I'm still alive!

While I may no longer be an Aussie in Eesti, I am still alive, and apparently so is my blog! Sure it may have been a year since I posted anything, but that is really just a minor detail.

A six months ago yesterday I was sitting in a forest, next to a lake just outside of Kaunas in Lithuania celebrating the summer solstice and last night I celebrated my second summer solstice of the year, albeit with the guise that the world could end.

And keeping with the Lithuania thread, yesterday morning I woke up to watch Lithuania pick their Eurovision song. While the song I liked most did not win, I got to have a good chat with my friend Ieva about Eurovision, life and the departure of Antoine Rousseau. Just before she went to bed she asked me what I had been upto since leaving Europe, so I thought maybe I should share with everyone.

On the 10th of July 2012 I said farewell to my good friend Jan-Hendrik who had accompanied me to Schippol International Airport and helped me get more check in luggage than I was technically entitled to through the airport.

Upon arriving back home in Australia, I was in a bit of a daze. It was the same feeling I got when I came back from China, namely that everything was exactly the same. I was walking around the city of Melbourne less than 8 hours after arriving back in the country and I was still able to auto-pilot through the city to find the nearest starbucks or get to the mobile phone shop.

There was no real time to rest on my laurels though, I needed to sort out work (or at least sort out getting money from the government), get re-enrolled into university and move into a new house all within about a week.

And with the same ferocity that saw me tear around Europe, I managed to get all of that done with minimum fuss, that is with the exception of my job. Despite being told I would be resuming my position at Bunnings Hawthorn, actions were not followed through and I didn't end up going back.

Several months down the track, I am now working at Bunnings in Port Melbourne, once again as a paint expert. I suppose in some ways this is better than going back to Hawthorn. It seems so much has changed at my old store and so many people have left that starting fresh at a new place is a good pace. Plus my team is really nice and I think I've fit in there quite well.

In terms of University, I went back to Uni a few days after getting back in the country and enrolled in three Linguistics subjects (History of Language, Language in Society and Semantics) and did reasonably well in each of them. I did surprisingly bad in some tests which made me feel pretty worthless, but at the same time I did very well on all my assignments so in the end I ended up with two Cs and a B. Not my most successful semester, but given that I was suffering from Estonia withdrawals it wasn't bad. I am doing a summer subject right now on Latin American history and as a result I only have three subjects left to complete next year, two in first semester (Introduction to Musical Theatre & Cross Cultural Communication) and one in second semester (Syntax). And just to rub it in to my European friends, I am currently on summer holidays which began in October and ends in March. That's right everyone, four months off.

As my leisure time can no longer be filled up with travelling outside the country every second weekend, immediately once I was back at university I rekindled another past time I partook in whilst on exchange, and joined La Trobe University's Ultimate Frisbee team. I think this single handedly stopped me from going mad and getting depressed from being home. Excitingly I ended up making the team that got selected to represent La Trobe at the Australian University Games and have played in a few tournaments and a season of Albert Park League. LaTuuf (La Trobe University Ultimate Frisbee) have proven to be an amazing group of people and I am proud to call them my friends and teammates. While I am a bit crap at the game, I am less crap than I was and I'm honestly probably in the best shape I have ever been in my life. It's at this point I would like to thank my Mum (who will only hear about this if my Aunt reads this and tells her) for helping support my dreams once more by paying for me to go to the Uni games in Adelaide when I only had centrelink to support myself.

The other thing taking up my leisure time is of course Eurovision. Sadly I will not be going to Malmö next year for the big deal, but it happens. I will do my reporting from home this year and will soon begin organising interviews with singers from Finland and Estonia like I did back in the old days (old days = 2011).

I am also living in a new house, in a much smaller room with awesome new housemates Kathryn and Angus who let me move in despite only meeting me once while we were drunk a year before, and while I was still living in Europe. It's a great place that is a little closer to uni and a little further from public transport so I've been riding my bike a lot more which is possibly helping contribute to the fitness. There has recently been a vacancy and my friend Elise from the Frisbee team who is also one of the people partially responsible for me picking La Trobe has just moved in. We celebrated at last night's end of the world party and when the world failed to end we came home and played video games until the sun came up. I see good things in this house's future.

So that's about it from me, but I guess I'll leave you with a 12 point review of this year's highlights.

January: Big Europe trip and visiting friends all across the continent.
February: Playing in my first Ultimate tournament and then spending the next few weeks going to the national finals of Belarus, Latvia and Finland.
March: Eesti Laul- Estonia + Eurovision = big win for me!
April: Amsterdam Preview Concert & Teaching a class in Estonia
May: Eurovision 2012, and my 25th Birthday
June: Final farewell tour
July: Joining LaTuuf
August: Qualifying for the Uni games team
September: Going to the Australian University Games
October: The weather finally getting nice and the warm weather I love returning to me.
November: Going back to work and having money again.
December: Eurovision season back on the go.

