Mini marathon

Last days were pretty interesting. There was an Independence day of Estonia which we celebrated on  Sauna party. It was very nice to run from sauna straight to the snow ;)

As an expression of gratitude for my another English lesson I was given a necklace consisting of rolled sheets from colorful magazines.. This actually look very nice. After the project I will have much more jewelery I guess ;)

On Saturday kids were taking part in skiing mini marathon. My role was to take care of Hanna. She was falling down all the time and we were on the very end of everyone when Hanna decided to go and slide down from a hill which was nearby.. Yes … in her opinion that was much more interesting than marathon. Every kid who finished the marathon got a medal and a bag of surprises. I wanted to help Hanna to also get it. As we changed the direction and it was hard to come back on the right path we just cheated a little bit and finished the marathon from the other side.

Here are some pictures from the event:

3 hours wading in the snow were compensated in Aura water center where we could warm up in sauna. Yey ;)

After this achievements I was tired as a little baby but there was Ina’s good bye party which started in a pub and ended in a VERY NICE CLUB which I love already.

I don’t remember the name.. cause it’s still hard to remember typical Estonian names . It was so cool! Type of underground and there was a live concert. 

Some express of our creativity:

Good bye card for Ina

Dzieło

Big Ben pub and its wedding singer ;)

Noone said it's easy ;)

Work with children isn’t always easy. The small ones (boys only!) don’t respect me because I don’t speak their language. They think they can say everything looking into my eyes and laughing. But… you little pinky sweet fellows don’t act with me like that!

My Estonian is on a way to tell you what I think about your behavior. I had a beta English lesson with older ones today.. and they were teaching me as well :

Older ones like me I think.

We were also doing some handcrafts – jewelery. I made some bracelets for the girls and then they made on for me.. which is the thing that I’m not going to remove till I’m here.

TALLIN

Tallinn… I like this city. It has the most interesting view point on the old town I’ve ever seen. Well… This snow do the good job for its benefit.

There wasn’t much time for sightseeing.. beside the temperature wanted to freeze us.. we had to protect our .. being..  by hiding every 30 minutes to some warm place. Note that I had 2 pairs of leggins, trousers (ok.. that was shorts.. but still!), 4 layers of pullovers, 2 pairs of socks, warm coat, cap and ugly orange huge gloves…

This is a beautiful view on the old town

They have more ice sculptures  (in Tartu there’s this rabbit only).

What amazes me are this snow buildings in every park (the same is in Tartu). Some of them are really nice and you can see that they were built by someone who does it every single winter ;)

I'm certainly coming back there soon :) 

A! Check this out.. my hair are getting white on this cold. J

Su olen ahw

 Few days without writing and so many things happened :)

Last Sunday we went to Parnu with kids who come to TURVAKODU every day  after school to do their homework and spend some time. These kids are older than these I usually have to face with ;p

That was a really nice trip! For the first time in my life I was building in snow (something bigger than just a snow ball and snowman). The idea was a snow city but in fact all of the kids were building  ‘some shapes’.  We decided to build… a snail… and don’t think that was just an easy  modeling snow with your hands. We had all needed equipment: sholves, spadles, backets and other things which I don’t know the names.

In the end it didn’t even remind a snail but we had so much fun doing this. The weather beside it was freaking cold was also sunny but still.. I couldn’t feel my fingers after 2 hours hard hackwork with snow reaching to my knees. But the prize for our pain was repaid because after that we went to water center where I spent  1 hour in sauna bath  J yey!

The kids were older than 9 years and were really concerned about me looking like an Estonian but speaking in some other language. In our way back they were teaching me counting to 10 in Estonian. I don’t know how to write it (as yet) but it sounds like : ux, kox, kolm, neli, wis, us, seice, kahekse, uhekse, kume. I know also that there is ux takso (one taxi) but kume taksot (ten taxis) and that monkey is something like ahw :P So when one girl was acting badly I told her ‘Su olen ahw’ which is ‘You are a monkey’ :) She knew that it was for fun of course.

Oh and I nearly forgot. Argo gave me a handmade Valentine card dedicated from him for me! J

Last 2 days I was in Tallinn which is a very nice looking city (at least in winter – the snow adds it romanticisms! ) . I will give you a small view in my next post J

Photo shooting :)

Today we had an outdoor photo shooting. Thanks to Taavi :)
The weather was frosty but sunny. Really nice!
Finally I can share with you.

It's me.. lying on a frozen lake.

Nearly all of us sitting on a frozen lake. From the left: Sveta (Ukraine), Lucie (Czech R.), Magda (PL) and Ani (Georgia). Ina is missing.

