Missing: 4 months and focus

I cannot believe that I leave Estonia for good in a month. I know this is how things go, and how people said it would. But to be in the cross paradox of everything is a little mind blowing. The first days of ice, snow, and sledding seem like a year ago, but it feels like I've only been here a couple of weeks all at the same time. Last week I was more than ready to come home. I was just done being here, I'm sure you all know what I mean. But now that days are flying past, I'm realizing the people and aspects of life here that I will miss.
Spring has finally truly come to us. I think my concentration and focus on school work faded along with the cold. All I want to do now is be outside, and doing really anything other than sitting at my desk working. I have only 2 more papers of my Tartu University career, but it is just not getting done. I still find it strange that I never had a true test/exam this whole semester. The only things I have been graded on are papers, papers, papers, one essay exam, and one oral exam. This oral exam was for Archeology of the Ancient Near East, and my first one ever. The whole process was quite intimidating, and hopeless if you hadn't studied. This is how it went: the four of us that showed up for the exam sat in front of the professor as he wrote 5 subjects on the board. We volunteered for what order we would go in, and then picked a subject. With this subject, you were to say everything you could on the matter, and then wait for you slow and painful interrogation. I happily made it out with a B, but not with my pride. If this class was truly critical for my major I think I would have been mortified, but since it wasn't, the whole process was actually amusing. Our professor made every one of us look like idiots, no matter how smart the student. And it's not even that he was trying to, he was quite nice about the whole humiliation.
I've been trying to think some more about the culture here in Estonia and how to evaluate it. I have a friend who is currently in New Zealand, and when I asked him about the people there, he said that they were both similar to and different from Americans, but he couldn't pin point the "why" of either. I think this describes exactly my experience. Every where I have gone this semester, it seems that there are obvious differences and similarities to America, but then this whole underlying layer of subtleties that I can't put my finger on. I think similarities between places I have visited and home might have a lot to do with globalization mixing up all kinds of cultures. There are distinct foods and styles that belong to countries, but they have all been traded and spread around. It becomes hard to weed out what belongs to a country and what doesn't.

View From the Outside

Sorry to bombard the blog but I got so behind with entries!
Ok so on to more Polish observations: I haven't spent too much time in Wroclaw for the past few weeks but I have still managed to gather blog entry material. :)
Polish immigrants are surging into wealthier European countries right now searching for jobs. Thus they are becoming the poor minority of several countries. Just from talking to international students here in the dorm I have gathered that most held a low view of Polish people before coming here based from the ones entering into their towns and cities as immigrants. I haven't really asked if anyone has changed their mind after living here but that would be interesting to find out.
It is easy to spot a Polish person outside of Poland, they will be the dudes that look like they're on steroids with shaved heads and workout gear on. They usually have smallish eyes and undefined or really rounded jaw lines. The females are harder of course but they're usually pretty slender with sharp features and really straight blonde hair. Of course not all Polish people look like this, it's just if you see someone that does fit these descriptions, they're probably Polish. Guys have gotten the worst reputation for being ill tempered and "always starting fights." This is commentary from the people I've stayed with in other countries. It sucks but I think it is the fate of most minorities in a population who have to deal with poverty.
I have to say it is fun when to pick out Polish people when I see them. Of course the confirmation comes when you pass by and you understand what they're saying, usually, "Tak, tak. Dobry." Fellow Olowekers do the same thing, it's like a neat little inside game. :) At first I was picking out English speakers, Americans mostly, where ever I went; now it is Polish speakers, there are far fewer of them so the challenge makes it more fun.

Let's Back Up and Define this "Couchsurfing"

