We'll Meet Again

Oh boy, so many emotions to deal with now. I'm currently sitting in my room waiting for the house lady to come and check my room, the kitchen and bathroom to check if they are clean.

I haven't had any classes for about three weeks, so I haven't really been doing much other than a few picnics with friends. Two weeks ago I had my oral exam for my history class, which was both fun and scary. Basically I had to come up with a central argument based off of three movies we had watched and six articles we had read. I chose the argument "When analyzing history, the distinction between victims and perpetrators can often become blurred. While this lack of clear right and wrong is often shown in movies, even people who collaborate on the basis of survival are almost always still criticized and have to show some act of redemption". Cheery, right? I then outlined an argument like I would have done in an essay but left out the “meat” because he was going to ask me questinons. I was really nervous about it at first, but after I got the hang of talking face to face with him, it was easier. We disagreed on a few points, but I don’t feel as if that impacted my grade. I think I lost points mostly for answers to questions that I feel I knew the answer to but did not answer in confident way. Overall it went well and I got an 88%.

I can’t lie, I really have not done much after the exam. Before Laura left, we went to Werner and got some last minute souvenirs but that was somewhere around two weeks ago. A large amount of my time was spent skyping with my parents so I could watch the Spurs play in the NBA playoffs.

Yesterday I ventured outside to go to the mall to get some panty house for my dress that I'm planning on wearing when we see If/Then. Yes, if you know me well you know that I show my bare legs rarely. I then grabbed some lunch from one of my favorite places in the city center before I headed to Werner (or what I dubbed "The Cake Place"). They have some boxes of chocolates that are very pretty so I picked up some boxes for last minute gifts.

Once I got back I proceeded to clean the entire apartment top to bottom. I'm not sure how strict she is going to be, so I cleaned everything in sight. My new suite mates bought an oven, which we aren't allowed to have according to our contracts. I warned them yesterday they should put it in their room today since the house lady was coming over, but they either didn't understand me/didn't care and the oven is still there. Oh well, if it gets taken away it's not my fault!

I'm listening to Vera Lynn's "We'll Meet Again" over and over to make myself feel a little better. On one hand, I'm so ready just to be home and in the United States. On the other hand, I'm really going to miss Estonia and the friends I've made here. It's pretty incredible to me I knew so little about this country and city before I came here and now I have to deal with the sadness of realizing I probably won't be able to come back for around ten years. This place that was once to foreign to me now has a very special place in my heart.

Once I get my room checked, I need to go print out my bus ticket and our tickets for If/Then. Words cannot express how excited I am to see Lia and explore New York. We are planning on going to the Met on Friday before we see the Lion King.

One thing we really have to in New York is go to the giant NBA store that happens to be just around the corner of our hotel. My Spurs are NBA champions once again! Father's Day was on Sunday but I wanted to get my dad something with the Spurs on it for his present.

So this is where my study abroad journey ends. Tomorrow my bus leaves for the airport at 7am and my plane takes off at half past noon. I’m so grateful I had the chance to live in another country for so long and learn so much about Estonian culture. It really is such a beautiful country and I will never forget my time here.

Estonian Wedding

I have no excuse for this post taking so long other than me being lazy.

The trip started off in a very interesting way. We were scheduled to leave at 6:30 am, so I set my alarm for 5:30 am. When I woke up however and looked at my clock, I saw it was already about 6:50. I figured there was absolutely no way the bus was still there and didn't bother getting out of bed. I did write a Facebook status about losing 90 euros. After messaging with my mom for a few minutes, I got a message from my friend Valeria the bus was still waiting for me and I had to be down in five minutes. I threw on some clothes, brushed my teeth and hair and grabbed my already packed bag. Once I got on the bus, it was already about 7:15. I felt really bad they had waited for me so long, but we were meeting a bus with students from Tallinn at a certain time, so it just mattered we got to the ferry station on time.

We drove to the Virtsu harbor and took some pictures by the water before we got on the ferry. It was a short ferry trip, about half an hour, before we got to the island of Saaremaa. We then drove to Karja church, where we had a picnic of sandwiches and apples. The weather was really nice, so it was very comfortable to eat sitting on the grass.

We then drove to Angla windmills and took some pictures before driving to Panga cliffs. The cliffs are just gorgeous and the view of the water was beautiful. It was there Federico (a Tartu student who was playing the role of the groom) “proposed” to Valeria. Of course she said yes. We then all selected roles for the wedding that were written on name tags. There were roles from everything from local party girl to long lost relative of the bride. I had the role of local town joker along with another girl. We walked down the cliffs to go to the water when an actual wedding party was trying to drive down the rode and we had to find the bus driver so the bus could be moved! After wading in the water for a bit, we spent about a half hour at Odalätsi springs.

