A Weekend on an Ex-Soviet-Occupied Island

This past Sunday my host family and I went to Naissaar -- an island just north of Tallinn -- for my host father's company's "summer days" (basically a gathering of all of the company's employees where they party and do group activities).

The remains of one of the guns.

As hinted at in the title, Naissaar was once occupied by the Soviets. It's in a prime location, especially if you are trying to set up a line of defense in a country squished between communists and capitalists.... There were a few very large guns set up by the Russians on the island, plus a (very secret) naval mine factory. On Monday we were given a tour of the ruins of the guns and some old concrete buildings as well.

Old concrete ruins. Complete with scary military guy.

Old and rusty naval mines.

Perfectly harmless. Just don't touch them too hard.

By the way, apparently the only way to move around the island is to use giant military trucks or Land Rovers.

I should have chosen the Land Rovers.

The island is only about an hour's ferry ride away from the city and the weather was quite nice on the way there (though it poured on the way back...). Once on the island we walked about 3 km to the "hotel" since the trucks were already full of people and suitcases.

The first group activity that we did was orienteering. We were divided into groups of four and then given an hour and a half to find certain points in a small area of the island. Luckily, my teammates spoke English and because of me our team name was "Ameerika". Let's just say Ameerika didn't do so well this weekend.

Our first challenge was to try and match the shapes of Estonian counties with their names... I was no help. Then we were given a map and compass, and we tried to find the checkpoints. At some of the checkpoints we had to do certain tasks... The only one I was good at was skipping stones. In the end everyone's points were tallied and Team Ameerika ended up coming in 13th! Unfortunately there were 13 teams. 

I had a lot of free time to roam around the compound -- I mean hotel -- so I just took my camera and walked...

Good taste in paint jobs. Bad taste in ideologies.

Google Translate tells me that this says "Flammable!" I thought it said "OreoNacho!" I'm disappointed.

Here are some nice pictures to make up for all that boring text and concrete:

Estonian Independence Day

Happy Estonian Independence Day!

I'm watching the Vabaduse Laul (Freedom Song) on TV -- it's a national concert taking place in Tallinn right now!

Woohoo!

Tomorrow I'll be going to an island called Naissaar just north of Tallinn... If the weather's nice I'll come back with some photos!

Final Destination (Lots of Pictures)

So I reached my final destination on Saturday night after about seven hours of traveling. It was about three hours by car from Karkku to Helsinki, then 2.5 hours by ferry to Tallinn, and finally another 2 hours by car to Tartu. (Click on the photos to make them bigger, by the way)

It was a big ferry.

By the time I reached Tartu on Saturday night it was quite late so I just went to bed, but the next day....

...We went to an airshow in Tartu! My host father was scheduled to do some gliding aerobatics in the afternoon, but we arrived early to see some other things too.

Almost 3500 people attended the show... 3x more than last year!

Outdoor hangars for retired planes

A demo helicopter rescue operation....

Later that day we went drove to the Ridali Lennuklubi, which is a gliding club and airfield in Southern Estonia.

The clubhouse

After that we drove a little ways to Otepää, where I took a walk around a bit of Lake Pühajärv. There was a boardwalk that went into some scrublands and then further into the forest, so naturally I followed it...

Also: ducks.

And that was the end of day one!

Karkku Language Camp

I'm alive! I'm in Estonia now, but first I need to go back and tell a little about last week...

I survived my first week in Europe at a language camp in Karkku, Finland, where 60% of the time we had lessons, 25% of the time we ate, and 15% of the time we were outside. The camp is situated about three hours north of Helsinki, where I flew into. It's in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, with a huge lake and forests surrounding it. At the camp there were about 123 students plus 10 or so tutors. One hundred and seventeen of those students were headed to Finland, while six where destined for Estonia. I was one of those extra-lucky six!

An average day at Karkku went something like this:
7:45 - Breakfast
8:45 - Info about the day
9:00-11:30 - First lesson
11:45 - Lunch
13:00 - Second Lesson
14:30 - Coffee break & outdoor activities
16:00 - Lecture
17:30 - Dinner
19:00-20:30 - Sauna
20:45 - Evening snack
22:30 - Bed time

Here are some pictures of the lake...

Aftermath of one of our dorm's famous Ramen Parties. Here you can see Japanese Pocky candy, Taiwanese ramen noodles, and New Hampshirian maple candies!

