I'm an idiot.
Yes, correct, I'm an idiot who forgot that shipping your desktop PC to the other side of the world is only a good idea if you insulate both outside and inside. So essentially the hard drives fell out somewhere during the flight and damaged some of the internal components of my computer, so I'm stuck borrowing my dorm mate's computers until it's fixed, which means yet another blog post without pictures. Sorry kids!
Now, on to what I've actually done! Sit around children and let me tell you a tale...
So basically I got to Tallinn last Friday on the tiniest plane I'd ever been on and was greeted at the airport by the effervescent Kristiina Veerde who greeted me with mostly inflated balloons and a bottle of beer as well as some other treasures. We were promptly whisked into the old town by an efficient bus and with the help of our Krissu, we found the hostel and I got some food and my new favourite Tallinn café 'Must Puudel' which is owned by several Estonian celebrities including Vaiko Eplik (Eurovision 2003 lead singer!). Later that night I joined my friend Fred to check out a few bars where we ran into another friend of mine Janno. In the second bar they played several Eurovision songs. It was pretty damn fun.
On Saturday we went to the re-independence day concert 'Vabaduse Laul' in the national song festival grounds where I saw a number of musical acts from the always quirky Brainstorm to the eccentric Kerli and the bizarre folk warblings of some Norwegian chick who didn't even seem to know why she was there. I saw an unfathomable amount of Estonian flags and it was an amazing experience. I also met Kristiina's Mum and Sister and her Mum bought me an Estonian-English dictionary which has already guided my culinary expedition through a few supermarkets! Aitäh Mrs Veerde!
With Sunday just for relaxing, I arrived in Tartu on Monday around midday. After a quick tour and a run to the shops with Krissu, she headed home to Rapla and I began to settle in. I met my room mate fairly soon after that; Erik Müller, a German medical student doing his placement at the university hospital. Sharing is not nearly as hard as I thought it would be! The room has plenty of space and we're both respectful and pretty easy going. We hung out at a local pub on Monday and that was the end of that.
Tuesday through Friday have blurred together a little bit in a whirr of drinking, orientation, making new friends and meeting new dorm mates including Mark from Chippenham, England, another German called Ferdinand and a Frenchman called Alexander. However there is still one spot free, so who knows who will show up!
Friday was the international student pub crawl, which ended as messily as you would expect, however on the plus side I made a whole swag of friends. There should be photos of this. I shall at this point take a moment to point out how damn cheap beer is in this country. Dayum.
Saturday was hangover recovery, not much to see here aside from the mysterious Kangaroo meat dumplings I found in the supermarket next door, moderately delicious!
So that leaves us with today when along with 14 others I boarded a bus to the adorably named Kauksi to enjoy the last weekend of summer in Europe's 4th biggest lake, Lake *Peipsi! With the lake being so huge, there were waves just like you would get in the ocean, except with fresh water. I met a whole lot of new people, swam, sunbathed (note I didn't say tan, I still don't tan), and walked a heap. On paper it's not so exciting but I assure you it was, again photos to come.
So thats it for now! Stay tuned for my next blog where I discuss my first week of classes and a probable visit to Finland next weekend! That's right bitches, I'm going to Finland.
Oh and final point; damn this country has some attractive people. Like seriously dayum!
*apparently this is called something else in English, but this is what everyone here calls it.
Peipus in English, my dear.
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