It's Been a Long Time

(Did you catch the Beirut reference in the title?!!?!)

In all seriousness, it has been a while. Many things have happened in the past month. Sidenote- I feel bad that I haven't posted any pictures on this blog so I think I will do that next time.

The first day is September 1 for most schools, but my school, Gustav Adolfi Gümnassium, started on September 3. The first day is a formal sort of ceremony. Everyone dresses up and goes to their homeroom class and then there is a ceremony in the outside courtyard.

I am in the 11th grade here. Estonians schools do not offer choices in the courses that students are allowed to take. The only option is to choose a stream. I am in the A stream (English/French), there are also B,C, and D streams. The A stream usually has the least amount of boys; my class only has 4 boys.

On Monday we have 7 classes:
Estonian, Geography, English, Math, French, Guide (learning about the history of Tallinn in English so they can basically guide tourists around), and Chemistry.
Tuesday: History, French, English, Biology, Math, 3 periods of Estonian+Estonian lit.
Wednesday: Physics, Math, 2 periods of P.E., Estonian, Music, French, Russian
Thursday: Chemistry, English, Estonian, Math, French, Biology
Friday: English, History, some sort of family/relationships class, Russian, Physics, Math, British History
Each lesson is 45 minutes in length, with the same class for the whole year.

Estonians are very shy and quiet and no one really spoke to me the first week. Now the situation is improving and people are inviting me places and talking to me. I'm sure it will get even better when I can understand and speak more Estonian. My host family, classmates, and Mari have been really been trying to help me learn.

I have to wake up at 6:30 every morning so that I can catch the "Koolibuss" at 7:20. The koolibuss looks like a transit bus, but it's red. I should take a picture of it.
School starts at 8 every morning, except it starts at 8:55 on Mondays. However, I got a new schedule on Thursday which is effective this Monday. It is the WEIRDEST thing ever.

I mean, what even? :D
I understand the Estonian classes with 2,3,4 graders, but MATH, come on :D
My days are much more different now, but I still have to get the schoolbus at the same time. So now I have to think about what I am going to do for an hour. Also, what am I going to do during those spares on Friday? I can't go home because I live in Tiskre which is pretty far from the school. My third host family lives on the street right behind the school so the issue of where to stay won't be a problem then.

I've also started to attend dance classes at "Tallinn Tantsuakadeemia". They teach classical forms of dance like ballet and jazz type things. So as you can imagine, I'm not too good :D In fact, I'm the worst in the class. :D I can't do pirouettes for my life, and that is why I am at a dance school thing- to learn :-)
I'm in the 15-18 year group.

Before school started, Miku and I went to Viljandi (a more southern city) to visit his grandparents. We stayed there for two days. Here are some pictures:

Random abandoned rusty slides

Miku's grandpa driving his seriously old car

There were locks on this bridge. The locks are put on bridges (I think) when Russian couples get married. I have more pictures from another place that I went to with Reet with TONS of locks. 

Reet and I took a little afternoon trip to Paldiski. It's a city to the East which has a lot of Soviet history. Estonians who were living there were forced out of it, and it became a military base.
There are very sad, grey buildings. In fact, there are some areas of Tallinn that are very reminiscent of this time in Estonia's history.
Tallinn is also populated 50% by Russians. So everywhere you go, you hear Russian. There are some areas in Tallinn that are populated primarily by Russians. Russian and Estonian a are part of two completely different language groups. Estonian is a Finno-Ugric language, whereas Russian is a Slavic language. Even when I had been here for a few weeks, people were telling me that I knew more Estonian than most of the Russians here. Being an outsider, and being told these things, makes me feel as though there is tension between the two groups (as you'd probably think).
Estonian cinemas have subtitles in Estonian and Russian (simultaneously) at the bottom of the screen.
I've seen Moonrise Kingdom, and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World in the cinema here.
Russian must be learned in school here. I understand nothing in my 11a Russian class :D Well, now I don't have Russian anymore, but I am going to ask if i can go to a beginning level Russian class.
Most of the kids here don't want to learn Russian for obvious reasons, and the kids in my class don't really care for it. One of the boys said that he's been studying Russian more years than French, but he understands more French.

