She was in town for that day but didn't know what to do. So when Kaie hadn't arrived yet, she helped me buy a present for Vanessa (my German friend in the USA) and choose a birthday card for her. Then we tried to find Kaie. Somehow we got each other wrong everytime we talked on the phone (which we did several times), until we finally managed to meet. We went to the post office to post my package for Vanessa and accompanied Kaie while she bought some stuff. Since Kristi didn't know what to do when Kaie and me had to go to the cinema, I quickly called Kätlin and asked her, if she wanted to come to town and meet a friend of mine. She was too sleepy to walk but told me to send Kristi to her. I described the way to Kätlin's home to Kristi and told her the house's colour. And off she went. She didn't look very happy, and neither was I, but it all went pretty amazing. Nobody could ever resist Kätlin's charme. :D

On Sunday, the morning was breath-taking. I went to town to meet Leonie because we hadn't had the opportunity to meet on Friday as we usually do. I somehow arrived 90mins earlier than she did, so I asked Miri if she had some time for me. She agreed and we met on the Raekoja plats. From there, I wanted to show her all those buildings in the park, like the Old Observatory and so on. We started at that old ruined cathedral. I told Miri that you can go up the towers during certain times - and we discovered that it was exactly that time! And the sun was amazing. We couldn't expect such a sunny day for the next months, so we made an Estonian (very spontaneous) decision and just went to the museum next to it to buy the tickets.

Sissu mistakes my legs for a scratching post.

I asked the ticket seller in there "Kas Te räägite inglise keelt?". As I had expected (she looked pretty old and not very English-speaking), she answered "ei". Then she smiled and asked back "Kas sa räägid eesti keelt?". We both laughed, and I simply tried. It took me what felt like an hour to express half of our desire, and luckily she guessed the other half. The rest of our dialogue went pretty well. We bought the tickets (only 1€ each!) and followed another old woman who unlocked the door to the stairs for us. Before we started climbing them, she explained to me what to do when we wanted to leave the towers again. She even explained it a second time, and I nodded. We entered the towers and she locked the door again behind us. Miri asked me what she had said to me. I answered that she had told us to leave the towers on the other side - or something like that. We both laughed and just hoped that it all would be fine. It was.

After having enjoyed a breath-taking view over Tartu (I am not exaggerating!), we left the towers on the other side. As I had thought, she wasn't waiting there for us (which was good, because we had taken about an hour to explore every corner), but the door simply opened only from the inside. I showed Miri the Botanic Garden's, Jaanikirik, a nice private bookstore (remember my try to by a birthday present for Ilona...?), and Ruuni Pizza. (Check this out: http://emajoefood.blogspot.com/2010/12/ruunipizza.html - I just found it on Google.)

Then we met Leonie on the Raekoja plats, brought Miri to her accomodation, and Leonie and me followed my plan: we went to the market square and bought some (six) tangerines. With those, we went to Tasku, one of the big shopping centres, sat down somewhere comfortable, and chatted a lot while eating them. It was wonderful. Even I hadn't expected that it would be that cool. Funnily, next to us sat a group of young people, they were of our age, I guess, and especially one guy was staring at us all the time. Seriously: all the time! And this wasn't the first time that I discovered that Estonians are unable to stare at others without attracting attention. Obviously they're not used to having something exotic around - like Estonian-looking girls fluently talking in German to each other. :D

After having eaten all our tangerines, we still had nearly two hours left, so we decided for Ränduri pub. There we just laughed a lot, as always. Then we realized that my birthday would be in three weeks time and planned a date when to plan it. We found out that we wouldn't have time to plan it on time, so we spontaneously planned it right there. Back home, I told Ilona that fact, being proud of having done something spontaneously, like Estonians do. Her answer: Gosh, you really are typically German, planning your birthday that soon! I asked her how Estonians planned it, and if they just baked a cake and hoped that their friends would remember and just come along. It was actually only a joke, but she said that it was pretty much like that.

Monday was pretty unspectacular. For the first time after several weeks without doing so, I was with Janika in the dormitory again. That was nice.

On Tuesday, I went to Tartu and met Leonie and Miri. We went to Ruuni pizza and had dinner. That was pretty much everything we did there. :) In the evening, I decided to do a Best-Of-photo album on Facebook and quickly did so. It now contains 66 photos. That somehow made me proud.

Wednesday, I wrote my blog. That's it.

Thursday was okay. School was pretty unspectacular, choir too. The workshop was nice, but we were pretty few people because some couldn't come. But in the end we decided on a project for the workshop. Collecting ideas, we found a lot of good stuff, but we finally decided on doing "Open Stage"!!! So I want to thank Jasmin and Bommel for having taken me there in Hermsdorf, Germany. ♥

On Friday, I stood up early to pack my stuff for Tallinn. After the fourth lesson, I gave my schoolbag to Ilona and went to have lunch. After lunch, at the end of the break, I wanted to take my bag for Tallinn from the garderobe, because I would need my pen for the fifth lesson (and for me the last one of that day, because I had to leave earlier to get my bus to Tartu in order to get my bus to Tallinn). And luckily I did so - because it was locked! I was absolutely shocked and hurried to my class to ask my friends whom I could ask to open it for me. Kristi and Helen didn't know because they were new at Lähte Ühisgümnaasium, too. Panicking, I looked for Ivika. When I found her, I ran to her and grabbed her by the arm. "What did I do?," she asked, surprised. I just told her that I needed her help, explained the problem, and she simply answered "follow me". She found the woman who was in charge of the keys for the garderobes, explained my problem, and made her unlock our class's garderobe. I took all my stuff with me and we arrived for classes just in time.