We then drove to our first accommodation, Loode Farmhouse. If you saw the pictures, it was a very beautiful, large area of land with several different cabins for us to stay in. After being assigned cabins and unpacking, we enjoyed a nice dinner in a large tent while the owner played some violin and taught a few dances.

Then the bachelor and bachelorette (or hen’s night) parties began. Once we were separated from the guys, we started our first activity. The ESN girl from Tallinn was playing Valeria’s mother. We had to tell her about Valeria’s past boyfriends and what was wrong with them and she wrote them down. Valeria then had to burn the paper and a symbol of her letting go of her past. We then made wedding dresses out of paper towels and toilet paper. A boy was brought over to pick a winner and our group won!

We then went over to where the guys were and watched them complete some of their games. After they finished, we could use the saunas or just relax in our rooms.

The next morning after breakfast, we headed to the wedding. First though, we stopped at Viidumäe nature preserve where their is a viewing platform. It looked really sketchy though, so I just watched people climb up until a bee stung me and I went back to the bus.

We then drove to the town Kuressaare, where we had lunch and could explore the castle grounds a little before the wedding started. Before the wedding started, we were organized on bride and groom’s side (people with local roles were just mixed in) and then the wedding started. Valeria, Federico, the groom’s mother and father, the bride’s father and mother, the bride’s brother and the priest were all dressed in traditional wedding clothes. The two were “married” and we sang a song before we went back to the bus. It started raining immediately once we got to the bus.

While we were driving to the next accommodation, where we would be spending the night and having the wedding party, we were stopped by two men in traditional estonian clothing. It's a tradition to be stopped on the way from the wedding to the party. We got off the bus and we were told the bride and groom have to complete a task each time they are stopped. This first stop required Valeria to clean three fish and Federico had to nail some nails into a block of wood. It was starting to rain again, so they had to rush so we wouldn’t get soaked.

We got back on the bus but didn’t drive far before we were stopped by the two men again. This time Valeria had to change a diaper on a doll and Federico had to peel a potato. It started really pouring then! I managed to get under someone's umbrella and others ran back onto the bus. After the couple finished their tasks, a gift was given to the two men.

We then drove to Tehumardi Recreation Centre where we were again assigned cabins. Once we freshened up, we walked over to the firehouse which is a large dining hall with a very pretty fireplace in the middle. Once we had finished eating, some more roles were given out to different guests. One guy had to yell out “cuckoo” like a clock every half hour, a girl had to kiss as many people on the cheek as she could with her red lipstick and someone had to give a toast every time it got quiet. The role of bodyguard was also given out to protect the bride from being kidnapped during the night! We learned some traditional dances, played some games, and sang some songs.

At one point, the bride was kidnapped! One of the men who had stopped us while driving earlier helped the groom arrange for his bride’s ransom. It was really funny to hear him on the speakerphone trying to make a deal, especially since the kidnapper was the bride’s “brother”. Eventually they made a deal of ten euros of vodka. The groom couldn’t get ten euros out of the guests, mostly because none of us had our wallets on us, but the kidnapper was satisfied with about five euros and vodka. However, Federico decided to play a joke on the kidnapper and filled an empty bottle with water. We watched from the window of the hall while the exchange took place and we got our bride back!

After a little dancing, I headed back to the cabin and fell asleep immediately. The next morning, Elisabeth, Laura and I walked over to the beach. We may or may not have walked on private property to get there, it was really hard to tell and we only realized we may be doing it on the way back.

After breakfast, we saw the Kaali Meteorite Crater and then an outdoor museum of a traditional Estonian fishing village. After a lunch and more singing, we drove to a place that had some very beautiful Estonian horses. Valeria and Federico completed some last wedding traditions, such as carrying her from the horse drawn carriage to the house. We all got a turn riding in a carriage before we had to drive back to the ferry station.

If you have seen the pictures, you can see it was a very fun and beautiful trip.

Now all I have left for my studies here is one oral exam tomorrow. Then I leave to visit Lia in New Jersey next Thursday. We are both really excited to see each other and get to see the Lion King and If/Then. I’ve loved it here, but I miss my home, Charleston and my friends so much!

Tallinn Weekend Trip

I've been wanting to go to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, for a while. I certainly couldn't leave Estonia without going, so Laura and I decided to take a quick trip last weekend. It's a short bus ride, about two hours, so we didn't feel as if we needed a long weekend to spend there.