And here is the rabbit from ice!!! :)

OH! Today we went for a laser battle!!! MEGAZONE :)
It was so cool. We played in two teams (4 people in each). Everyone had a name on a vest. Mine was : Da Vinci. Basically it was all about shooting enemies or destroying their base. All of this was in a dark room and there was also loud appropiate  music.
Well... I must say that I 'won' :D I had the best scores :) Mainly because I destroyed the base of our enemy.
Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from megazone.

After that we  visited a pub called 'Gunpowder celler'. It has the highest ceiling among all the pubs in Europe and homemade beer :)
Good day I would say.

Pierogi

I love my mum even more now... when I finally experienced the effort she puts in doing PIEROGI - polish traditional dish.

We have loads of potatoes :

We don't want them to die unused...
That is why we've decided to do some pierogi :)
And this is how it was...

We didn't have a roller (wałek) but the beer bottle was perfect!

We didn't have a pastry board (stolnica) as well but our kitchen table was even more perfect.

The result was delicious:

The roller was also delicious:

Now I am so tired that I have no idea how come will I drive to this party... :P

Thank you Magda and Ina for helping in this potatoes annihilation (ziemniakowe unicestwienie) :)))))
But still.. the big bag of potatoes didn't get smaller... Who have an idea how should we use them?
Potatoes salad - already done ;]

The BIB

There was no psychologist and pedagogues meeting today because Lea went sick… But I met a director of Turvakodu. Her English was brilliant but she had problems with pronouncing my name.. it was like ‘Ba…. Sha? Bashya’ … Finally I told her the truth… ‘My name is Barbara…and Basia is a polish shorter form of my name’. She said that Barbara is a beautiful name but I didn’t believe her ;)

I spent some time (2 hours) with a girl (who works there, 25 years old) her name was something similar to Merlin (like this wizard). She told me some stories about the kids. I met 5 of them in age 1,3,4,5,7.

But today my attention was focused on little Hannah. Her father disappeared and no one knows where he is.. her mum lives with a guy who displays violence.. that’s why Hannah is in the children shelter.

At the beginning Hania (that is a polish shorter form from Hannah) was afraid of me and was staring at me without blinking. I asked her ‘Mi su nimi on?’ (what is your name) but she didn’t want to reply.. After that we had a lunch and Hania wanted to fasten a bib (śliniaczek) but had some problems. I asked her in a body language if she wants a help and she nodded :) So that was a step to our friendship. I fastened her a bib and we had a small talk she was saying ‘yes’ and I ‘no’ and then she was saying ‘no’ and I ‘yes’.

After the lunch kids have a time for resting (they should sleep during this time). Hania told me ‘NO’ but I said ‘YES’ and we went upstairs to put her to the bad. To make her falling asleep easier I had to read her a book. The only books they have are in Estonian.. so obviously I read her a story which I have no idea what was about J Hania seemed to be delighted but instead of watching pictures in a book she was observing the effort I was putting into reading this weird words.

Coming back to the lunch time. We had a soup which was like a polish krupnik but with grinded meat and for dessert was like ours white cheese with a cream and peach J mniaaaami.

Tomorrow and the day after  we’ve got days off ('we' means  me and the girls) so hopefully I will do loads of pictures. Ou! And tomorrow there is an Erazmus party…. which will be epic with our attendance :D

Stay tuned…

For today I’m giving you the view for this crazy bridge which I was writing about in previous note… (picture is from the internet.. now everything is covered with a snow) 

 here we are using the internet :) soon we will have it in our rooms ;p

And some photos from the city.. today was raining and snowing..

The first kiddo friend :)

Finally I found out what I’m gonna do J

At about 3p.m. Heili (one of the girls from the project) came and took me to the TURVAKODU – children shelter.

That was also my first knowing the city walk. Tartu has a big river which is called Ema jõgi (Mother river). Now it’s all frozen. We went through a bridge and Heili told me that there is a tradition that when you finish school (or start studies – I don’t remember well :P) you have to go across the bridge but on its upper structure!!! (like in Wrocław Grunwaldzki’s bridge but a shorter one).

That is crazy tradition. I would die first.

Then we passed something like our rynek where in the middle is settled a rabbit from ice (every year they have another animal). Everyone can stuck a coin to it and this should bring him luck. The first thing I thought was ‘If I was homeless I would take all of this coins’… but I’m not ;)

We also entered a shopping mall looking for a place where they can remove simlock from my phone…  Yeah… brilliant Basia.. you took 2 phones.. both with simlocks.

You wouldn’t believe but in Estonia it’s not so common to have simlocks! People here hardly understood when I said what kind of problem I have. So… finally we found a place where they do that.. and.. they wanted 20 euros for removing the simlock from my old nokia!!! Common… in Poland I would pay no more than 4 euro.  They said that this is illegal (oh really?) I asked Heili to borrow me some of her old phones (so now I will have 3 mobiles = business woman).