A year ago I stepped off a plane in Greensboro from working in Alaska for two months to find that my nicely preplanned trip into Costa Rica with some friends was falling through. I kind of got kicked out of the club over ex-or is his an ex-boyfriend issues. I had a $700 plane ticket due to fly the next day with no accommodation when I got there and no itinerary. I freaked out a bit and went to shed a few tears as I was cancelling the ticket, and then I remembered this website that a friend had told me about a few months prior, couchsurfing.com. You register, post a profile and a smiling picture of yourself, and boom, you're in the "Couchsurfing Community." I had a really good experience with two families there and made it out alive much to my mom's surprise and relief.
Here in Europe I used it for the first time with Mandy in the previous blog entry, in Riga, Lativia. The guy turned out to be really gracious, helpful, genuinly interested in getting to know us and just a regurlar human being like ourselves. He was also a traveler and was young and so our conversation was never stale. We were able to ask him questions about his city and country instead of sifting through media rhetoric and we were able to just get to know his interest like music and studies. A hostel would never have provided this. My other experiences with couchsurfing over here have been again with Mandy in Stockholm and then a couple nights in Brussels and Amsterdam with some friends. All of these experiences turned out really, above and beyond expectations. Well the one in Stockholm was different but the guy even gave us the key to his house. There is something to say about people who trust strangers, and I think it's crazy but I'm thanking the greater powers or else we would not have been able to get that tub of ice cream (which was our lunch).
The website is what it is, a place to post up available temporary living space versus meeting people and maintaining friendships through messages and photo tagging. It's more up to the traveler how involved they want to get in meeting the host and how much time they will devote to keeping in touch afterwards. It is really risky but I think it is a good thing that people still trust each other even with hyper media encouraging them not to. Going to a place to meet some of the people there just make for a more memorable experience. And you could get a free Ipod if you're sneaky enough!
I have to admit that it is a weird thing to do and that the surfer takes just as much risk as the host when entering into the agreement. The benefit is to realize that people on the other side of the world wide web are just people too. They want to share their experiences with you and share what they have, little or great. Etiquette kind of calls for the surfer to bring a gift to the host. I really like this; when I took a greek mythology course through UNCG the professor mentioned that it was just as important to be a good guest as a good host. I feel that most people I've invited into my home have failed to do this. After these past surfing times I have been inspired to reopen my home when I get back to Greensboro. We'll see because I think getting back into the old study regime will be a bit shocking upon arrival.

Cruisin' It and Breaking the Couchsurfing Rules

Mandy and I continued on our journey after Tartu on up to Tallinn where we boarded a 'ferry' (cruise ship) to Stockholm where our flight home (that's right, new home Wroclaw) was destined to fly out of. We got off the bus and boarded the ship in incredible timing and with Duty Free wine in tow. After finding the room and unloading we went straight to sleep, because that lovely 12 hr bus ride from St. Petersburg was rough and we jibber jabbered the entire bus ride up to Tallinn. We were dang tired. We caught a 3 hour nap and still managed to wake before the boat set sail. We got up and explored and bought some dinner: sandwiches-so cheap and juicy! Then we began in on the wine. And we got into a situation in which the little club we were inhabiting did not like that we brought our own drinks and even worse that we even thought to drink it out of plastic cups. How silly, we were stuck on a ship in the middle of the Baltic and still got kicked out of a bar. :P
We woke the next morning to the beautiful sunny shore of Sweden. I've found that it's always very impressionable when you enter a country for the first time whether it's good weather or bad. I was in love! We took our time taking in the view from up top before we had to say goodbye to the Baltic Queen. We finally made it to a metro stop and discovered that, yes, Stockholm is very expensive. We hopped on a train to the center where we tried repeatedly to get in contact with our couch surfer but all in vain. So we stored our luggage at the train station so we could explore unburdened. That is one thing I am glad someone came up with, lockers at the station, it's genius really!
The weather stayed good as we walked through green green parks overlooked by blue blue skies. We found a spot on an inlet of water and whipped out what we had been saving up for so long, our extremely moldy loaf of bread which had traveled all the way from Poland, premold of course. That loaf of bread went through 5 countries with us with most of it becoming our breakfast under peanut butter and honey some mornings. Ultimately it became the dinner to seagulls right there on that shore. It was funny though because the seagulls were not like ones I've encountered at Myrtle Beach which would take your head off if they could. No these guys were scared of the bread we were throwing at them. It took them a while to figure out if it was food or not. Mandy and I still aren't sure whether feeding them was illegal or not.
We finally got in touch with the couchsurfer, Mikael, originally from Stockholm. We met up with him and took him to his centrally located pad. We met the two other girls who were surfing there, quite a stud wasn't he?, who were from Germany and were really sweet, one more so than the other. Then we went to sleep, glorious glorious sleep.
The next day we set to exploring again with the main event being a paddle boat ride down the Djurgardsbrunnsviken. The weather was super sunny so we aimed to get a tan as well as ride and relax. Mission was accomplished successfully. We found some food, the tub of ice cream we left in Mikael's freezer from the previous day, and sat in a park with the locals and chilled out on the grass. The Swedish locals are not in any way similar to Polish locals that I've encountered. For example: Polish Local- stares at the strange lack of clothing coverage even though you're in a tank top and shorts then when caught staring they give you a "where are you from look," a role of the eyes, then looks away. Swedish Local- may look your direction but it's just because of that dog barking or child laughing behind you and will smile immediatly if you make eye contact. I have to say I liked the Swedish people better; this interaction is what I'm more familiar with and is more friendly to me. We went out later that night for a really great evening of dancing and meeting some of Mikael's friends. Bardzo Dobrsze!

