This last week(end) in Estonia was mild and relaxing.
Thursday night my friend Brian (not Willamette Brian, this Brian is from Maryland) and I went to a fabulous bar/club called The Three Monkeys. We walked in the door and some old school hip hop (Jurassic 5 to be precise) was blasting and we knew it was the place for us. We spent the next 3 hours dancing like crazy. The best part was the dance floor area was quite empty. Brian and I were the first to start dancing and eventually we got a crowd of Estonians to join us. It was a great time with even better music. It was so good we went back on Saturday but that night was less enjoyable than the first time...more on that later.
On Friday morning, a group of international students, myself included, decided to travel just outside of Tartu where we spent the day completing a ropes course. This course was quite fascinating to watch - yes, I stayed firmly planted on the ground due to my significant fear of heights. I was luckily not alone, my Dutch friend Wouter stayed on the ground as well. We took photos of everyone climbing over crazy wires and impossible obstacles, not to mention the Tarzan swing into a giant spider's web. Every course ended with a zip line and watching people (try to) land was the highlight of my day. I only saw 3-4 graceful landings...the rest involved lots of mud and laughter. It did rain quite a bit which I'm sure made the course more difficult, did I mention I'm happy I stayed on the ground?
After everyone had their fun up in the air (crazies) we went to a fun little restaurant and had lunch. Unfortunately lunch was a bit rushed as we needed to catch a bus at 3:15pm. My dear friend Alex *today is her 22 birthday* and I had ordered a pancake with jam to share. We did not have time to eat it at the restaurant so we wrapped it in a napkin and took it to go. This may have been the worst, yet also the funniest, decision we could have made. Running to a bus while sharing a sticky pancake is no fun. By the time we reached the bus we were both covered in jam, and I mean COVERED. My coat got the worst of it but has since been washed. When we finally made it to the bus and had purchased our tickets, we realized the bus driver had over booked the bus and we didn't have seats. I sat in the stairwell, right next to the bathroom might I add, with 4 fellow companions. It was about a 45 minute ride so it wasn't too bad. This is why we travel when we're young I guess.
After a shower and a quick nap, a group of us met to go grab dinner and then to go see a movie. Our dinner was a bit late...as in we ended up getting it to go and sprinting to the theater...but we made it to our film on time and got to enjoy a delicious meal in the theatre! It was really a lovely evening.
Saturday was a bit of a mess on my part. A large group of us went out for drinks and I made the mistake of drinking something called a "Lindsey Lohan." Word of advice: NEVER drink anything called "Lindsey Lohan." I'll not go into details but I'm sure everyone can infer what went on the rest of the night. Luckily I've made some wonderful friends who took great care of me.
Sunday was a pajama day. I slept pretty much the whole day (though no hangover - I haven't had one yet since I've been here) and when I wasn't sleeping I was studying Estonian. My studying definitely paid off because I received a ":) tubli" on my test that was returned to me today. (Tubli means good).
As this is a relaxed post, I think I'll talk a little bit about my courses because I haven't really done that yet. I'm enrolled in 7 courses now. All but one are English courses. I have Estonian for beginners on Mondays and Wednesdays 12.15 - 13.45. This is my favorite course because all of my friends are in it and it's just a silly class. None of us can pronounce anything but we try and the professor plays amazing youtube clips every week. My favorite song thus far is Ma Olen Tartu. This means "I am Tartu." I can actually understand some of it which is really cool! Here is the link, definitely look into it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMYnlVFZJvE
The English courses I'm taking are; Scottish Poetry, History of English Literature (Baroque to Romanticism), American Literature, Intro to James Joyce, and Margaret Atwood: Texts and Contexts. Of these courses, I really enjoy Scottish Poetry. My professor is an old Scottish guy - he insists we call him Gordon- and he reads Scottish poetry with a thick accent. He also tells about his life in Scotland and it's really just a great time.
Margaret Atwood is an intense course. We read quite a bit and the discussions are in-depth and thought provoking. This course really reminds me of my work load at Willamette.
I have the same professor for American Lit and James Joyce. She is older and I'm afraid she'll have a stroke in the middle of every class. Her teaching style is quite different than anything I'm used to but I am doing well in the class. Estonians don't really like to speak/share ideas in class so I often find myself monopolizing class discussions. This can be frustrating but luckily it isn't the entire class period. It is fun to take an American Lit class while in Estonia. I've read most if not all of the required reading books/stories but I still get a different perspective.
History of English Lit. is one of the most painful courses I've ever taken. We have a course book with all of the required reading but it's hard to follow. I'm not sure of the author and there are no citations or any kind of foot note/end note that I can find. My favorite sentence thus far is "he was even to accept gifts of woks of art from that Antichrist, the pope." Luckily it's only once a week.
My seventh course, English in South East Asia and the Pacific, is completely online. My professor is actually in Australia which is fun to say. A period of three weeks makes up a module dedicated to some element of English in the pacific. This course will be very beneficial if I do end up teaching in South East Asia because it looks at how different cultures use English. It's really interesting to say the least.
I think that's about it for this blog post. Tonight (as I mentioned above) is my friend Alex's birthday so we're going out for Georgian food (the country not the US state). I have no plans for the weekend yet, which pretty much starts for me Wednesday at 2 pm with the minor exception of class Thursday at 4 pm. Hope everyone is well!