More to come about my first days in Estonia in the near future!

Was für eine Update ist das?!

...(That was German, by the way)

So, time for an update, I suppose.

I just graduated high school. Wicked awesome! Now I get to go to... high school... again...
BUT this time in Estonia! Equally wicked awesome.

So the countdown continues. About a month and a half until I leave (August 6th).
My itinerary is as follows:

Fly out of Logan (Boston) on Saturday evening then catch a connecting flight in Frankfurt, Germany to Helsinki, Finland on Sunday, August 7th.
At that point, I'll be bussed to Karkku, Finland, where the week-long language camp will be. I'm not sure what to expect at said camp, though I've heard mention of "saunas" and "pine trees".

I'm very excited to actually meet all of the other exchange students. I know of at least three others going to Estonia (one in Tartu, with me :D), but most people will be staying in Finland.

After the camp, I'll take a ferry across the Baltic from Helsinki to Tallinn, where my host family will pick me up.

I've also learned of a few trips that will be available to me...
One will be in the Lapland of Finland, another to St. Petersburg, Russia, and a third: EUROTOUR.

Now I just need to focus on:
a. emptying my room
b. learning more Estonian
c. enjoying my post-high school summer break

Eesti keel...

A couple of months ago I enrolled myself in an online Estonian class.

At the time, I figured that, you know, I should probably start learning some Estonian before I leave late this summer. And the course is taught through Tartu University, so I thought it would be perfect--I could actually go to the University for the final test while I'm in Tartu!

I also have a book that I've been learning from, and it has helped me so much. I've already got three out of fourteen grammatical cases down. I'm so proud.
(By the way, I am so very happy that Estonian doesn't have noun genders...)

Now, before I had enrolled myself in that course, I had done some internet scouring and was able to find a multitude of awesome links for language learners. Here are some of my favorites....

For Learning:
http://mylanguages.org/index.php - Great website with almost any language you could want. Pretty comprehensive.
http://www.livemocha.com - Chances are, you've heard of this. It's a good site with a bunch of languages. I haven't done much more than the first few lessons of Estonian, but it's given me a good vocabulary upon which to build later.
http://www.oneness.vu.lt/languageschool - This may be for Estonian learning only, but it's still got some good lessons and exercises. You should probably learn Estonian now. (DO IT.)
http://www.loecsen.com/travel/discover.php?lang=en - The basics for a few languages.

For Entertainment:
http://www.fluentin3months.com/ - An interesting blog with some good/funny articles for all you polyglots to read.

For Anything Else:
http://www.cultures-shocked.org - Anyone who is an exchange student, will be an exchange student, will be hosting an exchange student, or knows an exchange student should learn some things from this forum!
http://www.everyculture.com/ - Learn about the world's cultures, man.

Äitah ja head aega!

Host City

...I've found out where I will be staying.

Usually you find out what district you will be staying in before hearing about which specific city. However, in Estonia there is only one district and it covers the whole country (...plus Southern Finland), so I already knew my district, technically.

Recently, I heard from my first host family and it looks like I will be staying in the middle of Tartu!
Tartu is the second largest city in Estonia--it has a population of about 100,000 (that's about the size of Manchester, NH). Fortunately, I've heard that the city is very "green", so there are trees and green spaces all over, which I am happy about.
I am not much of a city person (coming from rural NH...), but Tartu sounds like it's on the small side so it should be no problem and a welcome change.

It's also known for being the university city, as the University of Tartu (unsurprisingly) is spread throughout the city. I'm hoping to be able to take a look at the University more in depth and maybe I'll make a post on it specifically in the future. My host mother works at the university, so perhaps that will help me!

As you can see, Tartu is in Southwest Estonia. Tartu is actually situated between two large lakes (one on the Russian border, the other in the south-middle of Estonia), but this is not shown on the map.

In addition to finding out about Tartu, I was also told that I will be attending Miina Härma Gümnaasium. (See the website here) The "high school" is only about 200m from my house... I'm glad I'll be able to enjoy the Summer air while walking to school, although in mid-January I'm sure that air will not be as refreshing...
I should be in the twelfth grade and I will hopefully be able to go on the "Humanities" track at MHG. This will mean that I can focus on languages and the like instead of math (ugh...) or science (...meh).