The Midnight Sun

At the beginning of my experience I talked about how the sun set at about 5 pm when we first arrived to Estonia. I also talked about how we rarely saw the sun that first month. Well that has all changed and now it never gets dark. The sun sets at 11 pm and it rises at 3 am! I went to the club last weekend and I left the club when the sun was rising and by the time I got in bed I was staring out my window which looked like the middle of the afternoon.

The view from my window at 3 am!

Estonia in Spring. The leaves on the trees grow execptionally fast here. Each time I walk by the park it looks completely different because everything blooms so quickly here. It's very cool.

The city center.

Angles bridge. I walk under this bridge 3 times a week on my way to class.


This is a large public park where all of the students hang out in the nice weather. It is also the only public place to drink in Tartu...so there are always people in the park. On nice days the park is so full that you can't find an open patch of grass to sit on.

The Botanical Gardens.

21

I had the best 21st birthday I could have ever hoped for!! My birthday started off on Friday night with going to the club and dancing the night away. I slept in Saturday morning and then Sean, Hannah, and I all went to go workout. Corey and Kayla were on a cruise in the Mediterranean, so they missed the birthday celebration. After we went to work out, we came back and made lunch and had a relaxing afternoon until I was kicked out of my room for a birthday surprise. My mom sent what I would like to call "birthday in a box" so I was sent away while Hannah and Sean set up the surprise. I went to the park in the center of the city for about an hour with my computer to hang out. I came back to the room to find streamers all over the place and balloons everywhere. It was awesome! However, I must say that the best thing inside the "birthday in a box" was the "pin the tail on the donkey" game! After the excitement of the surprise we all got ready to go to dinner at a delicious Chinese restaurant. We came home from the Chinese restaurant and we tried to make ourselves some Mojitos. Mojitos must not be a popular drink in Estonia because we had a hard time finding the ingredients. Apparently mint leaves are not common here so instead, we had to find a plant that was related to the mint family. They don't just sell the mint leaves, oh no, we had to buy a whole plant in a pot. Our attempt at making Mojitos wasn't a complete fail. They were pretty good for our first attempt and we had fun trying to make them. We continued celebrating by playing "pin the tail on the Donkey." I've never been good at that game, but it was still fun to be a little kid again. My mom sent us Little Debbie for dessert in the "birthday in a box" and they were delicious! We spent the rest of the evening talking and laughing until about 2am and then called it a day. It was a very special birthday and something I will always remember!


My other favorite part of the box was the golden crowns! We all wore our crowns all night.


I LOVE donuts!

Sean and I on our way to the Chinese restaurant.

Hannah and I on our way to the Chinese restaurant.

Pin the tail on the donkey! Highlight of the night!

BIRHTDAY IN A BOX!

Student Days

The last week of April was Student Days here in Tartu.

Tartu Studentdays is a festival brought to you twice a year: in spring and in autumn! Tartu Studentdays festival offers participants and visitors a unique programme full of culture and entertainment! The programme allows you to rest your spirit and partake in the enjoyment of student life. Tartu Studentdays represents student’s spirit, their positive energy and optimism. Twice a year, these festivals gather people to come and find their inner student and to share an amazing experience with the students of Tartu. The activities are filled with enjoyment for participants and spectators alike to ensure there is fun for everybody.

There were many activities throughout the week like song festivals, boat races, flying machine contests, dances, costumes parties, and even snowball fights.

The Song Festival took place in a huge hill...the same hill that is used as a popular place to sled in the winter. The entire hill was covered with people eating, drinking, and singing while a live band was playing.

They had a contest to see who could build the tallest stack of beer crates without falling.

The highlight of the week was the boat race on the river. People come from all over Estonia to watch the boat races.

The participants were supposed to race upstream and then downstream, but instead everyone just floated around trying to soak and sink the other boats.

The international students' boat.

Hanging Around the Dorm

Celebrating Hannah's pretend birthday got a little out of hand.


Corey and I being lazy on my bed.

My grandpa sent me 6 bags of donuts and I can't eat them all by myself so I tried to give some to Corey, but he wasn't helping me eat them so I tried to force feed them to him.

I obviously didn't win.