We left around 7am and got to Tallinn around 9:30am. At this point, Laura and I remembered neither of us had a map. Laura has an iPhone but didn't have service, so we just started heading in the general direction of a church steeple I could see and remembered from a documentary about Tallinn. We probably took a little of a long way there, but we got to the Old Town in about half an hour. One of the first things we saw, and I had been looking forward to seeing, was the War of Independence Freedom column in Freedom Square. It is a memorial for the men who died in the War of Independence to gain Estonia it’s freedom from Soviet in the 1918s -1920s. A flower wreath had been left by Prince Harry the day before, who had been in Estonia for the first time the day before.

We then started to explore old town a little. We went into St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral which was built when Estonia was still a part of Imperial Russia. It was kind of funny going into the cathedral practically right after getting back from Russia. We also saw the Estonian Parliament building. We also saw a Tex Mex restaurant that had large Texas and American flags in front of it, but for the life of us we could never find that restaurant again. Old Town streets tend to look the same and it’s pretty easy to just end up going in circles. We grabbed some food and then walked around some more, exploring a few of the small markets, which were underwhelming. We sat by the small pond for a while to relax until we decided to go check into the hostel (it was called a hotel but was pretty obviously a hostel).

I booked the hostel, so I feel the need to defend it. I would also like to mention we planned this trip pretty late so there wasn’t really anything else available. First off, it wasn’t really that far away from Old Town, but we took a long way around Old Town and this made it seem farther. The room was comically small, but it was only for one night. At least it was clean and the doors locked, that’s all I really ask for in a hostel I stay in for one night. The area wasn’t the best, I admit. There was this music school next to us that looked like something from the Addams Family.

After watching Captain America on my computer, we decided to walk to a close by Mexican restaurant that had decent reviews and was cheap. The food was pretty good. It certainly wasn’t Mexican food but it was close enough. My margarita was… intersting. I haven’t had tequila very often since I prefer virgin margaritas but I’m still not 100% it was tequila in my margarita. It was also the worlds smallest margarita. It was on the rocks and barely filled up half the glass. That’s what I get for ordering an Estonian margarita.

The next morning, Laura wanted to start off the day by going to the harbor. We walked to the water and took some pictures by the dock. Then we headed to Hotel Viru to go to the KGB museum. I was beyond excited to go, Laura was less so but was willing to go because I wanted to. The museum is guided tour and when we got there at 11 am we found out a tour started in half an hour. After a quick coffee, we started our tour with about fifteen people. Our tour guide was the best. He was very animated and articulate, and he made the tour perfect. He first gave us a history of the hotel and how the floor we were on, the 23, officially didn’t exist during the Soviet Union. He explained the hotel was completely bugged during the Soviet Union, but people came because it was the a good place to exchange money and get some desserts you might not be able to get other places. We also got to see some really cool rooms with memorabilia, such as phones, listening devices and cameras. It was a really incredible tour. Part of the point of coming to Estonia for me was to be able to go to KGB museums like this where I would get an inside look into the Soviet Union. If you are in Tallinn, I would say this is something you have to do. Laura wasn’t really excited to go but she was just as blown away as I was by the end.

We were pretty close to Old Town, so we headed over to one of the well known medieval restaurants to grab a quick beer. We were a little hot after walking, so we decided to sit inside, which is only lit by candles. We split a dark honey beer and relaxed for a little while before we explored again. We went in a few shops, Laura bought a few gifts, and then we went to honestly the worlds worst museum. In the museums defense, a door was apparently locked that meant we couldn’t go into this one tower. However, even if we would have gone into the tower the tour would have still sucked. There was a room with some small bottles. Honestly, that was it. What a waste of a euro.

After walking around a little more and getting lunch, we decided to go back to the bus station early. We had a ticket to leave at 8pm, but we were tired and didn’t feel like walking around to see anything else.

I really enjoyed Tallinn overall. It was fun to see such a beautiful Old Town and just take a break from class work, that has been pretty overwhelming recently. However, I only have two more tests and two more papers to get done! Then New Jersey/New York and back home!

Bucket List

I don’t even really know what to say about possibly the best five days of my life. Russia has been a dream forever and now I’ve actually been there. It still doesn’t feel real.

Our trip was planned to start off at 5:30 am on Thursday. I got up at 4:30 and I’m not going to lie, I briefly considered just sleeping and not going. Okay, I wasn’t really going to do that, but 4:30 is too early for people to wake up. I had completely packed the night before, so all I had to do was grab my bags and walk out the door and onto the bus. We had two guides, Svetlana (who works for the travel agency) and Misha (he works for University of Tartu). We headed to Narva, a border city of Estonia, by about 5:45. I slept the entire way and then we had to start the process of border checks. From what I remember, we didn’t have to get out of the bus in Narva. The border officers took our passports inside the office and stamped them, then checked them again on the bus. Once we crossed into Russia, we had to get off the bus and go through the border check individually. He looked over my passport quickly and stamped it. It took about half an hour for everyone to be checked and then we were headed to the town of Pushkin (or Tsar's’ village) for our first stop. Again, I slept mostly the entire way, which is pretty good because my Iphone is completely dead.

