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.

I can get you anything, but no prostitutes.

Well another fantastic week has gone by jam packed with adventures and hangovers, so sit tight kids while I drop these truth words in your faces!

Last weekend saw a delightful jaunt down the road to Vilnius, Lithuania where we saw a bunch of churches, walked around some tiny adorable cobbled streets, saw a shit ton of basketball related stuff and Lithuanian flags, and had some drinks. Vilnius is a beautiful city and really is a gem of a hectic little city!

Lithuanian flag shots, which we of course drank.

I suppose the biggest thing I noticed about Lithuania was that despite being only 500km down the road from Tartu, It was a very different place indeed. Aside from the superficial difference that the style of architecture was very different, it just seemed culturally very different. The constant presence of churches was very different to Estonia's predominate religious indifference and the people in Lithuania seemed much more open and friendly. You could also tell that Estonia was a much wealthier place. However there were some similarities, the soviet occupation obviously left its mark and there were a few things scattered around that gave Lithuania the feel of being in a gang with Latvia and Estonia in their fight for independence.

The 'Stebuklas' Tile, the point where the chain of people singing for freedom from the USSR that stretched from Tallinn, through Riga and finally finishing there in Vilnius.

Overall, I would highly recommend anyone who is in the area to jump on a cheap flight to Vilnius and check it out!

Horace was there too of course!

However a few days have passed since I returned! Pray tell, what have I done since then!?

Monday was Karaoke at the Gun Powder Cellar, which was awesome. I again proceeded to get drunk on beer that cost me €2.50 for a litre and then get up and belt out a Vanilla Ninja classic, Club Kung-Fu! The international students were confused, but the Estonians in the room loved it!

Tuesday was tea and biscuits with my tutor group on the fourth floor where I met one of the formerly missing members of our group, the sassy Ruta from Lithuania who missed the start of term due to commitments dealing blackjack in Nevada, which just further highlights the kind of interesting people you meet in the dorm!

Wednesday was the first of my famed Eurovision parties to take place in the Northern Hemisphere, and despite some cynical moments with some Europeans who suspected it was all some sort of elaborate hoax, the party was an overwhelming success! My neighbour Jürgen who I had at that point not met showed up and helped me and my friend Emilia drink a bottle of vodka and everyone was merry until Thursday morning when Emilia and I felt like death and like a true Estonian, Jürgen was fine (bastard).

The Eurovision party also confirmed something I've come to call the 'Algo Pequiñito' theory. Which is basically that at any Eurovision party where 2010 is shown, the first time Daniel Diges performs people will be underwhelmed and not really care, but come the second performance everyone is drunk, will sway and sing along as best they can. Awesome!

Finally yesterday was the ''Buddy party'' where students in the exchange network here got assigned to other people for some sort of reason! I'm not entirely sure what the point is, but it was a good excuse to meet some new people. I'm in a group of three, one of which I already knew and the other was Sandra, the president of ESN! Now I'm really making contacts!

Speaking of contacts, I feel that I should really explain the title of this blog post!

On the bus back from Lithuania I happened to sit near the Director of the student theatre here in Tartu who was very drunk. I heard a multitude of ''interesting'' stories from him including his failed attempt to defect to Sweden during the cold war, the night he got drunk with some random people in Canada and his current work with Russian avant-garde theatre performed in Estonian and how I should come see. However the real highlight was at the end of the night when he gave me his card complete with hilarious headshot and told me that ''He had many connections in Tartu and could get me anything, except prostitutes''. At that point it was revealed that almost the entire back half of the bus had been listening as everyone burst out laughing as I confessed that I felt that I would be alright. However it didn't stop there, he then confessed to knowing some prostitutes and then expressed his approval with Filipino women.

Well thats all for this week, with one final thought:

I feel that this week has seen the students from France shine through the most. All of them are absolutely lovely and man, they were sure in fine form last night! Jacques was salsa dancing to electro music with a lovely lass from Poland, Emeline was strutting around slappin' booty and Antoine was flirting up a storm with any object that came into his path whether it be human or inanimate. Go you Frenchies, y'all are good people!

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!

Liam Clark is now friends with GOD DAMN EVERYONE

It's been widely commented on among those who remain in Australia that I have added 'a lot of people with foreign names' this week and that is probably the best way of explaining what I did this week.

In absence of classes, as all mine seem to start next week and with a broken computer all week, I've had little else to do but socialise! There was the Rector's welcome and an epic tea party on Tuesday leading in to a International/Local meet and greet (w/ trivia) on Wednesday. Thursday was the Exchange program's official welcome party and this doesn't even describe all the lunching, random drop ins or ceramic fox making that has been going on as well!

Chez Bianca for a spot of tea

So as a natural result of all this partying, partying (yeah!) is that my facebook has exploded with a record influx, a massive 41 friends! Interested in the breakdown, see below!

11 Germans

5 Estonians

4 Americans

3 Latvians

2 Finns & Czechs

1 Georgian, French, Hong Kong, Azerbaijani, Slovakian, Mexican, Belgian, Polish, Croatian, South Korean, Lithuanian, Dutch, Hungarian and Briton.

