Well, long time no see, right? How come that everytime you don't want to do something you want to do it less and less the longer you wait...?
Last Monday. Cooking was fun. We tried the potatoe soup since we have more potatoes than you can imagine. I did not really know how to do it because my mother had only sent the list of ingredients and the instruction "fry the onions until they are transparent and then purée it all" - no word of potatoes. :D So I told Ilona what I knew and she just cooked it somehow and it turned out to be delicious. Those who know me can imagine how excitedly I would jump around uselessly in the kitchen, giving instructions and guesses and trying to help and being instructed to stay out of the way - funny for everybody and exhausting for me. ;)
Afterwards I went to Tartu and met Leonie at the bus station. Somehow Philipp joined us who appeared to be at the station, too, waiting for Aaron and Eduardo who arrived some minutes later. Together we waited for Isabell's bus whom Leonie and me had originally wanted to meet. When she had finally arrived, Leonie had to go to her training already, so Isabell and me stayed with the boys and went to play billard, where we met Kadri and later Eliise. Together we went to some Asian restaurant in the kesklinn and had dinner. Lisa joined us, too, and Kadri and Eliise left. Leonie called me since she didn't know where we were and I fetched her at the Raekoja Plats, where we met her host mother with a friend of hers who appeared to be going to the same restaurant. After dinner, we met Monique, too, but then seperated, since Isabell had to fetch her bus and Leonie and me wanted to buy some - well - supplies for the night which we wanted to spend with watching a movie again. This time we decided for loads of chocolate and some non-alcoholic peach sparkling wine. We then took our bus and were kind of entertaining all the passengers since we were the only people daring to talk to each other and playing with a torch light. 
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| Philipp, Aaron, Monique, Eduardo, Leonie, Isabell, and Lisa. |
On Tuesday, the morning landscape was stunning. Seriously - it almost made me speechless. Unfortunately we were in a bit of a hurry, so I was standing to take photos and running to catch up with Leonie in turns. We managed to catch our bus and went to Tartu, where we had some minutes to walk along some market square behind the bus station which also looked really pretty in the morning sun. Then we took our bus to Lõunakeskus.
The idea to spend a day there was originally mine, just because that shopping centre is huuuuuuuuuuge! But when Leonie said to me "Let's do it on Tuesday", I was surprised to find my idea being taken serious and realized. We took the very first bus going there (one out of every four is for free, we took those) and arrived at about 11.15 a.m. We had a look at the map in Lõunakeskus and planned our route. Then we started systematically visiting the shops, resting for some minutes after every one of them and taking notes for ideas for Christmas presents. At 16.45 we took the bus back to the kesklinn. There we had a quick look at our two favourite souvenir shops on the Raekoja Plats and then both went to our homes.
In the evening I wrote a message to Eduardo. I would be staying the night at his home during my Tallinn trip and he had asked me the day before whether I would like to go to some concert with him. I hadn't known whether I would find the money for the ticket but since I had hardly spent any money in Lõunakeskus, I sent him a message, saying I would gladly join him. Then he answered that we wouldn't be going because he didn't have money for it. That was fine for me all the same.
On Wednesday morning, I woke up at 10.58. Leonie called me at exactly 11.00, asking if I would like to come to Tartu. So I quickly had breakfast and packed my stuff and took the bus fourty minutes later. We didn't know what to do, so we went to the YFU kontor. (I never have the possibility to go there because it's opened on Mon, Wed and Thu and I always have too many lessons those days and can go to Tartu on Tue and Fri only.) It said that it wouldn't be opened until 14.00 which was bad since it was only 12.00 - but we knocked all the same and there appeared to be quite a lot of people. So we had a tea and chat and left about 90min later. We went to some second hand shops - actually four, that were situated next to each other. We found a pair of jeans each and bought them. (7,15€!) Then we went to a pizzeria and managed to order, eat and leave again within 21min - kind of a new highscore. I accompanied Leonie most of the way to her gym where she would have training and then had still two hours left until I could take my bus home. So I just took plenty of photos on either side of the Emajõgi river. Then I had a look at Apollo, the bookstore in Kaubamaja, and found some books that I had already seen in the store in Lõunakeskus - amazing, thick books containing collections of famous writers, such as Dickens, Austen, or Shakespeare, each over a thousand pages and each only 13,56€ - all but the Charles Dickens book which cost only 10,79€! (!!!!!) I fell in love with it at once but knew that I might need all the money I still had in Tallinn - so I made a difficult deal with myself: if the book was still there on Friday when I would come back from Tallinn, and if I still had the money, and if I found the time to go there and buy it, I would do so. I left the store with a heavy heart and went home.