We waited about twenty minutes for our guide to see the museum inside the former Imperial Lyceum, the former school for noble boys. During our tour we had to wear booties, something I don’t think I’ve ever had to do in a museum before. Our tour was short, about forty minutes, but the name Alexander Pushkin was said about a million times (This may be an exaggeration). Did you know Alexander Pushkin is the greatest Russian poet? I do, because i was told this a million times (This may be an exaggeration). Pushkin went to school there from ages twelve through eighteen and wrote on of his earliest famous poems. The tour consisted of seeing the classrooms, the dorms and some of his report cards.

The school is right next to Catherine’s Palace, which took my breath away. With its white and blue accents and golden domes, the palace is very Russian. Our group was split into two groups of about thirty. We had earpieces and the guide spoke into a mic for this tour. We had this kind of thing on my Europe trip, but this time they actually worked. The guide explained what the rooms were used for, who lived in the palace, and what parts of the palace were restored after being partially destroyed during the war. It was during this part of the trip I realized how many people in our group didn’t really know how to behave in a museum. Someone actually reached out and touched the gold leafing on the wall during the tour and the guide had to tell her not to touch anything. I was horrified. I remember being very little and my dad taking my sister and I to an art museum we went to often. One of the museum workers told my dad he had to hold my hand because I was so young and might touch something. I remember my dad being mad because he knew I was old enough to behave in a museum, even though I couldn’t have been older than six. I’m honestly confused how people can get to this age without knowing not to touch something in a museum. During the tour, we saw the Amber room, the most famous room in the palace. I loved the fact the floors and some of the furniture were inlaid wood, which I think is gorgeous. The palace was a great place to start off our trip. After the tour, we had about a half hour to walk around and look at the gardens.

We then headed to St. Petersburg. On the way there, about forty minutes, our tour guide for St. Petersburg explained the history of the city and Russia in general. People were sleeping, which was fine and totally understandable, but also talking pretty loudly, which was incredible rude. Here’s a quick tip folks: just because someone doesn’t speak your language, they can still hear you talking. There seems to be a lot of confusion about this in class, where people seem to feel free to blab on for the entire class. We got to St. Petersburg and did not face as much traffic as most of us anticipated. Misha had told us the drive from the start of the street to the hostel, about three miles, had taken them over an hour before. We got pretty lucky it only took about fifteen minutes. Stepping off the bus was a sensory overload. I think I forgot how calm and uncrowded Tartu is because the sudden noise of traffic was overwhelming at first. Just walking through the crowds to get to our hostel was making me feel a little stressed. Once we divided up in groups and picked rooms, we quickly put our things in our room and headed out. Another exchange student at Tartu is from St. Petersburg, so she drove to the city and walked around the town with us. It was on that walk we saw the Church of Spilled Blood, something on my bucket list. We walked to the river and took some really nice pictures with the sunset. Then we grabbed a quick dinner, where I was already falling asleep at the table. St. Petersburg is famous for the bridges that open for passing boats, but this happens at about 1 am, and I was just too tired and cranky to stay up for another four/five hours. I headed back to the hostel with some people from our dinner group and we walked back quickly because we all just wanted to get into bed and fall asleep. I read for a few minutes until the other girls got back and then proceed to pass out the minute my head hit the table.

We were supposed to wake up at 7:45 but when the alarm woke us up at 7:45, we realized our mistake. We had forgotten when Egle set the alarm that we needed to adjust the clock to Moscow time (an hour ahead of Tartu). So it was actually 8:45, fifteen minutes before we were supposed to check out, leave our bags in the storage room, and meet in the lobby with the group to go to breakfast. I immediately went into high school mode (when I would really give myself about twenty minutes to get ready) and got ready as fast as I could. I managed to get ready in less than ten minutes.

We headed to the cafe where we had a planned menu breakfast. We had this rice milk porridge thing (which I enjoyed since I usually feel nauseous in the morning and it settled my stomach) and some pancakes. Our bus was stuck in traffic, so we browsed in a bookstore until it was able to get to us. We then took a really nice bus tour through the city. This time, the guide told people they couldn’t talk when she was talking. I saw some people rolling their eyes and snickering, but I was happy she had stood up to them. I wanted to hear what she was saying about all the incredible places we were driving by. We occasionally got out to take pictures, once at the Church of Spilled Blood (which was beautiful), and then at the river. We got out for longer when we went inside St. Isaac’s cathedral and walked in the park to see the Peter the Great monument.