Home is Where the Piast Is

The ten day escape from Olowek and it's night after night of drinking was super refreshing. It was really cool to see how you guys were living it up in another Eastern European country and how different it really is from here in Poland. This whole time I had it in mind that it must be the same, only more cold because you guys are so far north. I can't wait to come back up that way, Mandy and I still have to take the time to figure out another excursion; one that does Not go through crappy Riga. Coming back to Olowek was such a weird experience in itself too. As soon as we stepped off the plane in Wroclaw Mandy kept exclaiming, "it feels like we're home! I mean Home home!" And it did, the welcome parties came even though I really wanted to just roll over and sleep. It was nice though. We were really missed by people that we've only known a few months but now feels like a lifetime, for most of them. Now going home seems really Really close. Ah! And I haven't filled out any of those forms Tom's been sending by email.... Now I finally feel driven to jump into my classwork like I mean it. Hopefully the feeling will last but it is annoying to be a student and not be involved in your studies. I am choosing to be a student because I want to learn what I can (and get a degree saying that I did) right now in my life. What I am learning is how to manage in this crazy environment where I have to wake up at 6am to book a laundry machine and deal without a good library to write papers. I guess more of the surprise is that somehow I'm making it in this 'crazy' environment. The neatest thing is to see or more hear Polish people outside of Poland. I hear, "Tak, dobry." and my ears go, "Hey! I understood that!" This happened in London as me and a friend studying here too stayed in a hostel in the Polish district. They also had a display by the Thames about Poland's Wildlife. Of course we were cracking up and were like, "why haven't we seen any of these things?" But we took pictures and pointed to our Wroclaw on the provided map. So now Wroclaw is home more than homebase. Weird but neat.

Russia

I've been thinking for two days now what to write in this blog about our Russia trip. I still really have no idea what to say about it because there was just so much that we experienced and saw. I can say that this trip has definitely been one of my favorites of the semester. I remember one of the first facts I learned was that St Petersburg is actually made up of 42 islands. I had always assumed that St Petersburg was a mainland city, and realized right away that I had so much to learn about it. I also learned on this trip that the movie Anastasia is not real. That she was actually shot and put in acid, then thrown down a mine shaft with the rest of her family. And peasants did not actually sing and dance in the street, but died in the street from hunger instead. And Kathleen happily ruined my fairy tale by drilling this into my head.. sound effects and all.
My favorite places that we went were the Yusupov Palace and the State Russian Museum. In the Yusupov Palace I enjoyed seeing how a true royal family lived on a daily bases, and was quite blown away when I learned that this included a private theater located just downstairs. I also learned that you cannot touch the authentic velvet upholstery in the theater.
The State Russian Museum housed the works of Russian artists. Many of these artists are not well known, and I had never heard of or seen many of the things there. This art turned out to be my favorite, however. Even over the grand collections in the Hermitage of world renown artists. I especially loved the enormous narrative paintings. You could stand in front of one and feel as if you were seeing the actual event take place. These were different from the usual ceremonial and proper depictions of history.
The large paintings seemed to fit right in with the scale of St Petersburg. Everything was so big. The size and grandioseness of the city was overwhelming, but in an exciting and invigorating way. Sometimes it felt as if we had stepped into a story. Not everthing was so enchanting though. The food and bathrooms made me miss dearly what I have in Estonia. Twice I went to the WC and opened the stall door to find a hole in the ground. One place was a museum, and the other was at the bus station. In both places I would have thought that they would have complete facilities. And like I said, the food wasn't wonderful either. We found the secret to why Russian girls are so skinny. I did like the caramel ice cream, but other than that I'm glad Moma Roma was just down the street to take care of us.
The people were also different in Russia. I found that, compared to Estonia, people interact much more assertively and aggressively. Walking down the street or through a store in Russia, I would have people meet me eye to eye, and I felt that in a way, I must return the look to avoid showing weakness or suspicion. In Estonia if I meet someone in the eye in public, we both look away. After returning from Russia, I realized just how much I've adapted and changed my behavior to mimic that of Estonians in order to fit in here. To make a generalization, I feel that the way I act in public here in Estonia is almost one of demure shyness in comparison to interaction in America or Russia. Estonians have a reserved meekness about them.