On Thursday morning, I got up at 7.00. (Remember: holidays!) I would take the bus to Tallinn at 13.30 but wanted to go to Tartu Ülikool with Iris and Janika, since they had some lectures for people who thought about studying there. So it would've been too late for me to take the bus at 11.40 but I didn't want to take the but at 6.56 either - no wonder! So Juhani took me with him when he went to university that morning - I arrived in Tartu at 8.15. The morning was - well, let's say special. The fog all over the Emajõgi was not pretty but I had never had the opportunity to take photos of it. Well, after having taken about three or four pictures, my hands got too cold, so I went to the bus station, bought my ticket to Tallinn (speaking Estonian is an adventure again and again) and then stayed there since the shops wouldn't open until 10.00 - the time when Iris would arrive. So I read a lot until I realized that I had only that one book with me on my trip and would spend two and a half hours on the bus that day and the same time again the next day. I stopped reading and listened to music. 90min later Iris arrived.We wanted to have a look at some museums since those belonging to the university were for free that day, but we didn't know which those were and went to the university first. We decided for the archives which Iris wanted to see, but they turned out to be no museum and therefore we were not allowed to even enter them. Next we wanted to visit the historical museum but that wouldn't open until 11.00, just as the anatoomikum. Then Iris got a call from her sister and went to visit her. By then the morning sun was beautiful and the autumn landscape and the statues and the old cathedral on the Toomemägi looked marvellous. I used my free time (Janika wouldn't arrive for the next 80min) to take loads of pictures all around Tartu. Then I met Janika and we went to a lecture about "Inglise keel ja kirjandus". Luckily they asked whether they should speak in Estonian or English and we decided for English and none of the others complained. It was pretty interesting and I managed to take my bus on time.
On the bus, I realized that I hadn't had lunch and wouldn't get to eat anything until 4 p.m. - then I remembered that I had still some chocolate from the night with Leonie. So my lunch that day consisted of chocolate. Not the best thing to do and not too enjoyable, but it is possible and I had to do it. And I am still alive. So the only one to suffer in that whole scenario was the chocolate. Well...
I calculated how many pages I could allow myself to read and read those. Then I listened to music and fell asleep for about 40min. But somehow, all the time that I was staring out of the window, there were only trees - mainly conifers but always some birches, too. So it's true that about 57% or so of Estonia consist of trees.
I arrived safely and on time, and Eduardo and Aaron (who was staying with Eduardo, too, which I hadn't known before I met them) fetched me. We first went to the ticket office - and I was shocked. It was all so big! It wasn't bigger than Tartu's bus station, but every centimeter was filled with people and we even had to queue up to buy a ticket! I understood all those who had said that Tartu is far nicer than Tallinn just because it's not so big - and realized the very same second that this was nonsense. Well, the fact that Tartu is nicer than Tallinn is true, but I had been on many and far bigger stations in Germany and other countries - but after having got used to Tartu, it was weird to be in a "metropolis".