After a lunch at the same cafe we went to breakfast at, we drove to the Hermitage art museum or the Winter palace. Again, we were split into two groups for the tour. We were told we didn’t have to stay with the tour guide or we could go with the guide and then explore after. I chose to stay with the guide because the hermitage is huge and I knew she would take us to the most important pieces of art. My Louvre experience involved wandering around for an hour just trying to find one piece of art, so I didn’t really want to repeat that experience. The rooms were really stunning and we saw beautiful art of all kinds. The guide explained which rooms had been restored and what they had been used for when the imperial family lived in the palace.  At one point me and another student quietly hummed, in a loud room, Once Upon a December from Anastasia because one of the rooms reminded us of the movie. Again, people were touching things. One guy actually scraped the chair in the room, for the museum worker, across the floor so he could take a picture sitting in it. Other people in our group laughed like it was a funny joke, but to me it was just embarrassing. People also felt free to sit in the chair that would be in the room for the museum worker. This wasn’t as bad as touching walls or scraping the floor, but still…

After the tour we had about two hours to explore the city before we had to meet at our hostel. We got a coffee with the Tartu student from St. Petersburg and then went to the Starbucks to get some really cute thromuses that look like nesting dolls. I wanted to get my dad a mug with St. Petersburg since he collects them, but they were out.

We had to be at the hostel by 9:00 pm but we got there early, so we went to the small market next door to get food and drinks for the night train. Me and another girl finished before the others, so we walked back first. A drunk guy was following us and there was a small dark alley we had to walk through, so I ran and the other girl did the same. We made into the hostel, but the guy followed us. We sat down because we had turned in our keys in the morning and had no where to go. He stared at us and tried to talk, but I think he was too drunk to talk in English. I told the girl we should get our bags from the storage room and we got up to get them. I think he thought we were going to our rooms, so he left. People were late of course, so we didn’t end up leaving for the train station until about 9:25. It wasn’t that big of a deal though because the train station was about two minutes from our hostel. 

We got on the train almost immediately. I took a night train from Paris to Florence before, but we had enclosed rooms with six beds. This time, there were no closed rooms it was just an open car. There were sort of rooms of four beds each, but there were no doors, and then on the side of the car there were beds on the bottom and top. We had almost an entire car to our group except for six beds. Our tour guide asked the passengers if they would be willing to switch and they did, as far as I know. I had one of the sort of rooms with three other people. While we talked, I verified with Svetlana the proper pronunciation of my favorite gymnast's, Aliya Mustafina, last name. Ryszard helped us make our beds and I went to bed pretty quickly. The bathrooms were disgusting, as they usually are, so I just slept in my clothes. I was awoken at about 5:45 am by the Russian car attendant yelling in my faceNo, not terrifying at all. She startled all of us and Ryszard told us she was saying the bathroom was going to be closed in forty minutes because we were close to Moscow. I changed my top and threw on some quick makeup. It took about another hour to get Moscow, so I got a little more sleep while I could.

We arrived in Moscow and got on the bus with our tour guide. We drove to the place where we were having breakfast, we had another bus tour. We saw Sparrow Hills, the Moscow State University, Victory park and triumphal Arch in Kutuzovsky prospekt, and Russian Government buildings. We then got off the bus to see the Kremlin to see the Cathedral Square, Ivan the Great Bell Tower, Senate building, Tsar Bell, and Tsar Cannon. No tour guides were allowed inside so we were on our own. We got to the square just as the military parade was starting in the Cathedral Square. It was really neat with all sorts of marching and horses. There are videos on youtube if you want to watch, I think it’s worth the time. We only had about an hour at the Kremlin and the parade took about twenty minutes. We couldn’t go into the cathedrals during the parade but once it ended, we saw them as quickly as possible.

We arrived at the hotel at about 1:30pm but there were some issues with checking in. I’m not sure if we were early or if they were trying to move us around so all our rooms were on one floor, but we still weren't checked in by 2:15. Lunch was already paid for at the buffet but we couldn’t go until we had a room key, so Svetlana had them give her a key and they let us get lunch. While we were in line for the buffet, a group of giggly teenagers (about 14-16) tried to cut into the line. At this point we were all hungry and tired, so this was not going to fly. They tried to butter up one girl in line and distract her so they could sneak into the line, but we all squeezed together in line so there were no gaps. Teenagers are annoying in every country.

After lunch, we received our room keys. After resting for about an hour, me and two others headed out to explore a little. We took the metro to the park near the Red Square to have dinner. There is a mall under the park, so there were quite a few fast food places. It was already getting dark and we were tired, so we went back to the hotel.