Okey.. coming to the point. Finally we reached children shelter. The building looks like a big house (in a good condition). I was introduced to Mrs Lea who is the head of order there I think J (głową porządku hehehe). She wanted to speak Russian.. but I know only ‘haraszo’ :P English is not her strong side but we understood each other. Lea showed me all the rooms where kids can sleep, play, do homework, eat and watch tv. In one of the rooms were a teacher with kids (they were doing their homework and drawing valentine’s cards) Lea said who  am I and the teacher started to speak German with me … Actually I said only “Ich verstahe” =” I understand”… Because I did! Her German was perfect, I understood everything but couldn’t even try to say something beside ‘danke’…

After that I made an agreement with Lea that I will come tomorrow at 1p.m. and she will take me to the psychologist and pedagogues from all the Tartu meeting.

She also asked me if I’m interested of going with them to Parnau (Parnawa) on Sunday. They are going to build there a snow city and after that spend some time in SPA. Ha… sounds good for me but I need to buy a swimming suit. ;D

When Lea and Heilie were talking in Estonian about something I saw a boy looking at me with interest and I decided to bind a contact with him. I approached and:

ME:  ‘tere’ = ‘hi’ in Estonian

HE: ‘tere’ (with a lovely smile and shyness)

ME: ‘do you speak English?’

HE: nodded

ME: ‘ yes?’

HE:  ‘yes’

ME: ‘what’s your name?’

HE: ‘Argo’

ME: ’ ma olen Basia’ = ‘I am Basia’ in Estonian. And I took my hand to shake with him

HE: Smiled and shaked hands with me. ‘Nice to meet you’

ME: ‘Nice to meet you too. How old are you’

HE: ‘Eleven’

Then I asked him why is he not at school (stupid me it was after 4 p.m.) but he just said ‘I don’t know’. I had to go so I just say ‘bye’ to my new friend :) I feel potential in this kid.

Kids there aren’t orphanages but have a really hard life situations. They don’t stay in shelter all the time. Some of them come only after school, some stay for few weeks or months.

I will know my exact schedule tomorrow evening after my meeting with Kersti- my buddy and OCP of the project.

I have to figure out something for tonight.. I still don’t have a companion for crazy stuffs :P

And here are the pictures: my room again and something in the city, from a good perspective you can see a shape of a human: (damn I dont know why is this turned..... I will figure it out later :P)

6.02.2011

Finally I’m here! In TARTU!

The travel was really tiring… 16h by bus. My ass would rather be kicked all the time then just sit and do nothing.

I’ve been waiting for an 1 hour for someone to pick me. I was too tired to feel angry or sad. The only thing I wanted was to find a toilet.

Finally Taavi came and delivered me to my dormitory :) This place is great. I love it.

It’s like a normal flat: 3rooms + kitchen + bathroom + toilet. I have a room for my own ;D

We live together with: Ani (from Georgia), Lucie (form Czech Republic), Ina (from Germany) and Magda (from Poland).

Girls seem to be close already.. I need some time to find the spirit of the atmosphere.

There is a big difference between Lithuania and Latvia and between Latvia and Estonia. I haven’t seen much of this country yet but it looks like from a fairytale in some places. J

Today evening I will know what I’m gonna do here.. :)

And this is my room:

4.02.2011

My Estonian adventure has just begun.

Right now I’m on my way to Warsaw. Due to lack of the internet connection here in a train I have decided to write a diary.docx ;)

Very stressful day today. Exam, arguments with women in dean’s office (they told me that I cannot go anywhere… yeah right ‘go fffffishihg yourself. ;] ) quick meeting with my closest friends and departure.

I had a goodbye committee (Łycha, Krzyś, Mati, Ola, Wojtek). I’m really glad… thank you for this. Unfortunately Marta my little jamnik doggie didn’t manage to come. But I appreaciate her intentions.

Right now I have a strong feeling that I’ve done well my microbiology exam – finally after 5^th time ;]

I also feel relief… after 2 weeks of preparation (moving out, studing, last exams) before leaving.

I’m sitting now… in a train...

My sister will pick me from a train station.. 

Tomorrow morning (6:15 :O) I have a bus to Tartu… gosh.. I’ve just felt a little fish swimming in my belly…  This is a feeling of unknown. I have no idea what is waiting for me there.

Of course I know that there is freaking cold and … that I’m going to share a room in a dormitory with someone and … that there’s one polish girl from Poznań ;)

My mum was more stressed then me all this time.

No worries mum.. I’m a big girl :)