I will leave you with one final thing, yes once more it's my video project just incase you forgot how I feel about Europe.

Sorry everyone!

Well, I knew it would happen eventually! Almost every travel blogger lapses in their blogging eventually, and funnily enough my creative block happened right around the time Eurovision season kicked off again. Fancy that...

So what have I been up to?

Well, those of you who follow me on facebook or through the website I write for will know I went to the junior Eurovision Song Contest in Yerevan Armenia! This was an experience unlike anything I've ever done and I don't think I have ever felt more in my element in my life before. The whole experience was a fun chance to visit a nation I don't know whether I would have considered going to before and it was so much fun! The only sad thing is that I had to leave a stack of new friends behind.

If you didn't manage to catch any of my work there, take a look at my interview skills with some of the interviews below:

1st place Georgia: http://escxtra.com/2011/12/candy-interview/

2nd place Netherlands: http://escxtra.com/2011/12/rachel-interview

3rd place Belarus: http://escxtra.com/2011/12/lidiya-zablotskaya-interview/

4th place Russia: http://escxtra.com/2011/11/katya-ryabova-interview/

5th place Armenia: http://escxtra.com/2011/11/dalita-interview/

10th place Lithuania: http://escxtra.com/2011/11/paulina-skrabyte-interview/

12th place Macedonia: http://escxtra.com/2011/12/dorijan-dlaka-round-two-interview/

13th (and last) place Latvia: http://escxtra.com/2011/11/amanda-bashmakova-interview/

Other than that, I went to england for christmas and again spent time hanging out in the west country with David yet again. Good times! Photos and shit on facebook.

On thursday I'm away for another trip where I will visit 6 new countries I've yet to go to, and somehow find time to write four essays. Wish me luck.

Oh and I'm doing interviews for Eurovision too! Latvia's national final is kicking off, and with any luck I'll be going to Belarus' national final at the end of the month! woo! :D

Getting off at the Slutstation.

Now, because my family reads this blog I feel I should explain the title of the blog at the start rather than humorously leaving it until the end like I usually do. Slut is the word for 'end' in Swedish, and was one of many many words that to a native English speaker looked absolutely hilarious and on the train to Malmö, I was repeatedly informed that Copenhagen (or Köpenhamn in Swedish) was the slutstation. Tee hee!

My journey began Wednesday last week when I took a late bus up to Tallinn, my flight was at 5:10am so I needed to be up there at night. What I didn't plan was what I was going to do so the start of my trip was terribly boring with me sitting in the airport until I could check in. After a very brief visit to Riga airport, I arrived in Stockholm where I promptly boarded a train to Malmö! The train was very nice but you had to pay for wifi if you wanted to use it (Estonia has spoilt me obviously). Upon arriving at Malmö station, I was greeted by Emma and Dan who I know from Melbourne. That night we proceeded to drink a litre of vodka and harassed his dorm mates who had just gotten back from the sea battle!

The next day we spent in Copenhagen where we saw The Little Mermaid statue and the Lego store and it was generally lovely before I boarded a plane back to Stockholm where I spent the night drinking with David Stock and discovered the joys of McDonald's cheese sauce! Yum!

On Saturday I caught up with old school friend Britta Dahlborg and super schalger fan Lina Paulsson before Lina and her friend Johannes came out for a karaoke party! There was Bengtzing, Carola and almost every one of the last 20 Swedish entries sung, as well as a heap of MF entries! Amazing times.

With that over, I spend Sunday doing bugger all and then went back to Tallinn.

Thats about all I can say, there will be photos on facebook!

Currently I'm sitting in the press centre in Yerevan for the Junior Eurovision Song Contest! Woo!

Mis on sinu lemmik Koogi?

Hello everyone, I trust you've been well? Not a lot has been going on around here, just the usual writing, study, classes, drinking and partying although that doesn't mean that I havn't had an adventure or two!

Last weekend I went to the cute village of Koogi to hang out with my friend Liina and her family as they celebrated the birthday of Liina's brother's wife!

The bus sign for Koogi, a town whose name translates to 'Cake'

We arrived in the dead of night (aka about 5pm, stupid dark Estonian late-Autumn!) and met Liina's parents who were both really nice, despite not speaking much English. Her mum spoke more than she let on and to be fair I speak more Estonian than I let on too, but despite not being able to communicate directly her family were still very kind and Liina was there to translate. I also met two of her sisters, younger sister Margit and older sister Liis who both spoke great English, Liis having even spent time in Australia.

With some basic greetings done, we walked the massive 1:30 minute walk to Liina's brother's house where we had a very nice dinner. It turns out mushrooms in Estonia are friggen delicious, who would have known? I spent most of the dinner harassing Margit in Estonian asking her what her favourite things are, most of the time I was met with the 'I don't have a favourite ' response, although we later ascertained that her favourite cake was chocolate cake and her favourite singer was Beyoncé; both good choices.