We had to be in the lobby by 10am, but there was another paid breakfast at 9am if we wanted to eat. I got up at about 8am and watched some BBC and CNN news while I got ready. After eating, our bus tour started again. We drove to the Cathedral of the Christ the Saviour (which some girls couldn’t go into because of their short skirts) and the Red Square. Seeing the St. Basil's Cathedral is something that is on my bucket list and I still can’t believe I’ve seen it. The Red Square was decorated for victory day. We had about an hour, so we took pictures and picked up some souvenirs. We got back on the bus and saw some more sites. We had about an hour of free time on Old Arbat street to grab lunch and look around. I walked to the Starbucks to get my dad another Moscow cup, as I had broken the other one I had gotten him the day before when I threw my bag down on the ground. After lunch, we went to the grocery store to get food for the night train. I had gotten some food on Arbat street but I still needed a few small things. We had a half hour but I was done within ten minutes, so I got back on the bus and waited for the others to finish. I was looking out the window when I noticed a group of drunk people about fifty feet away from the bus in the small park. At first a small fight broke out after two guys started to fight and other girl started to fight one of the guys. I wouldn’t really say it was fighting, since everyone was so drunk they could hardly stand. I thought it was over but then I saw the girl kick the guy (who had sat on a bench) and hit him in the face. She then sat down next to him and he, very calmly, proceeded to hit her face against the bench and flip her over the bench. No one else in the park even flinched but the few people on the bus were horrified.

After that experience, we headed to the train station. This time, we were in two groups of about thirty in two different cars, so this time there were strangers were with us. The train was set up as the other. There was a Russian man sitting in the bed in the next section over and he kept trying to talk to us. Ryszard was the only one of us he was talking to that could speak Russian, so he kept having to translate. The man was sort of drunk but not overtly, he was just very talkative. Ryszard told us he would tell the man to not talk to us if we felt uncomfortable but he wasn’t really being harmful, just kind of annoying. Right before he got off the train, he told Ryszard he worked for a Russians spy company, so we had a laugh at that obvious lie. Ryszard made our beds for us again, and I was asleep by midnight. Morning came too soon, but at least this time the bathroom was less horrible. After getting ready, we got off the train and where in Pskov to visit the university. The EU students on the trip were able to get free visas because we were visiting the university. After a short presentation about the university, we were split into groups and walked around the city. We had three hours, which was a lot for a place so small. We walked around the town and visited the kremlin there. There is a really nice lake near by and the weather was wonderful to walk around in. We met back at the bus at 1 and went to the grocery store again to get food for the bus ride back to Tartu.

This bus ride was very short compared to the ride to Russia. It took about an hour and a half to get the border. We went through the border check but this time there was slight problem. The woman looked at my passport for a long time and kept looking back at me. She said something to me in Russian, pointing to my passport, but I had no idea what she was saying. I pointed to my hair and asked if I should take it down (my hair in the picture is down) but she spoke as much English as I do Russian. Luckily, Ryszard was behind me in line so I called him over to translate. He said she wanted to see another ID. The first ID I had in the front of my wallet was my military ID, but I figured that might not be the best ID to show. I gave her my drivers license and I guess that pleased her. We then had to go through the border check in Estonia but that took a lot less time. It was about a two hour ride back to Tartu. Of course when we got to our dorm, the elevator was broken. I live on the sixth floor, so this was not the best news. Once I got to my room I started to post pictures and skyped with my mom. I was tired and wanted to sleep, but it was only 7pm and I didn’t want to go to bed really early and then wake up at 5am the next morning. I think I’m still exhausted!

It was a really incredible trip and I hope to be able to go back to St. Petersburg with my mom, who has always wanted to go. There were a lot of things I didn’t have the chance to see, the most important being Alexander’s palace. It was the favorite palace of the last Tsar and where the Romanov’s were living when they were arrested. It was too far to go to, so hopefully when I get a chance to go back I can see it.

And if anyone is wondering, I watched Anastasia last night :)

Not Terribly Exciting News but Mostly Good News

So as the title suggest, nothing terribly exciting has happened these past few weeks. It's really been about focusing on schoolwork and trying to get as much work done as possible. However, this post is basically being written to avoid reading a thirty page article.

I finished my paper comparing media in Italy and United States for my media class and I really hope it's what she wanted because she gave practically no directions. My friend, Babette, and I read each others papers and they seemed to be pretty similar format wise, so hopefully we did what she wanted. We also both present on Tuesday and we also have no idea what she wants from our presentations. But if you give no directions for something, you can't be too picky, right?

For the most part, my class grades are made up of one paper and one test, maybe a presentation or class participation. Something I find frustrating/different here is the fact assignments are given so late. The professor might mention it the first week of the semester but I've only just started to receive detailed information for papers that are due soon. Of course, some of my professors are just disorganized,so it might be them and not the system in general.