Today was Miku's going away dinner. He is leaving tomorrow afternoon for London, England. I think he is coming back for Christmas Break.

I hope to update this more often now :D

There are many more things I have to say about Tallinn, Estonia, and my school, but those will be in another post.

Tšau!

Flat Tires and Walks and Such

Tere!

Today my host brother and I went on a "bike ride". Halfway to our final destination, my sandal broke and my tire went flat. My host mum did say that there might be problems with the bike, but we didn't know how or when or if. But now we know how and when and if, and it did happen. So Mihkel let me go on his bike and he rode the one with the flat tire back home.

The past few days have been really lovely. Mihkel and I went for a walk in this park/forest area, and we've been watching Freaks and Geeks. He likes the same music I do, and has a similar sense of humor so he's really a great host brother.

My host mum, Reet, bought me Tom ja Jerry, ja Miki Hiir to help me learn Estonian. Estonian is a very logical language. It's just all of the conjugations that make it difficult. It is also difficult to pronounce "õ".

This weekend Mihkel and I are going to sleepover at other Mihkel and Mari's summer home.

The weather here is beautiful and I am very happy.
Siin on ilus ilm, ja ma olen väga õnnelik.

Tšau,
Anu

Estonia

So I came back from Finland on the 11th of August where I was greeted by my host family, Mari and Mihkel (mari and mihkel are my internet friends). I've been keeping a journal so I don't feel like giving out all the details. We all basically just hung out for a bit, then I went to my new home.

My host family is so lovely. I couldn't be luckier. My host mum and brother are so nice and have been really welcoming.
I don't feel homesick, instead I feel right at home.

Yesterday Mihkel, Mari, other Mihkel, and Nele (another internet friend who is best friends with Mari) showed me around Old Town and a bit outside of it.  It was sooo nice and it was really great to finally meet my internet friends :D

Miku and I, went to go watch the shooting star shower thing last night. I had only seen 1 shooting star prior to this, and last night I saw 11!

Tallinn on väga ilus.

Mulle meeldib minu pere.

ok I had to throw in some of the little Estonian I know :D

From my window, I can see the sea and a field of grass.
This is like a fairytale.

Anu

wow

11 more days!!!
I've been speaking with some of the exchange students who were in Estonia and I am super excited to get there :D

whaaaaat

In one month from today, I will be in Helsinki about to start my orientation/language camp. In one month my exchange will officially begin.

I still have this sort of numbness because I have nothing to copmare this experience to. Of course I'm excited, more than that- I'm thrilled, but I have no idea what to expect. I've no idea what kind of transformation I will go through, or what I'll do, or who I meet, or things that will happen. So this is why this still seems surreal to me.

I've always thought of being an exchange student. I never thought it would one day actually happen.
I am so thankful for being given this opportunity.

---
Also, I'm in contact with my host mother. She seems like a very sweet person :-)

wooootwwotwowooowtowtoot EESTONIA OWAJWLFJ

oh and i've been starting to learn basic words in Estonian. It's such a hard language.

Soon!

One of the inbounds from Austria is on her last month here in Canada, and it is making me realize how much closer I am to my exchange.

I'm so excited, and I'm finding it difficult to concentrate on my school work because of this whole thing. It's not particularly convenient right now since exams are coming up, and summatives have started.

I must concentrate! 

Orientation Weekend

On Saturday and Sunday, the inbounds and outbounds of D7080 gathered at UTM. The outbounds got training sessions to prepare us for the exchange.
I've received my guarantee forms! :-)

Here are the official pictures.

Announcement Day

I woke up that day not knowing what to expect.
I don’t think it had really sunk in that I would be finding out which country I would be in a year from now, that day.