After dinner we went back to Liina's house for tea and then to bed. I woke early the next morning but stayed in bed and watched movies on my computer, thrilling stuff!

Liina and I at the waterfall.

Then we went off and I saw the widest/biggest waterfall in Estonia, Jägala Falls which was very pretty and I discovered that I can't take a photo any more without looking fat in the face (Jury is still out if it's the fault of all the extra layers or I am actually fat) and drove around her village and surrounding areas and it was all very cute, however I've been assured that it's all much nicer in the Spring!

When we got back we watched Eurovision 1997 with Liina's family which was lots of fun until I it got right to the end when her entire family came to watch Love Shine A Light and then I remembered that Minn Hinsti Dans came next, that was a little awkward (Eurovision peeps will feel me here, everyone else click this for context) and then we just hung out and ate food until it was time to go back to Tallinn. A few uneventful hours later including Liina's first time in the First Class carriage of an Estonian train we were back in Tartu. That was pretty much it!

The other highlight of this week (highlight is a stretch) is that I had to make a poster of something to do with life in Estonia instead of attending Estonian class, however since half my classes had been cancelled I kinda forgot to go to the others (As we speak I should be in Nordic Viking and Medieval Literature, oops!)

I have also come to the realisation and acceptance of something that I've known for years: Despite my love of language, I'm really kinda crap at learning them! I just don't have the natural flair. As such, I will probably not be taking Estonian class next semester as I've pretty much already hit my ceiling there and the grammar has become too complicated for me to remember, but fear not, I hear that a Dutch class will be taught in English next semester, so I might take that and see how I fair at a language much closer to home. I hope nobody is too disappointed!

The second realisation was already known by me: I'm terrible with kids but awesome with Animals. Evidenced by my awkwardness around Liina's nephews and total lack of idea how to deal with them and the amount of love showered apon Liis' dog who loved me. So cute!

Well, thats all for now! Nägemist!

Finnotastic!

You know what they say, third time's a charm! And this is apparently true when it comes to poorly planned weekend trips to Finland! Although this time I actually bought my boat tickets ahead of time so my sense of stinginess forced me to actually go!

My boat!

So at 4:30am after drinking heavily, I got my shit together and ran to the bus station. I almost missed it because of the actions of someone who shall not be named, but he knows who he is and will probably be pissed at me for vaguely alluding to him, but this is for almost making me miss my bus! mwuhaha!

At 8:00am I was on board the Lindalines Karolin boat bound for Helsinki and immediately fell asleep. I woke up to daylight and perhaps one of the bleakest skylines I've ever seen upon arriving in a foreign country. A far cry from last month's brilliant blue dutch sky!

Don't worry, the rest of Helsinki was much nicer than this!

Once I arrived I sent the message out to my friends to let them know I'd arrived, but as it turned out, everyone was busy until 3pm. So I killed 5 hours walking around Helsinki randomly and in the process seeing one of my lecturers from Tartu. This time was passed as follows: Wandering, drinking coffee, sitting in the middle of a public square since it was the only place I could find free wifi, drinking coffee and wandering. Adventure! My hands eventually went purple from the god damn cold-ass Helsinki.

3pm rolled around and I finally caught up with my friend Saara and her friend Helmi, who explained the dramas that caused the delays and we scooted off to a nice restaurant where I had some good reindeer meat burger thingy and some ice cream which cost more than I spend in a week on groceries here in Estonia. It was at this point we were joined by another friend, Axel! Then we went clothes shopping, it was at that point when people kept staring at us that I suddenly remembered I was clothes shopping with famous Finns! An interesting experience for sure!

After purchasing a new jacket and almost losing my scarf Axel and Saara went to see a play while Helmi and I wandered around and looked at stuff. Eventually we all rejoined and took some photos in the train station! Neat!

This is just an odd photo for all involved. Saara looks good though!

After a quick run through the supermarket we said goodnight to Axel and went back to Saara's for power smoothies and bed! It was awesome to finally meet Saara and Axel and cool to hang out with the very quirky Helmi, but alas all good trips must come to an end and that took us a about 200km to the north west, to Tampere!

After a ticketing issue which meant I had to pay €50 for my train ticket I arrived in Tampere to meet my other friend Eveliina! Tampere, like Helsinki is perhaps not a touristic paradise, but it was a very peaceful pretty town, and it was actually a little sunny on Saturday! Eveliina cooked me some food and listened to her potential Euroviisut 2012 entry and then it was off to the Karaoke bar! I got my sing on in Finnish all over their 1973 entry 'Tom Tom Tom' and then Eveliina helped me discover how terrible of a rapper I am as we painfully dragged ourselves through 2009's 'Lose Control'. After each performance we received great applause and someone even came up to me to thank me for singing in Finnish. I guess it means something that a random Australian appreciates their weird ass language!