Like I said, there is so much that happened during our trip. I think I would write a small travel book if I talked about everything. At the beginning of this semester I knew very little about Europe and its history, especially Eastern Europe. I also knew very little about Russian hisory. But being able to see places and monuments of actual history and events, I learned so much in just a short 5 days. Russia no longer seems so strange and far off.

A New Poland

I'm running quite behind on entries, so I will try to get caught up before our trip to Russia. It may be somewhat difficult, however, because my Mac has finally fallen victim to the strange forces of Olowek and is no longer functioning. It suddenly decided that it no longer knew where to find my hard drive, so I'm going to have a great time trying to get that one fixed.
However, despite the shortcomings of my computer, I am beginning to fall in love with this city. Twelve weeks after arriving may seem a little late, but better late than never, right?
The day of my arrival, the weather was nice. It quite reminded me of a North Carolina winter, which was perfect, because I'm not the largest fan of winter weather. The day was sunny and even somewhat warm, and I was a bit ill at myself for packing snow boots and sweaters. Two days after being here however, the temperature plummeted, the sky darkened, and the snow began to fall. At first it was beautiful and entertaining, and I thought then that I would love the city, but after weeks of bitter cold and trudging through snow and no sight of the sun, my opinion of the place matched the bleak atmosphere outside. Then rains came, and though at first I was happy to see them (finally, something different), they were miserable as well. It turned all the snow to sloppy slush and you were frozen to the core and soaked by the time you got indoors. I never wanted to venture outside, and I even began letting myself think about how nice it would be if I was home.
But eventually, the sun cracked through the cloud covered sky, and it slowly began to warm the earth. Snow melted and in it's place there was grass, with little flower buds pushing their tiny heads up from the mud. Trees budded, shrubs showed signs of life. And then one day, everything was green! There were leaves on the trees, the sun was out, birds were singing, peacoats and scarves were left at home. The city was alive again and so was it's people. Everyone wore a frown in the winter, no one was ever pleasant. But now people smiled, you heard laughter when you walked through the park, and the cashiers at Carrefour even greeted you with "Dzien dobry" and a smile before scanning your items and shoving them at you.
People are now venturing out of doors and making themselves seen. This weekend past, Deep Purple came to play in the Rynek in Wroclaw, and the crowd they drew was unbelievable. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon, hours before Deep Purple would play, there were already thousands of rock-clad Poles, with guitars in hand, playing along with opening bands. I've never seen Rynek like that before, there wasn'teven space to move.
Overall, I think I'm finally starting to get a grip on this Polish life. And I have to say, it might not be so bad after all.

Manners, Manners, Manners!