I have one class that is just a giant disaster. If I didn't need 30 credit hours (15 CofC credit hours), I would force someone to let me drop this class. I'm not sure if I can really describe what a mess this class is, but I'll try. Basically, a large group of professors teach the class so every week or so we have a different lecturer present. There is one professor that is essentially in charge of the class and is responsible for grading our papers and tests. This has really lead to classes feeling random and not connected at all to the class before. It feels like I'm taking a different class each week. We have a paper and test but none of us can even guess on what we will be tested on. How do you test people on something that was briefly talked about for two minutes once? We asked our lecturer last class if she had any idea what would be on the test and she told us no one had asked her for any test questions. Great, so everyone has been lecturing without any idea on what we will be tested on? How did they know what to cover? What is happening to me? The professor that is the head of the department is actually my professor for my monday/tuesday class and I'm going to have to talk to him about what is happening. I don't want to lose my scholarships (I need 15 credit hours for my Ketner, not sure about the other ones) but I can't be expected to be tested on things I was never taught.

I have some suit mate drama but I don't really want to get into that right now. I have a 60 year old suit mate, that should explain enough for now.

In better roommate news, Naomi and Megan are officially my roommates next year! We got a really cute house that we had planned on applying to before but someone got to it first. However, it become available again and we got it this time! It fits our needs perfectly, except for the no pet policy, but it was a choice between no pets or being homeless. It's really nice we are getting a house for the price of an apartment. It has a great location, just about twenty minute walk to campus. It's also just down the block from Nick/ Nagao/ Shoshana/Maegan's house, so that's nice. We officially signed the lease a few days ago and it feels great to finally have that all taken care of now. I really appreciate Naomi and Megan doing all the work looking at potential houses/apartments.

The most important news of all is that Russia is happening on Thursday. I’m so excited I start to shake a little when I think about the trip. The thought of standing in the Red Square is honestly just unbelievable. Seeing St. Petersburg and Moscow has been a dream for so long and now it’s really happening. Plus, Russia has Starbucks. Come on, how could this trip get any better? My phone is officially dead so I had to buy a camera (90 dollars for a crappy camera, lovely) because I couldn’t go on this trip and not take pictures. My next post will be all about this trip of course. (I'm aware this last paragraph is in blue. I keep trying to get it to be in black but nothing I do is working right now)

NATO and Pasta

So today was pretty awesome. Yesterday after I got out of class (an hour late!), I received an email from the social sciences department regarding a lecture from the Commander of Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum, General Hans-Lothar Domröse. That day in class, my professor made a vague comment of how a NATO officer was coming Tartu the next day, so imagine my surprise when I realized how high ranking this man is. You can google him so see his full career, but essentially the Allied Joint Force Brunssum is one out of two operational level commands in the NATO command structure. The lecture was scheduled for two in the afternoon and, because my class didn’t start until four fifteen, I could go.

I got to the room (it’s a small, hundred person auditorium where one of my classes is held) about a half hour early. There were already a few military people standing outside the door (I immeditaly recognized the one man’s uniform as American, but I could tell he wasn’t Air Force like my dad) and after about twenty minutes I went inside. The other young woman sitting next to me and I spoke for a few minutes and we commented how we seemed to be two of the few students in the room. Once the room was full, there were maybe five students and the rest were military. There was the one American Army man I had seen before and I think an American Navy man (he was in dress blues that weren’t Marines or Air Force, so this is my best guess), Estonian uniforms I’ve seen around Tart, and then so many military uniforms I did not recognize. This may sound really weird, but I loved the smell that was in the room. It smelled like military uniforms, it smelled like my dad. I felt really calm around that smell.

Then the Commander came in and everyone clapped. I immediately liked him. He was confident but not arrogant, articulate and easy to understand despite his German accent. While he was introducing himself, I counted the number of medals he had on his uniform jacket because his ribbon bar was pretty large. If I counted correctly, he had twenty. He started off his lecture by reminding everyone he could not speak for NATO and some things he was going to say were his own opinions. He then proceeded to give a very brief overview of NATO (the structure, the voting requirements), and then spoke of NATO’s role in Afghanistan. He spoke of how NATO should be out of Afghanistan soon and Afghanistan should be having their elections soon. He was very proud of the education and technology NATO had brought to Afghanistan.