However, I'm probably going to a party tonight, so this is more than likely to change!

So to everyone I've met this week, whether I've got you on facebook yet or not, thanks for making this week rad!

This is how I feel this week.

Aussie now actually in Eesti!

So I have finally arrived! Well, I've actually been here for a little over a week now. But why no blog updates until now you ask? Well the answer is quite simple!

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.

United Kingdom Super Kawaii Road Trip Desu (Part II)

When we last left you, our brave heroes (Me and Dave) were bravely going where millions of people have gone before (Down a highway from Northern England to Southern England). Lets find out what happened next!

Location: Nottingham
People Met: Georgie, Lorna & Scott
What I Did: *Saw some deer in a park
* Hung out with some of Dave's friends
* Watched Britain & Ireland's Next Top Model (Imogen for the win!)
* Took a nap at Nottingham Uni
* Saw the Robin Hood Statue
* Made fun of UK with Scott from Auckland
* Went to a sweet petting zoo and saw so many goats and ducks, nearly died from cuteness.

Location: Leicester
People Met: Random football fans from Bristol
What I did: * Watched the glorious Bristol City defeat the lame Leicester in Football
* Had lunch at some shitty supermarket place (Morrison's perhaps?)

Location: London
People Met: Will Kerr-Muir & Luke Fisher
What I did: * Lay about with a migraine
* Eat a sandwich
* Catch up with friends; old and new
* Was unable to get access to the queen's tut.

Most memorable moment for each place

Manchester: Being greeted by David Rawlings with a Slovenian flag after a 24 hour flight and jumping straight into the car to go to Scotland.

Glasgow: Being confronted with the owner of a B&B who had a massive love of Australian Culture (well, for Kevin 'Bloody' Wilson at least) and wholeheartedly failing to understand most of what he was trying to say.

York: Discovering that Ryan Forster has developed a hilarious slight Northern English accent. Also meeting fellow ESCDaily.com editor Nathan Waddell for a delicious lunch and a hilarious trip through the Jorvik viking museum.

Nottingham: Definitely the petting zoo. Anyone who hangs out with me at uni knows how I feel about ducks. There were hundreds and I got to feed them. <3 <3 <3

Leicester: Bristol City fans chanting "I wanna go home, I wanna go home, Leicester's a shithole, I wanna go home" followed by Dave's comment: "It's funny 'cause it's true".

London: Lively Eurovision discussion with another fellow ESCDaily.com Editor, Luke Fisher and ending the best roadtrip I've ever been on!

Special thanks of course go to David Rawlings for driving me the several hundred km's around the UK and more importantly for being one of my best friends. Love you David!

Thats it! I'm in Tallinn now and you'll get a full report of my first weekend in my new homeland once I'm settled in to my dorm in Tartu!

Head aega!

Goodbye Australia, Hello United Kingdom!

Greetings from the motherland! Lots of stuff has happened since I left Australia so this post will be a little more summary-esque than deep and meaningful, but considering I've moved to the otherside of the world, that's probably a good thing, so lets get into it.

Location: Coburg, Australia

Staying with: Chris, Jeremy, Ben & Kiera

What I did: Epic going away, super hangover and just hanging out with friends.

Reflection: Was lovely to hang out with close friends before leaving the country for the year!

Location: Melbourne -> Dubai -> Manchester

Staying with: Emirates Airlines

What I did: * Watched 4 movies (My Best Friend's Wedding, Beauty and the Beast, Paul & Hercules) C4 episodes of TV (Glee, How I Met Your Mother, We Can Be Heroes & IT Crowd)

* Flew over 15 countries in 25 hours

* Met four interesting people who I sat near (Mara from Melbourne, Craig from Cambridge, Lynlee a Mezzo-Soprano opera singer slash music teacher at Eltham High School and Fatima a Zairian woman who lives in Manchester who was returning from her pilgramage to Mecca)

* Drank 4 bottles of San Pellegrino

Reflection: I could barely remember my life before getting on the plane as we descended into Manchester

Location: Glasgow, Scotland

People Met: Chris O'Brien, Adam Scott, Andrew Leitch

What I did: *Met Dave at the airport and we drove to Glasgow

* Visited Hadrian's Wall (Wall from thousands of years ago that used to extend across the England/Scotland border)

* Failed to understand most Scottish accents or pronounce place names

* Jet Lag

* Discovered that I forgot to get my PIN set up for my visa.

* Crashed with Chris & Andrew

Location: York, England

People Met: Lyndsey & Ian Megarry, Ryan Forster, Nathan Waddell

What I did: *Played an extensive game of Snog, Marry, Avoid on the way back down from Scotland.

* Visited the gorgeous city of York.

* Discovered the major similarities in housing in the UK.

* Went to the Jorvik Viking Museum (Hilarious feat. Lame)

* Drove to Nottingham

Thats pretty much it for now! I'm in Nottingham for a few days now and then off to London on Wednesday finally arriving in Tallinn on Friday, so stay tuned for pictures and further reflection later!