I have never missed the South as much as I miss it now.
I have been traveling quite a bit since I arrived in Wroclaw, and the cities I've visited include Prague, Berlin, Kudowa Zdrój, Budapest, and Vienna. The photo is of the Chapel of Skulls in Kudowa Zdrój. The skulls and bones are from victims of the Silesian and 30 Years Wars. Pretty neat, huh?
Two weekends ago, I was in Vienna. Out of all the cities I have been to since I arrived in Europe, if I could pick any one to live in, I do believe it would be Vienna. The city is beautiful, and absolutely littered with parks. If you walk around, you will almost always pass at least three parks before you reach your destination. I thought everything about Vienna was beautiful.
Except for the other tourists.
Now I'm not one to go around saying "Bloody Tourists!;" after all, I am one myself when I'm traveling through these cities. But the tourists I came into contact with in Vienna were a bit of a nightmare. No one could say 'excuse me;' it was common to get body slammed on the street in passing. People were also frequently rudely asking you to move if they were trying to take the perfect photo. Even vendors were a bit rude. One particular incident sticks out in memory, though.
The traveling group consisted of myself and Danielle and one of our other friends from Olowek, and on one of our nights in the city, we decided to go see an opera. Tosca was playing in the opera house, and standing tickets only cost 3 euro, which definitely fit our budget. The next available ticket was 29 euro, so we opted that we could deal with standing for a few hours. When we informed the man trying to sell us the 29 euro tickets that we couldn't afford them, he shrugged his shoulders with a bit of a sneer and said that the cheaper tickets were no good. He called us cheap as politely as he could.
However, when we tried to purchase our cheap tickets, we were impolitely informed that two of us were dressed inappropriately (we were wearing shorts that were above the knee). Our plan was to purchase tickets and then run back to the hostel to change. This was still unacceptable, so we left to try to find a shop to quickly purchase something nicer to avoid returning to the hostel, which would take a considerable amount of time. Of course, all the shops had already closed. So we literally had to RUN to the metro, jump it to the closest stop to the hostel, jump off, sprint to the hostel, change, sprint back to the metro, and then run the rest of the way to the opera. Running through the streets in dresses will get you some pretty crazy looks.
So we made it to the opera, purchased our tickets (although receiving disapproving glances for being flushed and out of breath), and made it through the doors right as they were shutting them. It took us all about 15 minutes to catch our breath.
The first act went through, and because we had come in so late, we were standing in an area where it was quite difficult to see. During the first intermission, everyone cleared out. We took this as our turn to move a little further down so we could actually see some of the stage. Intermission lasted about 20 minutes, and no one came in to get a spot until the second act was about to start. At this point, people began filtering in.
Danielle, our friend, and myself were standing quietly when a large woman who had been standing next to us earlier came up to us and said "Please," and motioned for us to move. We turned and looked at her, confused, because CLEARLY we were standing here to watch the opera. Again, she said "Please," this time with an aggravated tone in her voice, and swatting at us as if we were flies to be shooed. We told her that we were standing here to watch the show, and in broken English, she explained the spot was reserved. She motioned to a small piece of paper, a program to the opera, folded over the railing, then pointed to herself, and again motioned for us to move. Everyone in the opera house had these programs, who was to say it wasn't ours? Danielle asked the woman how much she paid for her ticket, because it was standing, and Danielle said she was sure they had paid the same amount and that there were no reservations in standing area. She tried to tell us that we had to go stand where we had been standing earlier, and when we pointed out that she had been standing there as well, she changed the subject back to us needing to move from her reserved spot. This conversation went back and forth for about five or ten minutes, with the woman growing ruder and ruder about her "reserved" standing section. Frustrated and completely annoyed, we gave up and moved down the row, but we didn't miss the woman's insult of "You should learn," meaning that we should learn to behave "properly" in the opera house.
I think that 3 euro means 3 euro, and it's first come first serve. This is clearly what she was trying to tell us, when she said our standing area was at the end of the row. But nevermind that she had been standing there as well, she now had a "reserved" ticket. She also continued to throw ugly glances at us through the rest of the performance.
There really is something to be said for Southern hospitality.

Student Days!

I think this week has been one of the most exciting, and definitely one of my favorites, here in Tartu. Since this past Monday Tartu has been celebrating the coming of Spring with festivals, concerts, square markets, beer in the park, and tons of events. The whole town seems to have come awake, and ready for a party. Student Days began with a 6am wake-up call Monday morning as a van pulled up outside of Raatuse and blasted music to jump-start the celebration. Monday night everyone gathered in the town square for a traditional Estonian concert. After this part of the evening we all paraded through town to an open area with a stage and band set up to lead the next part of the song festival. There were people everywhere. I didn't even know that many people lived in Tartu.
The international students also had the opportunity to help out the community this week by building dog houses for the local animal shelter. I didn't know what to expect when I signed up, but I like making things and I like animals, so I was excited about it. It turned out that ESN had partnered up with this event through a Catholic church/school in town, so we got to work with kids on the project and meet a lot of locals. To be honest, I had expected some kind of assembly kit project that we easily put together and paint. But when we walked up to the yard there was wood, saws, hammers, and nails. We built these things from scratch. The plan was that we were going to build 3 houses by dividing everyone into groups. Each group was assigned a wall or floor, and was to build 3 of the same thing. My group volunteered to make the floor. It seemed simple enough. Cut and nail the support beams together, then cut and nail the floor planks on top. After one hour on the first floor, however, we decided differently. Finally we got the carpenters, who were there to over-see things, to help us out with the sawing and measuring. After lunch and the first practice run, everyone felt a little better and kind of knew what they were supposed to do the next time. So the next two came together much more efficiently. It was hard work, but we had so much fun doing it.
The festivities in town picked up again Friday, as it was the first of May and a major holiday here. There was a large market in the town square, concerts, plays, and an extreme sport competition that took over the whole middle of Tartu.
Last night I got to take part in my first Estonian dance festival. There were tons of people crowded on one of the main roads by the river dancing and singing. We learned traditional folk dances, and had a blast trying to figure out what and where we were supposed to go. I think each group ended up making their own rules to the songs.
I am really looking forward to the last events today. This afternoon we will go to the river to watch participants try to fly across to the other side with home-made airplanes/boats. I've heard that no one ever makes it over, but that's really the fun of it. I think there are some last concerts and things tonight too to end the week of celebration.
I wish Tartu was always this energized and festive, but I guess it's back to work tomorrow.