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!

The Netherlands sans Amsterdam.

Thats right everyone, you heard me. I went to The Netherlands without going to Amsterdam!

Okay so technically I went through Amsterdam, but considering one of my oldest friends is from the north, I feel it's time for a geography bomb to hit y'all!

Okay, see that map? That is The Netherlands! Now you may note that I have thus far not said Holland. Thats because Holland is actually just a part of The Netherlands. See those pastel red and pastel yellow bits? Thats Holland! Amsterdam is in there right along with The Hague and Haarlem yay! My Dutch-venture took me to the two northernmost provinces, Friesland and Groningen which as y'all can see is not Holland.

Also I chose not to go to Amsterdam this time because I thought it would be more fun to see the town where my friend Paul is from, and thus we hung out in Heerenveen. Simply no regrets at all! The countryside was beautiful, I saw a windmill from inside and out and I got to meet Paul's mum who was really lovely! Then I went to Groningen where Paul lives and stayed in his tiny ass bedroom where exciting things like video gaming, beer drinking, napping and strange 'joppe' flavoured chip eating went on. As I said multiple times throughout the weekend it felt much like a high school sleep over weekend except with more people speaking Dutch.

I was enticed by it's seductive cries of 'Limited Edition: Fabulous Taste'.

It was also the first time I had played video games for a while, so it was nice to geek out a bit. Mind, we did do a little sight seeing in Groningen as well, but it was quite small, we rode around for a bit and I delighted in not having to wear a helmet on a bicycle which felt super weird.

Other than that, I spent a lovely day in Riga doing lunch with a friend who lives in Riga and coffee afterwards with a classmate who coincidentally was also wasting time in Riga. Riga is beautiful and fairly laid back so I recommend it for everyone, including myself as I really need to see more!

A significant thing that has happened since my last blog post is that after two years, I have left the eurovision website escdaily and along with much of the team I wrote with, we have formed a new site escXtra. Due to the fact that we all agreed to split as amicably as possible I won't really go into the reasons behind the split, but I feel that this new project is a better fit and I hope I can have nearly as much fun here as I did at the old site! As we are starting from scratch we are without most of the following we once had, so if y'all want to keep up to date with Eurovision and support my "work" on the side, please help us out by 'liking' our facebook page here!

The rest of my week and a bit has been filled up with homework which is finally hitting hard. I received a book in the mail this week which contains a 351 page saga I have to read in the next two weeks, major Estonian test on Monday and an essay which was due on Wednesday that I franticly wrote on Tuesday, on the wrong topic. All this has meant the second attempt at a trip to Finland has also been cancelled so I hope to see things get done soon so I can go to Finland!

And on that note, it's only like 50 days until I head to Armenia for Junior Eurovision! Woo! My application for accreditation was sent off two days ago, so it won't be long now until I get my official press stuff sorted out and get my first real taste of what it is like to be press on the ground at a Eurovision event, albeit a smaller one. With the sudden withdrawal of San Marino today and only two songs left to hear properly, My current tip for jESC victory is last weeks holiday destination, The Netherlands! If you wish to hear some darn infectious teen pop, here's the video for you!

And now it's time for the now traditional final thought:

Puffins? Puffins!

Adventure!

This week has seen me only leave Tartumaa (my county) once, and that was when I briefly forayed into Valgamaa, which is the next county to the south west. So how does that constitute my most exciting week week so far?

Well, last weekend was a monument to laziness in which I'm pretty sure I did absolutely nothing of note, and this week was shaping up to be not much in particular until Erik's girlfriend dropped in from Germany! In convenient timing, my flatmate Mark went back to England to graduate from university so I slept in his room to give Erik a little privacy. This meant giving up my spacious mansion-room and living in a room surrounded by stuff from two people that I wasn't allowed to move at all. Thankfully I was allowed to return on Friday and it was good to be back!

Meanwhile I revived four packages in the mail this week! Two from Australia containing living essentials such as Tim Tams, Vegemite, Paprika and for a reason that I can no longer why I requested, Post-Its. The other two were from Threadless and Sharing Machine and I now have 7 new T-shirts which makes me feel good! Now I have options again! Hooray!

I made a big purchase this week of a Sony Handycam in which to take with me to Yerevan and I am now trying to find people in my dorm to talk to so I can get some practice in editing videos. So standby for a cool video introducing my fellow residents of Raatuse 22!

