Estonia 1998: Ever Have “One of Those Days?” Definitely Hope So!
From the archives: It turns out that I was blogging long before anyone had ever heard the term “blog.” Twenty years ago I was an exchange student in Estonia. While studying at the University of Tartu, I created an online travelogue to keep my family and friends apprised of my experiences. Both my life and the nation of Estonia have changed a lot the two decades since. This reprise is providing me with a glimpse at who I was back then and the excuse to learn more about more recent developments in my temporary home, even if some of the opinions that I expressed back then may make me a little bit uncomfortable today. It is interesting to see how people grow and change.
April 1-12, 1998
This entry covers some very bizarre and unique experiences. In these two weeks I have had so much fun, been so many places, learned so much and simply seen so much happen that it just simply blows my mind. I wish that I had the time and energy to truly do all of this justice here on this homepage. Unfortunately doing that here would take all of my time and effort, and in turn there would be no way for me to be out there experiencing all of the wonderful things that I am attempting to relate to you.
That is one of the great luxuries that true profession travel writers have, they get to do the kind of things that I am doing, but that is all they have to do, making it much simpler for them to share with you. I know that even then it is still impossible for someone who was not there to truly get the true experience. But, somehow there are those who make you feel as if they can. That is why travelogues are one of my favorite forms of literature. Truly good ones (and by that I most assuredly don’t mean “Lonely Planet” tour guides, although they have a merit all their own) can take you places that you never though imaginable, even if you have been to that same city yourself.
I’ve learned more from traveling than I have in the rest of my life combined. The simple joy of love, life and friendship is what makes being alive worthwhile. These kind of things are the items that one wakes up with and lives with every moment of every day when on the road. It doesn’t matter where you go, how long you go or how you get there. Just go.
Keep your mind open and I guarantee you’ll find yourself in the same situation I am in right now. No matter how many times I think it, I still find myself baffled by how surreal life can truly be if we just let it.
1 April 1998
Wednesday
I was only successful once tonight in coming up with an April Fool’s Day story. I convinced Emmi of the takeover of the Finnish embassy in the United States by Swedish-American terrorists enraged by Finland’s victory in in the Olympic games. They were holding the ambassador hostage and demanding an official apology from the Finnish government. It worked a treat. Everyone else saw right through me. I wish that I had remembered earlier that today was April Fool’s Day. I forgot all about it and only had a couple of hours at Illegaard to try my storytelling I needed that kind of success after an evening speaking Spanish with Inma. It is really terrible how much I have lost. I need to shake the rust loose and try to get back to where I once was. At least a few more nights like tonight are definitely needed.
2 April 1998
Thursday
Tonight after my classes I went to Heller and got to put a new face with an old name. I went to meet on of my Estonian penpals. It was a good time and the best part about the whole evening is that we spoke Estonian all night long. I am running out of excuses for bothering to speak any English here, Nights like this prove that I can do it in Estonian, now if only I could force myself to make the effort at all times. Why don’t I? Good question. Ma lihsalt ei viitsi…
4 April 1998
Saturday
Tired, muddy dusty and dirty, but alive and happy. I had a great time in Otepää with the international crowd today and in Valga with Silke getting passports stamped for another month of legality in Estonia.
Quoted from a letter written to Deb Norman:
We went to Otepää for the night and stayed in the Otepää ski club’s guest hostel. The trip there and back was a lot of fun, we stopped overnight in Otepää, a winter resort town in the Estonian “mountains” (sort of large hills, much like the Loess hills along the Missouri River in Iowa). We did get to see a ski competition and had a great time in a psuedo-real Irish pub.
The best part of the whole weekend was on the way to the border town of Valga when our bus caught fire about two kilometers from town. We were overcome by this horrible smell of burning rubber and then we came to stop and our bus driver jumped out and nonchalantly pulled out a fire extinguisher (as if this happens all the time) and added an overwhelming stench of sulfur to the aromatic montage we were experiencing. Without a word of explanation to the passengers, he proceeded to change into overalls and crawl under the bus to attempt a repair on whatever was the problem.
Fortunately we were close enough to town that everyone got out and began walking, ourselves included since the border post was right in sight. A slog through a muddy field later, we arrived in Latvia, and after some wandering around trying to find something, anything, to buy as a souvenir we were stopped by an old woman who asked us (in Estonian!!) where we were trying to go. Happy to find that we also spoke Estonian she told us the best way to get to a bar on the Latvian side of this horrible border town. Unfortunately it was another slog through a muddy field and would have taken much more time than we had, so we beat a hasty retreat and wandered back toward Estonia.
Desperate to find something to buy, we found a bar-like establishment a scant two hundred meters from the border (probably catering mostly to truck drivers who can be held up for hours, or even days, on this inefficient frontier). We went in and, not knowing a word of Latvian, attempted to order in Estonian. The bartender merely shook her head and responded in Russian. Now, I don’t know much in Russian but was finally able to convey the idea that I wanted a Latvian beer and wanted to pay in Estonian crowns. Happily she pulled out the calculator and figured the price for me (padding it a little bit, of course), but it was still cheaper than an Estonian bar would have been and the simple novelty of the whole thing made the couple of extra crowns well worth it. Actually the most difficult part was trying to tell her that I wanted to take bottle with me (souvenir, you know!) rather than putting in a glass.