On the way to the YFU Office where Eduardo had to practice with Monique (from Tartu) for the book release event that night (a former Estonian YFU exchange student had written a book called "Minu Tšiili" about her exchange year in Chile), we met Maarie (from Jõgeva) who appeared to be in Tallinn, too. In the YFU Office, there was also Ninnettra who actually lives in Tartu, too - so where had they all come from? Later we and Jolijn and Maarie went to the shopping center where the book release would take place, and I finally bought some real food. Yay! :) I met Eva and Birgit and Ana-Maria and lots of YFU volunteers and also some other people from Tartu or around - what where they all doing there? :D Eduardo told me that we wouldn't go to the concert because we had other plans (which vanished later, too), so we just went to some Indian restaurant with his host family (where Edd's host father told me that I smiled like Mona Lisa) and then home. There Edd and me exchanged some books - I lent him "His Dark Materials" and borrowed "Paradise Lost" - then the three of us had a looong chat and went to bed soon afterwards.
The next morning, we had English breakfast with Edd's host father and brother and then went to town to have a look at the vanalinn that I had wanted to see. We visited some churches and view points and had nice views over the town onto the sea. The oldtown was pretty and really special because it had houses in the most different styles directly next to each other but I had somehow thought that it all would be far more exciting from what I had been told about it before. But maybe it was just because of the weather - it was dry but cloudy.
We went to a café and then Eduardo wanted to show us some merchandising shop where he said they had very individual stuff about Tallinn - including postcards. ;) But when we arrived there they were just having their lunch break and wouldn't be back for another 30min. So we went around there and found some private store which looked interesting. They were selling many old things that you probably wouldn't find anywhere else, including old uniforms and books and glasses and medals - and swastika flags, old stamps showing Hitler and match boxes saying "Zündhölzer für den Soldaten", also full of nazi symbols. That kind of hit me in the face. I wanted to scream at the shop owners but was speechless at the same time. My head was empty. I mean - how could they? I had met some teenagers of my age making jokes about Nazi-Germany and others who didn't seem to understand it all, but I had thought that they were simply too young - and now I had found that shop. It made no sense for me how people could be so ignorant of our true history - how could they sell all that stuff, how could they have families with young children walk through that shop everyday, and how could they not understand? Even I can't entirely realize what was going on that time, and I am not one of the more politically active people in Germany, but this was too much for me all the same. We quickly left the shop.
Outside, I of course had to answer some questions from Edd and Aaron, but when we reached that merchandising store they soon forgot the topic. I didn't, but at least I got slightly distracted from it. Outside the shop, Eduardo asked us what we wanted to do next. I wanted to know how much time we had left and he said we had still twenty minutes, so we could use fifteen of those - or ten if we wanted to be at the bus station very early. I decided for ten minutes and he said "okay, then let's have a look when your next tram to the station leaves". At this point I almost went crazy inside - I had relied on him because he was the one who lived in Tallinn, and we didn't even have a plan how to catch our bus on time?! On they way to the next tram station, some guy asked us whether we spoke English. (I guess the flags with the Estonian colours on one side and "I love Tallinn - European Culture Capital 2011" had told him that we were no original Estonians...) We had to tell him where we came from and then he said that we probably had a lot of stress in our lives. I saw his orange cape and realized what this whole thing would be, and quickly answered "no, we are absolutely relaxed". He wanted to know our secret and Aaron said jokingly "weed". Then he said that we looked like sophisticated people who had a passion for reading and wanted to show us his favourite book. He was holding the Estonian version in his hands and wanted to start taking the English one out of his bag, when I quickly said "hey, actually we have plenty of books and we really need to get our tram because we are going back home to Tartu today, but good luck and have a nice day" and led the boys away from him. Eduardo found that I had acted typically German and Aaron agreed, adding how rough I had ended our dialogue. I was confused and wanted to know what they would've done to get away from him. Aaron would have simply bought the book if he hadn't seen any other possibility. I told him how ridiculous and senseless that was and asked if I had been really that rough to the guy. Eduardo answered no, I had been very friendly indeed but also determined and he himself would not have known how to get rid of that guy in a polite way which I had managed to do really well. Then we jumped on the tram. On there, we went on talking about stereotypes. Eduardo confessed that he hadn't believed in them, but the way I had insisted on being on time he couldn't help agreeing to the fact that Germans were incredibly punctual and planned out. Well, of course there are great differences between Germans and Mexicans. ;)