On the previous topic of mail, on Wednesday I received notification that my application for residency had been approved, so until July next year I am now an EU Resident and I get to pick up my Estonian ID card tomorrow morning. Pretty neat!

My biggest adventures however took place on Friday and Saturday. After speaking to my mate Indrek about his plans this weekend, I managed to snag an invite to the high ropes adventure course in Otepää in the afformentioned Valgamaa county. I rustled together a group of people to tag along and gosh darn it, we had an ADVENTURE!

Me feat. Kevin from Georgia

Overall it was a pretty awesome day! Full photos will be up on facebook soon. Friday night lead into Bloody Marys at Antoine and Ginger Tamás' apartment in which I got a migraine part way in and soldiered through with some Neurofen +. Awesome night and may I just say Neurofen plus I love you.

The next adventure took place in a two stage attack yesterday, when we took part in the Exchange Student Network's 'Do A Good Deed Day'. This led us to the Tartu animal shelter in which we got to see a heap of poor abandoned dogs. It was nice and a bit sad too. The animals all had their own little doggy houses outside but had to be chained up so they don't run away. All the dogs normally get one walk a day, but yesterday they all got a few walks and seemed very grateful for it. However, not being much of a dog person, I spent my time gardening! I removed as many reeds as I could from the pond without getting my sneakers wet and then pruned all the lower branches of the 8 or so trees surrounding. Overall I felt I didn't get as much done as I could have with some gumboots and better tools, but they seemed quite grateful nonetheless.

It rained heavily on the way back and we all got soaked to the bone, so what perfect way to get out of the wet clothes than to go swimming! Two of my German friends, Katja and Justus invited the whole dorm to go swimming with them, but surprise surprise, I was the only one foolish enough to want to go swimming while it was raining. It turned out to be awesome anyway, as there were some damn cool waterslides! I also finally enjoyed the quintessential Estonian experience of Sauna! This is in my memory my first major foray into public nudity and was much less awkward than I had expected. Although if I don't have to see another old man's né-né for at least the rest of my trip here, I will be happy.

All in all, upon returning to the dorm yesterday I finally got some long deserved sleep.

Oh and today? Just pissed about mostly.

AND NOW MY FINAL THOUGHT!

Adventuring is fun. You should always do more, and if possible shout 'ADVENTURE!' and throw your fist in the air to alert everybody nearby you are on an adventure.

The Finland trip that wasn't and the first week of classes.

So, my planned trip to Finland last weekend failed incredibly early on!

I got as far as the bus station when I discovered that they wouldn't take my credit card and only took cash. Defeated before I even began. After half-heartedly attempting to hitchhike for a few minutes I decided that these problems were more than likely to repeat themselves and packed it back home.

No regrets though as I ended up making a few friends Saturday night in Tartu, even convincing a few of them to sit at the top of the arch on the bridge and have a beer until everyone eventually wigged out. I used to be so afraid of heights, my mantra of ''Will I regret not doing this later'' has helped me overcome a lot of fears in the last year or so. So that's this weeks life lesson, if you think you'll regret doing nothing, suck it up and do it!

I also had my first classes this week! Estonian classes have highlighted how little I know about English grammar causing me to become confused right from the word go, but I've been promised some additional reading assistance by one of my American friends, so I should overcome this!

Lithuanian class is now cancelled due to the class taking place in Estonian. Why it was published on the list of classes taught in English is beyond me, but oh well! In replacement I've picked up two classes that each have half as much credit points, History of the English Language and Nordic Viking & Medieval Literature. I've yet to have the History class, but my Viking class has set me 4 poems and 10 chapters of Icelandic Saga to read before next class!

The bright side of all this timetable switching is that I know have an extremely streamlined timetable! I only have classes on two days; Monday and Wednesday. Both days classes start at 12 and run until 4 and 6 respectively. Long days but it gives me plenty of time to piss about.

As for my last two subjects; Minorities in the Media in the Baltic Sea Region is kinda dull but looks like it might pick up, and my online subject English in South East Asia and the Pacific has yet to be worked on. Should really do that soon!

But not this weekend! Tonight is the Raatuse International Food Festival where we all cook national dishes and share them on the 4th floor! I made ANZAC Biscuits that turned out pretty swell, we shall wait and see how Europeans feel though, and tomorrow I am going to Lithuania for a few days! So I shall see y'all soon with fresh tales of Vilnius adventures!

Oh, and Hungarians are this weeks Germans, with about 5 new Hungarian friends! Hooray!