Reinforced with our lager based energy, we waded back across the border and began to make our way back to town to catch the bus to Tartu. Along the road we had no real problems until we asked directions to the station. The girls that we stopped the first time (ethnic Russians we assumed) actually had worse Estonian than we did and their directions simply consisted of “go way, way, way up there and look right”. Right then… So off we went. Way up there (two ‘ways’ short of our instructions) we asked another woman who responded in native Estonian (properly conjugated imperative forms and everything!) and got us there without any trouble.
Before boarding the bus I had to go off and do what it is nature occasionally calls us all to do, and so I entered the station. It’s nice to know that some things have not changed in the years since the Soviet regime. The toilets were off in a dark corner of the building and upon entering the potential business doer is confronted by two bored looking old bury Russian women (it’s impossible to translate the word ‘babushka’) sitting at either end of a desk each guarding a tiny roll of thin brown film claiming to be toilet paper. After greeting them (in Estonian, some things have improved), going to the men’s side of the desk (hence the two attendants!), I paid and took my six inches (I’ve learned that any more and you get scolded) of the sacred paper. The toilets themselves were fine except for the typical Estonian standard of having no seats. To this day I wonder where all the toilet seats in the former Soviet Union have gone. What would be the point of stealing them? How many toilet seats does one truly need? I suppose it would make an interesting wall decoration…
Properly reinforced, we waited for our bus, only to note with horror that when it came it was the same flammable vehicle that had carried us to town. Still, what choice did we have? Fortunately whatever there was to burn had already been expended and we made it back to Tartu without incident, bringing to a close a wonderful weekend.
5 April 1998
Sunday
I just wrote a letter to Deb Norman about what I did this weekend in Otepää and Valga. Suddenly I realized exactly the kind of things that I was writing about, incredible things that I usually only think about happening to other people. The kind of adventures that I only read about in books and other people’s travel journals. Here it is, happening to me. The main character in this drama is not some strange individual with awesome talents, opportunities or limitless finances. It is me. That is an incredible realization. I am actually living something that far surpasses anything I could have ever dreamed about. How did I get so lucky?
The best part about this is that I have now programmed this into my head as reality, as if there were nothing bizarre about it. In short, this is who I am and what I have become. What an incredible sensation. All my life I have dreamed of doing this kind of thing, and all of a sudden I look around and there I am, doing it. And I didn’t even realize it. Incredible, absolutely incredible.
7 April 1998
Tuesday
A pretty quiet day today. I went to Tiina’s class this morning and had a rather rough time with the wonderful Estonian concept of partitive plural. Some things in this language just do not make sense and it will truly be a long time until I get the hang of them. Gordan Lehman was sick today so instead I went to meet with Maria who is in the process of moving this weekend to a farm north of Tartu. It was good to talk to her and the longest time that we have had to just sit and talk together. A lot of fun.
In the evening we were supposed to have a Põhjala fraternity meeting, but I was simply too tired from a late night last night to even bother, so instead I came home and watched a bit of television and spend some time with the family relaxing. To bed a decent hour tonight. A nice change of pace.
9 April 1998
Thursday
It’s been a good day for the renewal of some old friendships. This morning after Illegaard I went with Silke and Nuri to meet Herle from last semester who is now studying in Wasa, Finland. It was great to see her and we went to the dormitories and talked together for about an hour until exhaustion kicked in and we all retired to our own homes. She sounds like she is having a good time in Finland, yet is still enjoying being here in Tartu for a while.
This afternoon we all met for lunch at Pronto Pizza with Arno and Liisa. We enjoyed catching up and, as always with Liisa, it proved to be a fun language exercise switching back and forth between Estonian and English.
In the evening I went to the Catholic Church for Maundy Thursday services. It was a wonderful mass. As usual for special holidays, the Polish and Estonian language congregations combined and did the mass using Latin as a neutral language. The Latin mass is so beautiful, it unites all people around the world and lets them come together in a way unlike any other church. No matter what country someone originates from, a Catholic is always at home in a Latin language mass. One of the things I regret being a protestant. We have unity in our beliefs, of course, but sometimes unity in liturgy would be a nice thing to have as well.
I finished off the night at Zum-Zum, where I got to see Karolina and her sister for the first time since my visit in Stockholm. We had a great time catching up and I enjoyed getting to meet her sister for the first time. We were also joined by other parts of the international crowd and on Saturday I will be going to Megan’s place for egg coloring and as the highlight surprise of the night I got invited to a conference in Lithuania next week, potentially all expenses paid. The only catch is that I have to talk about human rights from a western perspective, especially an American point of view. Nothing definite yet, I have to go the Eurofaculty building tomorrow morning to check it out. What an absolutely surreal life I am living right now. I’m having the time of my life.
