My Life Is Now Complete

Ever since the first day when I realized that Estonians do not smile, I told myself that I was going to make one smile at me if I was the last thing I do. Well I got one to smile at me today...it only took a little over a week! There is a huge snow fort play ground in the middle of the town square. It is apparently a really special thing because they haven't been able to build one for many many years so it is a treat for the town. Everytime we walk by there are always children climbing on it and sliding down the slides and running through the tunnels. It is a very cool snow fort, castle, playground. So Sean and I wanted to go take pictures of it before it started to melt...which im sure won't be for a looooooong time because it is ALWAYS freezing here. So I thought it would be fun to climb on the fort and slide down the slide. Well I am no longer a little kid so it did not turn out as fun as I had anticipated. It looks like this fort is made out of snow, but no the snow is the top layer and the rest is pure ice. Very dangerous if you ask me. So I almost fell 7 times as I was trying to go up the ice stairs to the top of the slide. The slide was not as smooth as I was hoping either-there were a couple of "speed bumps." So needless to say my butt is very sore and I will not go down an ice-slide again. But the point of my story is while I was at the top of this slide, bundled up in all my weather gear, and still wearing my backpack, looking like a big kid on a tiny playground, an old woman was walking by and she looked up at me and smiled and giggled! Mission accomplished

There was a welcome party for international students hosted by the entertainment organization here at school held at a popular club down the street. I have never been to a club before, but this club was awesome. The interior of the building was like walking into a modern Phantom of the Opera theater. There were huge chandeliers hanging and large old columns all around. The floor in the entry was marble tile. After you walked through the entry way you walked through curtains to enter the dance floor complete with a disco ball and tons of muli-colored lights. The music was unbelievably loud. I am not one for a club-type atmosphere but it was a fun evening of dancing.

I now live on an off-brand of nutella. When you really want chocolate cake, closing your eyes and eating nussa does wonders. We now take bread and smother it with nussa and surprisingly it taste just like a cheap off brand of walmart chocolate cake with lots of extra frosting. Its rather addicting.

Today we had a meeting about how to apply for a residency permit to live here in Estonia for the next 5 months. Pure hell. We have to go to the migration office next week where no one speaks english so we were strongly encouraged to ask an Estonian to come with us to help us at the office. Need I remind you that Estonians hate being asked for help. It is part of being independent so they get very frustrated when you ask for help. Luckily we have found a couple people who are willing to go with us and help. We had to fill out many many forms and we had to write in all capital letters. Furthermore, if we screwed up our papers, they would not be accepted so we would have to do it again. They wanted to know so much about us that they even asked us to write down every single school we have attended and where.


The snow fort-castle-playground.


A cozy lil ice-bench.