Eveliina mopping the floor with Christina Aguilera's Beautiful

We also went to the Näsinneula, a big ass tower in Tampere where we could see all the lights in the town and caught a movie; Abduction startting Taylor Lautner! Decent storyline, good action and just enough instances of him not wearing a shirt, a winner all around, except I almost lost my scarf AGAIN.

When Sunday came, I had to say goodbye to the effervescent Eveliina and head back to Helsinki and spent several hours trying to find the west port as my boat was cancelled and I had to take the Tallink back. The rest of the story is less exciting and pretty much the highlight was watching three episodes of 'Bones' over the shoulder of the guy next to me on the bus back to Tartu, thank god for subtitles!

All in all, I would describe Finland as a nice country that is reasonably uneventful, particularly at this time of year, but it's definately a nice place to visit with friends and as you can see Horace made some new friends!

Final thought: If I hadn't have interviewed these guys, I'd never have made friends with them, so I guess the thought here is always do stuff you love, because you might end up friends with a bunch of people who are famous in Finland!

Oh, I dunno. Hanging out I suppose?

One can't help but notice that I have been absent from my blog for a litte while, is this the beginning of the end? The point where I forget about my blog and leave it to obscurity?

Hopefully not! I think it's more likely though that I have not left Tartu since I got back from the Netherlands so I assumed that nobody would want to hear about my doing nothing. But I guess most of you have lives far more boring than mine, and who I am I to keep you without your only source of entertainment?

Narcissism aside, I did actually leave Tartu once! Last Sunday in fact. After an overall lazy day in my room, at about 2:30pm I casually strolled to the bathroom to find roommate Mark Lemon frantically getting ready to leave to pick up a guitar he'd just bought from the Estonian version of ebay and asked if I wanted to come to Tallinn to get it, so I said yes! We travelled all up 5 hours there and back, and were only in Tallinn for about 2 hours, but overall it was worth it!

Just Mark and his guitar

But I can't say I've done a huge amount since then. I went to a 1920's theme party but didn't feel like dressing up, cheered on a fellow exchange student to Karaoke championship victory and aside from that just did some homework. Possibly my most boring week and a bit to read about, but it's been fun living it!

I've started to get back into the swing of the Eurovision writing now that there is actually some information flowing about and soon I will be really busy trying to balance University, Eurovision and travel, but thats the dream isn't it? If anyone wants to check out my articles; click here.

Thats all really, aside from drinking more than I should there isn't much more that I'm allowed to say, so here's what you all come here for anyway, photos of Horace!

Horace in front of Riga's famous Laima clock and in front of the Heerenveen Windmill

Final thought!

If you want to write a blog about your adventures in Europe, sometimes you should actually do something. Alternatively make a note about them so you can remember what you did and blog about them later.

Fauxsian.

Those who know anything about the usual delights of my culinary world know that Preston's Noodle Kingdom is perhaps one of my favourite places to eat in the world. With this in mind, along with the fact that there are a whole host of other fine Asian eateries I frequent (Ben-K in Hawthorn, Dae Jang Geum Korean BBQ Hall in the CBD, Basil House in Preston and random food stolen from awesome colleagues Yasuko Murakami, Cyndy Chan and Bridget Kinsik) can mean only one thing:

The thing that I am most homesick about is Asian food.

I managed to last nearly a month without any Asian food whatsoever, and believe me, it's been hard. During my trip to The Netherlands almost two weeks ago I finally caved when Paul suggested Wagamama's for dinner, and after a delicious bowl of Ramen, I knew it would be only a short amount of time until I bit the bullet and tried out Tartu's very own Žen Žen Buffet.

They didn't even have friggen chopsticks!

I really wanted this to be at least semi-authentic, I'd have accepted even an Albury-Wodonga level of Asianity to my food but alas, even this was too much to expect. From the minute I walked in and realised that not a single Asian person even worked in this restaurant, I knew I was doomed.

The pasta, as I am going to call it because referring to what I ate as noodles would be stretching it a bit was full of some very inauthentic ingredients, I can not recall eating a single dish in China with pieces of tomato or olives in them, yet here they were. Rest assured I complained about this to dining companion Mark Lemon throughout the entire affair.

"Spring Rolls w/ Tomato Sauce"

Our entrée arrived after the main, which would not have bothered me, but what did bother me was that the dish we ordered barely resembled what I requested. I thought that it would be nearly impossible to mess up spring rolls, but lo and behold, the samosa/pastie combination which was placed on our table with a little bowl of tomato sauce left me without any amusement at all.

At the end of the meal, the only real highlight was the cherry juice they served us. It's a regular Estonian brand, but at least it tasted like I expected it to.

Final thought?

God damn I could go for a good laksa right now...