After the lesson, I went to Tartu, met Leonie, bought something to drink and some chocolate for Elisa, with whom I would be staying the night and spending the Saturday, got new money for my phone card, and then we jumped on the bus. We chatted all the way to Tallinn.

Having arrived there, Lina met us at the bussijaam and took us to the YFU Office. After some time, all the others had arrived, too, and we started planning and practicing. Two hours later, we were finished. The others went home to do the last preparations for their trip to Finland the next days. I walked to the Vabaduse Väljäk to meet Elisa. We first talked in German, then decided for Estonian for me to practice, and later went back to German, because she didn't have the opportunity to speak it that often. (Elisa had been to Switzerland with YFU, and when you knew it, you could hear that she was an Estonian girl having learned German mainly in Switzerland.) We went around the old town and then sat down in a café. There we started speaking Estonian again. It was nice.

At her home (around 11pm), she cooked some pasta for us, since I hadn't actually had any dinner yet. We talked a lot in German again, also about different Christmas meals. I said that we never have Kaninchen, because my brother-in-law doesn't want to eat it since they're so cute. Elisa said, that she never wanted to eat Poulet, too, because it was so sweet. Then I said, that Poulet is not the same as Kaninchen, and she said, that for her it didn't matter what kind of bird it was. We both laughed long and hard, when I reminded her of what Kaninchen was. We went to bed around 0.45am.

The next morning, we had nice breakfast and then I wanted to see the Baltic Sea. I had already seen it the last time I had been in Tallinn with Edd and Aaron, but only from distance, from a viewpoint in the old town. It was raining hard when we went around, but at least I saw the sea! We soon were tired of the rain, and went home. There, Elisa gave me her hair-dryer to dry my jeans. When I had done that, I already had to catch my tram to the bussijaam. I took on my dry jeans and then my coat. It hadn't been wet on the inside when we had been walking around in the really hard rain, but now the water hadn't only come through to the inside, but had also gathered at the lower edge of the coat, so that it wet my jeans all over again. When I was outside the house, I could wring it out - and a lot of water came out of it!

Well, I caught my bus and went back to Tartu. In the bus, I could watch the beautiful sunset - at 3pm!!! In Tartu, I met Kristi and together we visited Kätlin. Not even an hour later, I already had to get back to the bussijaam to go home.

Having arrived home, I told Ilona that turkeys could drown when they were staring into the sky while it was raining - explaining that I was glad I was no turkey. In change, she told me that it had been snowing in Sojamaa in the morning. I was speechless. While I was cursing the damn rain in Tallinn, I missed the first snow!!! She tried to calm me down by saying that it had only for some minutes and that it all was already gone again, but it didn't work. Argh.

Later that evening, Ahti hung up a line with five red boots made of cloth above the chimney. That was pretty amazing. Andreas showed me his package that he had got from my mum, saying that he wasn't allowed to open it before the 1st Dec. It was pretty big, and I almost cried. Of course, he was the youngest and had the most right to get something, but I was her own child, so why would he get something of that size and I didn't?

When I stood up this morning, a candle was burning on the table, and everybody could empty their boots for the first time. That made me happy. What else?

Today. Well - Estonians always make fun of Germans, because they need plans for everything. Today, I didn't have a concrete plan for the first time - and missed my bus to Tartu!!! I slightly panicked and wanted to walk to Lähte to catch the bus there. Ilona kept me from doing so by saying that Ahti would take me there, and also the stormy rain outside made me go for her idea.

This gave me some time to check my eMails. There was also one from my mother, asking if she had got Ilona wrong or if my present really hadn't arrived yet, unlike the one for Andreas? I almost cried again. How could I have thought that he would get something and I would be left out? How had I been able to doubt my own mother? ♥ Ich liebe dich, Mama.

Me and the others from the workshop were visiting the university students' dormitory, where also Miri, Medeea, and Jakub were staying, to talk about our project for the workshop. I still was the first, even without having a plan, but still - !!! It took us two hours to plan the organization for it, and then we were pretty much done with it. Miri and me left - I was going to meet Ilona and Andreas at the theatre to watch the "Nutcracker", she had something to do in town. I invited her to my home for the next Tuesday, since Leonie wouldn't have time to meet in Tartu.

The Nutcracker was nice. Back home, it was storming damn hard. Ilona told me, that it would become even worse during the week, when all the storms from Sweden would have arrived here. They also told me some stories of the last winters: like having no electricity and water for two days, or not being able to go to school or even home from Tartu for half a week, because there was too much snow. Well: expecting the worst, you can never get disappointed, can you? :D

Now I just came back from sauna. Running through the garden back to the living house is a lot more fun to do when it's storming outside...