Aaron and me got on our bus which left only a few minutes after, so in my mind I complimated myself for making the boys be on time. Aaron listened to music and I read the second half of the book I hadn't dared to read too much of on my way to Tallinn. I got more and more nervous the more minutes we were late - I had only 35min to run from the bus station to Apollo in Kaubamaja and back again to get home! Well, those 35min were only 23min when we had finally arrived. I jumped out of the bus, said quickly good-bye to Aaron and started nearly-running. Almost having reached Kaubamaja, I met Monique, Philipp, and Juliana (from Tallinn) who wanted to talk to me, but luckily we were crossing the traffic lights in different directions, so I just told them that I had to hurry and went on nearly-running. In Apollo, I was relieved - the book was still there! I took it and wanted to pay, but the clerk wouldn't take more bank notes than necessary and I had to explain that I had only 77ct instead of the 79ct that I would have needed. We were discussing (or rather gesticulating, since I couldn't discuss in Estonian) and I got more and more afraid of missing my bus, until I finally remembered the German 2ct-coin that I was keeping in some secret pocket of my purse, pulled it out, payed, and ran to the bus, taking some photos on the way there (also running) and managed to catch it. So everything was fine.
Later the same day, I decided to arrange my photos and did so. Then I went outside and around the house and pretty far just into the nature and took loads of pictures again. When I came back inside, Ilona asked me if I would like to go to the zoo the next day. She told me, that some people had found a bear baby some years ago and built a fence around it (no joke), and other people had brought their regional wild animals and at some point it had turned into a zoo. So I called Leonie who said she would gladly come. Then she called again to say that she couldn't come because there wouldn't be any bus back home for her. Thus I told Ilona who offered to drive Leonie home. I called her again and told her. She agreed and asked which bus to take to my home. We discussed it and decided for one. I told Ilona when Leonie would arrive and she said that they could take her from Tartu when they were coming back from the grandmother whom they wanted to visit. I called Leonie and told her that, and she agreed. Then Ilona said that they could also take her from her home, since that would be less effort for her and not much for them, so I called Leonie again. Planning in Estonia is harder than you might think.
Since I would have to make pancakes on Sunday, too, I didn't get up too late (thanks to the clock change I could sleep pretty long all the same) and made them. It was pretty easy and went very well. Later, Ilona and Ahti took Leonie and we went to the zoo. There the worst thing ever happened: while taking photos of the grown-up but really cute bear "Karoliina", my camera told me that I would have to stop doing so since the battery had run low. It was a catastrophe! We hadn't even seen more than three animals - including Karoliina! I managed to take one last picture of Andreas and spent the rest of the visit quietly dying. ;) The animals were really cool and although the zoo was pretty small, it was quite exciting and funny. When we left it at about 15.30, the sun was already setting. 90min later it was absolutely (!) dark. We later brought Leonie home, discussing about French numbers (vingt-quatre and quatre-vingt) and Estonian verbs (the difference between hakkama and alguma and alustama)...
That night, we had sauna, and I went there, too. When I felt that I was pretty tired, I left it and had a shower. Then I nearly lost conscience. That was reeeeally scary, especially because I knew I was alone, my family was fifty meters away and wouldn't be looking for me for quite a long time plus I had locked myself. I somehow managed to finish the shower, having to sit down several times, and back in the main house, I drank a lot (I should've done that earlier) and soon went to bed.
Monday morning sucked. I somehow managed to ignore all the alarms that were ringing for me, and when Ilona came upstairs half an hour after I originally had wanted to get up and called "Heidi, kas sa magad?", I screamed "JAH!!!" and turned around again. I have never been such a grouch as that morning. Luckily everybody else found it funny.