Then he got to the topic that was on most people’s minds, Crimea. He was very honest and admitted NATO may have been naive when it came Russia, especially after what happened to Georgia not so long ago. He expressed gratitude towards the United States because we have offered additional resources than required of us in regards to being part of NATO. He was a big fan of United States and said the United States was a major ally whether most of Europe appreciated that or not. Although he didn’t really say anything directly about Russia invading Estonia, he did at some point mention that NATO would be there to defend Estonia whenever Estonia needed them. He mentioned that while NATO does go in and help nations that need their help, NATO can only do this when they are able. He mentioned this is why NATO has not been able to help in Syria because, as horrific as the events in Syria are, the possible lives lost if NATO intervened could be even higher. If NATO intervened, then Russia and Iran would certainly retaliate. Basically, NATO has limits and can only act within those limits.

After he finished, he took some questions. I swear, some people just want to ask questions so they can talk. Out of the five questions, probably two were decent questions, and these are coming from adults. The other ones had been explained in the lecture or could be answered by a simple google search.

I feel really lucky I was able to attend this lecture. I learned a lot about NATO and it was such a unique experience.

After the lecture and then class, I went to dinner with Ariail and Laura. Ariail had been to this Italian place a few days before and had really liked it, so we went there to eat and discuss our trip to Helsinki. We figured out our plans pretty quickly and had a wonderful dinner. Ariail and Laura had pizza and salad and I had an amazing seafood pasta.

I also finally got my American debit card in the mail! Buy all the things! I booked my flight for New Jersey. I leave on June 19th around noon and get to New Jersey around seven at night. I’m looking forward to spending a few days with Lia before I head back to California on the 22nd.

Considerably Less Grumy

My mood has increased significantly since I got my passport back on Monday. Ariail let me know the travel agency had told her our passports were back from the Russian embassy and we could come pick them up. I now have a giant sticker in my passport that is my Russian visa. At this time, there is a travel alert for US citizens for Russia. An alert is different than a travel warning though. A travel alert is just to let you know there may be some security issues going on, a travel warning is basically telling you not to go. For now, the trip is on, but obviously if a travel warning is issued then I won't go. Again, I'm safe and not going to any protests.

After I got my passport, I immediately went to the bank and was able to get my debit card and finally have access to my money. My mom mailed my American debit cards weeks ago but it still hasn't gotten here yet, which is frustrating because that means I can't book my flight to New Jersey or subscribe to Hulu plus.

Yesterday, Laura helped me get my Estonian ID card from the police. I really appreciate she went with me because I had never used the bus before. It was really easy to buy our bus tickets and even though we took a longer route than Laura did before, I didn't mind because I actually really like taking busses. We got to the police station after about twenty minutes and I only had to wait about ten minutes before an officer was able to help me. As she finished up some paperwork, I looked around at the twenty other officers in the room and realized they were all female. At first, I thought this was really cool that there were so many female officers. But then I realized there were only female officers working in the office. Crap, I thought, are female officers just treated as glorified secretaries here? It's not like the United States can act like we are much better,the first female officer was in 1910 and females have only been a notable presence in law enforcement since the 80s. Even then they weren't allowed to be actually out on the streets. When I looked up the history of police in Estonia, I found some interesting things. For one, while the number of officers has decreased since the reestablishment of the police, the number of female officers continues to increase. About 28% of officers are female. However, Estonia seems to be struggling in the same way the United States is regarding having female officers in higher positions. Out of 219 top ranking officers, only 28 are women. Out of the 114 superior ranking officers, only thirty are women. Estonia has no diversity programs or other tools to help women get hired, so this could be a contributing factor to why women are represented so poorly in these positions. As low as these numbers are, women have only been allowed to be officers since 1929. Estonia has only been independent for 1991, so they have had a lot of catching up to do when it comes to things like this. (I realized after I had been e-mailing with my former police explorer advisor that I forgot to mention women's police uniforms include skirts. Clearly, no one is expecting women to chase any bad guys down).

After that small adventure, I just relaxed in my room for the night. This morning I decided to go to the mall and get some things I've needed for a while. My skin hasn't been so great since I've gotten here since I haven't been using the right face wash. I headed over to the mall because that's basically they only place where you can get makeup. I went to this department store which quality is kind of between Macy's and Nordstrom's. Holy crap was everything expensive. For about 45 euros, I got foundation, razors, face wash, mascara and moisturizer. Yep, about sixty dollars for five things I could get for twenty five dollars in the US.

Yesterday I signed up for a trip that I am really excited for. ESN is putting on a traditional Estonian wedding in Saaremaa, the biggest Estonian Island. The future bride and groom are actors and not actually getting married. I think this is such a cool idea. A traditional thing like a wedding is something easily that could be forgotten by a society, so it's nice that this is a way a tradition is being kept alive. You get to take part in things such as a Bachelorette/Bachelor party, the wedding, and a wedding dinner party. I’m excited to see the wedding and see an Estonian Island.