Tere!

So, this post has been a long time coming.

I'm in Estonia, where it is always cold. Or so it seems. And, until recently, it seemed that the sun never shone and the pavement was always covered in a layer of precariously slippery (or, at least for me) ice. I fell at least four times within the first two weeks, but now I'm pretty much amazing at fall recovery.

I am also using this blog entry to distract me from the fact that I still haven't done any research for a paper that I'm supposed to be mapping out tonight with my partner, Niels, from the Netherlands.

In the dorm, I live on the sixth floor. This is a good thing in some cases, as there aren't parties going on outside of my door all the time so if I wasn't such a hug procrastinator I could study if I wanted to without interruption. But, it is also bad, because most of the socializing between international students takes place on the fourth floor, and I can't get in unless someone opens the door for me. Not that people keep me out, its just that parties happen spontaneously, and when you aren't on the floor, you miss out.

That said, I do live with three girls from different countries. Olesea is my roomate, and she is from Moldova. We also share a kitchen with Olga, a law student from Russia, and Sofia from Sweden. I haven't had the chance to talk to Olga much, but I have learned a lot about former USSR culture, and the state of Moldova in general, from Olesea. For example, in Moldova (and in many other former USSR countries), at Christmas you don't give presents. You just go into the villages and see family, but there aren't any big celebrations like there are in the states. This is because of the Soviet government's stance on religion. They rebelled, though, in the form of new traditions for the new year. On new year's day, they give each other presents the way that we do on Christmas. I thought this was a really fascinating cultural difference. They also celebrate spring on the first of March by making little decorations of red ribbon or string and giving them to their friends. When the celebration is over, they place them in trees or around the town. These little keepsakes are never thrown away. They also celebrate International Women's Day, which is today! It is a holiday recognized by the UN and I think that it should be celebrated in the US as much as it is in Moldova. Instead of having a day that is just for mothers, this day celebrates women of all ages simply for being women and is a result of the international recognition of the past trials of women in their struggle for equality. How cool is that? And all of the people give small (or large, depending on the closeness of the relationship) gifts to the women in their lives. Husbands to wives, guy friends to girl friends, and women give each other gifts, too. Next March 8, I think it would be a great idea to use International Women's Day to raise money for a cause that uplifts women, like microlending to developing countries, by selling carnations to give to your friends for women's day on campus.

Hopefully someone other than me will remember that.

In other news, a big part of Estonian social life is going out to pubs. They have pubs with such character here! There is one called Big Ben, an english pub with big comfy chairs and old fashioned phones for calling other tables (and the bartenders), and another called the Gunpowder Cellar which was actually commissioned by Catherine the Great to be an ammunition cellar and is now the pub with the highest ceiling in the world. No lie. There is another called Maailm, which means world, and its brightly painted walls, swing seats, and constant reggae beats make it such a cool place to hang out (but the loud music can make it hard to talk). I'll admit that the first month was a blur of restaurants and pubs with classes that seemed mainly like an afterthought, but now that I've settled in I'm starting to love just walking around the city and spending quiet(er) nights in the dorm with my new friends.

I was hoping to meet tons of international people who would become my besties, but in the end it was a small (think three) group of Americans that I ended up connecting the most with. We have a lot of things in common, most excitingly our desire to travel on the cheap and be tourists all around Europe, and we get along really well. We took our first trip to Finland last weekend, and it was just incredible. I've never seen such a gorgeous place, and the europeans say that its the most ugly capitol in Europe. It is also exceedingly expensive, and the exchange rate was quite painful for those four days. One of the things that I found so amazing was how close everything in Helsinki was to everything else. You look on the map and you think, oh God, how are we ever going to walk there? But then you realize that it's only about five minutes away, and its like the whole of the city opens up to you. We visited churches and compared ideas of what a church should be, had epic snowball fights, tried to visit parliament, ate a bear and reindeer pizza (that we made ourselves), visited a bar made of ice, saw the Olympic stadium from 1952 and the famous sculpture, went to museums (and saw the first Van Gogh ever purchased for a museum collection), went ice skating outdoors next to the famous train station designed by Eliel Saarinen, and spent a day on an island holding an sea fortress older than our country. But, lots of things in Finland are older than our country, so I guess that wasn't too surprising. I stayed in my first hostel and fell in love with the spirit of student travel in Europe and had some salsa that was almost as good as home (but not quite). In the end, I was so happy to be back home in Tartu. That is when I realized that, just like how Austin became the place I'm "from," Estonia is becoming a place I can return to.

I came to Estonia thinking that I would meet a group of people completely different from myself, because of our incredibly different recent history. I thought of all of the difficulties that come with transitioning from a Soviet territory to a capitalist democracy in such a short time, and I assumed that the struggle would be more obvious, but it isn't. What I've found here in Estonia is just another example of how we really are all the same. Despite our history, all of us search for the same things in life if we have the security to do so, and the Estonians certainly do. They are one of the most successful former USSR countries and are taking the economic crisis in stride. They are, dare I say, more free-market focused than the United States. When asked what policies the government would implement to respond to the crisis, a government official replied that if construction jobs weren't what the market needed there was no sense in creating policies to protect them.

I am also fascinated by the graffiti in Estonia. Graffiti on the 1st street bridge across Town Lake is one thing, but graffiti on the Angel's bridge (finished in 1816 and renovated in 1913) is completely different. Political (and social) commentary through urban art is a lot more striking when its found on something so old and beautiful. It almost gives it more weight, because it visually shows the clash of old and new ideas and feelings in this country. I've made it my goal to document as much of it as I can and, if I have the extra time, to find someone who can help me understand the significance of the pictures I'm taking.

Well, I have to stop procrastinating and get to Security Council paper business. :)

More later...
-me