America Night

The student entertainment organization in Tartu plans culture nights where students from different countries give a presentation and serve food from their countries. Last Thursday was AMERICA night. We gave a presentation about our wonderful country and then we served grill cheese, tomato soup, and frech fries. How much more American can you get than that. Everyone was surprised that we eat such greasy foods, but that's America for you. We also played popular music throughout the night. Later in the evening, some of the Americans taught the international students how to play a popular drinking game called "Beer Pong." It was fun to watch the international students and see their reactions to our culture. It was a very successful night. There were about 100 international students that came to enjoy the evening. It was a great opportunity for us to show all of the international students what America is like. We have heard so many negative things about America since we have been here and America night was our chance to show America in a positive light. Needless to say, I think we convinced all of the international students to come visit America someday!


Some of the Spaniards who call us "AMERICA."



The international students playing Beer Pong.

Some Spaniards representing America.

Россия-Russia

When I said I had a busy week of traveling, I meant very busy. I just got back from an incredible 5 day trip to Russia. We went to from Pskov to Moscow to St. Petersburg. I went on this trip with Sean, Corey, and Hannah along with 19 other international students. It was awesome to spend 5 days with people from all around the world and learning about their cultures. By the end of the trip, the four of us were known by America. Now, whenever we see anyone from the trip, they always say "AMERICA!"



We took a bus from Tartu to Pskov, which is a little town right across the border. The Russian border was the most complex border I have been through. It took us about an hour to get all of us through. We had to take everything out of the bus as scary Russian men came through the bus looking at us. Then we had to go through and give them our passports to look at. I was very nervous because Russians are not so fond of Americans, so I didn't want to show them my passport. However, they decided to let me through!


Our first adventure was to a Pskov-Pechora Monastery. All women were required to wear skirts and scarves.



Holy well water. It tasted great!



You are not supposed to drink the water in Russia, so I had to stock up while I had the chance. You would never guess that you could actually buy vodka for less than water. No worries, I stuck with the water.

We took a 12 hour night train from Pskov to Moscow. The train ride was the WORST yet funniest experience I have ever had. This train was SOO cramped and we had to share a compartment with 4 people. Luckily I was with my friends, but still we had NO room. This train was SOOO hot and SOOO loud. We made stops about every 30 minutes so when we stopped you could hear EVERYONE snoring. I'm not kidding it was like a choir of snoring. It was horrible. Now here is the hilarious part, because Sean and I couldn't sleep, and because we were so tired, we thought everything was hilarious so we were laughing all night long for no reason. It was a miserable night but hilarious. However, I am not planning on taking any night trains anytime soon...unless I have the whole car to myself.

When we arrived in Moscow we headed to the Kremlin. The Kremlin is the government area of a city and most Russia cities had a Kremlin.

Cathedral within the Kremlin walls.

Another church within the Kremlin.

The largest bell in the world, The Tsar Bell, weighs 216 tons and has never been rung.

The office of the President of Russia.

The State Historical Museum in the Red Square.

St. Basil's Cathedral!

The Moscow subway.

The Church of St. John the Baptist in the former royal estate-Kokomenskoye.

We had a guided tour of the Kokomenskoye Mansion and the tour guides dressed up like the nobel women of the time.

It is a Russian tradition for newly married couples to put a lock on these trees on a bridge and then they throw the key into the river below. There were brides EVERYWHERE. We saw numerous brides at every site we stopped at.

The Church of Christ the Savior.

The most important building in this photo is the white building because that is the building where we bought Alaska from Russia. Very important.

We took another night train from Moscow to St. Petersburg. This train was much better because we were only on the train from 9 pm to 5 am...so there wasn't enough time to suffer through the choir of snoring.

Peter and Paul Fortress established by Peter the Great.

Aurora Warship where one of the first incidents of the Russia Revolution began.

The Hermitage is third largest museum in the world. It contains over 3 million works of art and it would take over 3 years to be able to see everything in the museum.

The Hermitage was the winter palace of Catherine the Great. The wooden floors were made from 12 different types of wood.

The Hermitage had famous paintings from Van Gogh, Renoir, Picasso and Monet.

The throne room.

The Cathedral of the Resurrection.

Can't leave Russia without a Russian hat.

They had SUBWAY in Russia! Of course it cost $10 but boy was it worth it!

St. Isaac's Cathedral took 30 years to construct and was the largest church in Russia when it was built. This dome influenced the dome of the United States Capital.

Inside the dome.

The famous golden arches in Russian. Russia has their own alphabet and nothing was in English. It was very difficult to order food or find the restroom. However, by the end of the 5 days I was able sound out some of the words from the symbols. This sign phonetically says McDonalds.

The summer palace of Catherine I-the second wife of Peter the Great. This is the palace with the famous Amber Room.

The entire palace was lined in gold.

The dinning room.