I got a 5 in füüsika for that test that I had done twice, started making Estonian-English flash cards again, went with Janika to the dormitory after choir and died during the folkdancing training. I sometimes feel like dying here in Estonia, and it's usually during the training, but this day was worse than ever. After 45min of warming up, we were taught a new choreography which basically consisted of three different moves which were repeated all over again and again. So it was pretty easy to learn, but I soon felt how hard doing it was. We made several breaks and once I found myself sitting on a chair, when we had still about 30min left, and our trainer came to me and said "I know you are dead - but you will have to do it again". And so we did.
After training I went to the gym and waited for Juhani. Ilona hadn't known whether he would have floorball training in Lähte that day, but had said she'd call me if he hadn't. And since nobody had called me, I waited there. When Rainis came along, I asked him whether Juhani was there. He wasn't. I went outside to call Ilona who told me that Juhani was in Tartu but could take me home in two hours' time (21.30), and I should ask Janika if I could stay with her during that time, otherwise she would fetch me. Janika agreed. She went to have a shower and I just lay on her bed, almost falling asleep. We bought some food in the shop and had dinner. Ilona had told me that she would call Juhani to tell him that he would have to take me home and that she would call me again, when she had talked to him. When she still hadn't called me at 21.25, I called her. She said that Juhani had said he'd call me when he was in Lähte. So I waited. At 21.35, Ilona called again and said Juhani would be in Tartu some longer, but if I went to the shop right now, Ahti could take me home. So I quickly took my stuff, said good-bye to Janika and went there. I arrived at home at about 21.50.
Tuesday morning I was still not very happy about having to go to school again, and even the test in matemaatika could not really cheer me up. But I was proud of myself when I knew the word for "Sachsen" in saksa keel. :D After school, I went to Tartu to meet Leonie. She proposed going to Lõunakeskus to buy kohuke. So we did - it was a true feast! Then she went to her training and I bought a birthday present for Jasmin. When I arrived at home, it was absolutely dark. Ilona had come to the station to give me a torch lamp so that I would find my way to our house (she was waiting for her friend taking her to their folkdancing training) which I first found exaggerating but after some steps was happy about. I miss the times when I could take amazing photos of stunning sunsets having arrived home...
That evening I skyped shortly with Jasmin and then three hours with Sylvi. That was nice.
On Wednesday, I used the first four lessons (bioloogia, geograafia, keemia, kunstiajalugu) to work on my history essay - okay, I used three lessons and spent the fourth one with drawing structures and stuff. I got a 5+ in matemaatika and another 5 (98 out of 100 points) in inglise keel. After school, Ivika and me finished a mindmap about the American War of Independence (a homework for ajalugu), and then Ilona and me went to a graveyard where her former deskmate was resting in peace. On the way home we discussed about the orientation sense of my family's former exchange students. Somehow, Isabelle and me - the two Germans - were the only ones who had managed always to get home, while Claire and Tayla had failed in trying to do so their first times - Tayla had walked about 10km into the wrong direction until she wondered about the church and the bar "near our home", and Claire had taken the wrong bus and turned out to be 43km from home.
Today was calm. We had a presentation on some international workshop about time management and teamwork and such stuff that I am going to attend. I realized that today starts the second quarter of my exchange year (without the YES). And after the third lesson I spent my most horrible thirteen minutes ever - standing lonely on one side of the corridor having nothing to do while everybody else was standing or sitting in groups on the other side studying and chatting and having fun and giving me awkward looks from time to time. Well - not my best day ever.
Very nice pictures!
AntwortenLöschenRegarding photos of stars:
If max. exposure time (ideally 20 or even 30 seconds) combined with max. ISO (ideally 3200) and automated timer with camera laying still on the ground does not do the trick, there is just not enough stars / too much light around :-))