I was so sure I would be sent to somewhere in South America.
The country list was:

• Estonia
• Sweden
• Finland
• Denmark
• Switzerland
• Austria
• France
• Brazil
• Venezuela
• Chile
• Ecuador
• Australia
• New Zealand
• Thailand
• South Korea
• Japan

That’s quite an impressive list.
I’ll skip all the boring bits…
I was having trouble opening my letter, so that added to the suspense. I took out my letter, and unfolded it. There wasn’t much reading to do since ESTONIA was bolded right in the centre of the page. I was not expecting Estonia, AT ALL. Mari, my pen pal in Estonia, was the first thing I thought of when I saw it. This whole though process happened really quickly, and the thought of Mari was already in my mind when I announced that I would be spending a year in Estonia to all of my fellow outbounds, their families, my family, and the Rotarians.
Only after a month has it really sunk in. I AM GOING TO BE IN ESTONIA AT THIS TIME NEXT YEAR. In fact, I’m going to be in Estonia in less that 6 months.
Here’s a brief little summary of how I know Mari. I started exchanging “letters” (emails, but more like letters without the envelope) with Mari in the summer of 2011. We eventually started to Skype (Estonian btw.), but still wrote letters to one another. I didn’t even know I would be applying for the RYE at that time. Even when I had applied for the program, Estonia wasn’t on the list. Estonia was added to the list later on in the process, and I wasn’t allowed to say which country I wanted to go to. The fact that the Rotarians felt that I would be suited for Estonia, is beyond incredible.

I found out later in the week that I will be staying in Tallinn, the capital city! Coincidentally, the same city as Mari! :D
I am so fortunate, not only for being sent to Estonia, but for the whole experience that has already begun.
If you would like to see my vlog on announcement day you can click any part of this sentence.

Camp Wanakita

From February 5th - 8th I was at Camp Wanakita with all the Outbounds and Inbounds from my district. It was quite a bit further north than where I live, so there was obviously a lot more snow in the area. All the snow was quite refreshing since winter in the GTA this year was nonexistent.
Before I left, I had to purchase most of the gear that was required. I had to buy snow-pants, a proper snow jacket, and boots. I feel that I was well equipped for the conditions. It was incredibly cold, especially overnight in the quinzee. I’ll talk about that in a bit.
We did a lot of winter activities like snowshoeing, skiing, broom-ball, tobogganing, orienteering, and whole bunch of other stuff. This was the first time that I had snowshoed or skied, so that was quite an experience. I fell down a bit too many times, overall it was great fun :D
We started to build quinzees, which are basically mounds of snow which harden, and then are dug out. One of the nights we got to sleep in one of the four that were built. All I have to say about that is that I was cold. yeah.
One of the coolest things that we did was write these letters to ourselves throughout our days at Wanakita. The first night we went out with these adorable candle-lit lanterns, into the forest, and wrote a letter to ourselves. We found out that the letters that we wrote would be sent to us in exactly a year while we are on exchange. All the outbounds couldn’t write an address because we didn’t know where we were going. It was all really exciting because in a few weeks we would know where we would be going.
It was also really awesome speaking with all of the inbounds who had been here for about 7 months, a couple (New Zealand + Australia) had only been here for 2 weeks. They were really helpful telling us about the whole experience they’d had so far.
It was also really anxiety-provoking because all the Rotarians were watching everything. I obviously had my preferences (which country I wanted to go to), so I didn’t want to do anything that was going against me (whatever that meant. What does being -insert country name- even mean?). That was a really foolish thought, which soon disappeared because I was so caught up with everything that we were doing. I completely forgot about my whole ~masterplan~ and was just myself.
The Rotarians found out that I really like space, and one of the Rotarians came up to me and said “We have to send you somewhere you can see the stars!” and then she asked me where I could see the stars, and I replied with somewhere in Scandinavia. :D
The last night there was a dance party, which I wasn’t too thrilled about since I’m not a ~dancer~, and I’m not into pop music. Thankfully the camp counselor, Matt, played Arctic Monkeys, I Bet That You Look Good On The Dancefloor :D WOOOO! Then at breakfast the next morning, he played a bunch of Stars songs. *awesome*
Overall Wanakita was a lot of fun, and I have many great memories from those few days.
Here are some pictures:

on the snowshoe trek, on top of a beaver dam

the snowshoe trek group that I was in

the entire group jumping on a quinzee, trying to break it down on the last day

a group of girls jumping on a quinzee