Festival Time

So it has been another month and you deserve some more stories. First I'll explain the picture. This picture is of the song festival that Estonia has every 5 years. Yes, that's right every 5 years. I felt honored to be able to experience this festival to celebrate Estonia with their songs that have literally brought them peace from enemies in the past. It was cool to see the Estonians sing together. They truly are singers at heart whether or not they can sing well. :)

Camping...so camping in southern Estonia is amazing! Not only is the scenery awesome, but the people are as well. We hung out, went to the black and white lake (I swam, well doggy-paddled across both really big lakes), picked wild blueberries, did the sauna, then jumped into the freezing cold pond, have deep conversation (and some not so deep), grilled out, slelt, then did it all again. It was fun and tiring all at the same time.

I'm trying out the biking thing and this Friday and will be biking more than 70 km to get to Vormsi, Estonia and then again to get back to Tallinn on Sunday. It will feel good to accomplish this goal. Next time I blog I'll tell you all about the experience.

Until next time head aega (good bye),
Shera

First Days

Friday, March 27th - So we (Andrea, Josh, Megan, and I) arrived in Tallinn, Estonia on Friday, March 27th. The flight was long (starting on March 26th), but definitely tolerable. Our supervisors, Tom and Jennifer, and their three little girls picked up us from the airport, took us out to pizza, showed us around a grocery store (which by the way is like in America except in the Estonian language and they may have different foods) and then to our hotel/house at 10:00 that night (or 22:00). Let's just say, I fell asleep with no problems and slept till 8:30 the next morning.

Saturday, March 28th - No jet lag whatsoever (of course I didn't really sleep but a half an hour on the plane). So the next day Jennifer took us all out to Old Town in the middle of Tallinn. She showed us around the town and then took us to an awesome little coffee shop to have hot chocolate, but this hot chocolate is literately just chocolate that is melted into a cup. It was amazing! I will definitely go for that kind of hot chocolate again. :) That night we went to Tom and Jennifer's apartment to have dinner and hangout.

Sunday, March 29th - Tom picked us up to go to Estonian church at 12:00 noon, which was pretty cool. You could definitely tell the Spirit was there. They do their services for 2 hours. After the service, Tom left us to explore Old Town by ourselves till the international service started at 17:00 (5:00 pm), so we did and ate at a Chinese place which we didn't realize until we got it but the portion sizes are huge. We still ate most the food which was very good. The international church was interesting with a good message about how we must not judge one another, because no one is better than anyone else. We met two Finnish girls there in their younger 20s, Minna and Kirsi. We made plans to hangout the next day.

Monday, March 30th - Minna called me and we all met up in Tallinn at the movie theater. Before going to the movies though, we went to a pizza place and then they showed us a park. We walked on a frozen pond at the end of March! But anyway, it was fun getting to know them both. After hanging out with Minna and Kirsi, we went to Tom and Jennifer's for dinner.

Tuesday, March 31st - Josh, Megan, Andrea, and I slept in, and then went off by ourselves together onto the buses and trams to figure out how to get places. The first bus we got on went the opposite direction we thought it would, but it was okay, because it took us to a beach. The beach wasn't very nice or anything but it was cool to see the sea. Then we got back on the bus and got off near Old Town. We walked around to many places taking many pictures that I will hopefully put up someday. We went to where Josh and Megan's apartment will be to see the surrounding areas (Andrea and I will live in apartments near them). Basically, we live by everything we will need and want to go to. Andrea and I move in to our apartment tomorrow!!! I am so excited to be here and to meet new people!