Alright, can feel my hand again, and I have my calender, so I will be able to remember the things I did.
January 8th was the first day back at classes, and nothing really had changed. I had some new courses, and on Thursday and Friday I had 4 new classes, biology, philosophy, art history and music history. the most interesting thing was that because our school was so old and decrepit (see previous posts with classmates jumping out windows), the building was being renovated. this meant that we needed new school houses, so we now had two new buildings, with so many floors there was no need for me to go to the gym. Just my luck that all of my classes were on the 4th floor and all the rooms had really high ceilings.

One of the great things about the host family I was with at the time was that because the father was a producer for the opera company, I could see as many operas, operettas and ballets as I wanted, and I usually went to one or two a week. I found that although the music and scenes were beautiful in the operas, I found I liked the ballets WAY!!! more. Although Estonia is fairly small, the amount of singing talent from within the country as well as Russian ballerinas, meant that the quality was really high. I spent most of my time in January going to the ballet/opera and watching movies with Katie.

On January 19th, my dads B-Day as well, Luciana, our newbie (what a terrible word) got into Tallinn. She wasn't going to the Karkku camp like we did at the beginning, so all of her first exchange impressions were based on us, which is good, because we arrived at the airport with flowers and lots of smiles. Crazy girl she is, although only 16, was not nearly as confused or as tired as I was when I got here, and although she has been here 2 months now, she claims she never thinks of her parents except when she wishes they didn't call so much. Weirdo.
Other than that, January was simple. Nothing more exciting that getting a 4- (really good for me) on my french 'Grand Bilan', which was really exciting.

The beginning of February was pretty much the same, but on Feb 18th we got to go to Haapsalu, in western Estonia, and drive on the sea ice. it was pretty cool to think of, but the actual feeling was no more exciting than when my father purposely fishtails on the highway. It seems as if during the winter the path across the ice becomes just another road, although because it allows you to cross the water instead of going around, it is faster. We also went to one of the three ice free ports in Estonia, and because I like sticking my feet in the water in different places, I took of one of my shoes and socks and stuck my foot in. i conveniently forgot that water on the shores tends to move in and out and, 'in a moment of mental distraction', as Ms Prism once said, I left my shoe and sock beside the water, and it almost got carried away, but although I got it back, my feet were quite soggy for the rest of the day.

Later that week I went with Katie's host mom and sister to Finland to go skiing. We took one of the big ferries over, because there was still ice in both ports, and we drove north to Himos, one of the big ski resorts in Finland. The hills there are sort of like Wintergreen at home, but it was fun for a skier like me, who is really no good at going down hills. John, one of the Canadians living in Helsinki, met us there and we had a good weekend of skiing, Katie cooking way too much good food and just chilling out. We hadn't seen John since Lapland tour, and it was a good times.
I should state here, for my own knowledge, that before even this, I was able to conquer my fear of post offices, and send a late Christmas present to Essya, and something home. it seems very odd, but when the post offices are full of angry Russian ladies, i think my avoidance is not totally without reason.

Once back in Tallinn, I went to see my host fathers rehearsal of his new show called PipiNukiPooh, which is a children's musical that had PipiLongstocking (Pipi PikkSukk in Estonia ) a traditional Estonian character named Nuki and Winnie the Pooh. Although I was not all that impressed with the rehearsal, the little boy playing Tommy wouldn't stop pulling up his pants, when I saw the performance of it that Sunday I was REALLY impressed. Although it was in Estonian, there was English subtitles, (sorta electronic screen above the stage, used so people understand Italian operas) and I even understood some of it, although seeing as my Estonian is shaky when people are speaking, I didn't expect much from singing.

In between the rehearsal and the performance, the exchange students, as well as some outbound Estonian student, all went to Helsinki for a night. We got there, wandered around downtown Helsinki for a while with the other exchange students, which we have done a lot in the past, and went back to Suomlinna, which means Finnish castle in Finnish. We had a good night, dancing around the dorm room in the hostel (don't worry, it was only us in there). Next day we went back on the ferry to Helsinki, where we met the rest of the Finnish exchange students in a church that had been blasted into a rock. the whole church was circular, with the walls being the granite rock . It was a really beautiful church, but because i have no pictures with me, here are some - ( http://photoweb.lodestone.org/folder/367/en)
Next we walked through the slush of end of winter Hesinki to the Finnish National museum, which was really cool. It was set up just like a time line, going from one time period to another. Because I am not in Finland, this was really the best way to understand some of Finnish culture in a small amount of time. It didn't really work though because all I can remember is that there were lots and lots of clocks. and again, here is some stuff more - ( http://www.nba.fi/en/nmf)

After that, we got onto a tram and travelled to an aquarium of some sort. It was pretty cool to look at, jellyfish, sharks and turtles, but I am not really sure why we were there, because I am pretty sure jelly fish do no live in the Gulf of Finland. this does not stop me from being excited about the sharks, does not really matter if they are from a coral reef, so here is one - http://www.sealife.fi/page.php?page_id=99. so we spent a lot of time here, had a nice lunch and then were free to do what we wanted until we had to go to the ferry. we all got on the tram back, but because we ran to the back to make it, i didnt end up buying a ticket, and then just right before the last stop, the tram stopped in the middle of the road the doors opened and some uniformed men walked in. I was really worried, because that is not the way I want to spent 80€, but it turns out there was a drunk man at the back of the tram and they were policemen coming to take him away. it was all done so quickly and quietly it was pretty amazing. all the Finns just moved out of the way, they got the man, moved of the bus and started to quietly question him. really impressive really.
after that we wandered to a sports bar where we watched a football match (Manchester united against Liverpool) which was fun, because it That is pretty much everything that happened. We went back to Tallinn and back to life.
I will write about my new host family and house later this week maybe, and when I get back, my week with Essie. Now we are off to meet her first host mom and then to her next family. Lots to read. Love ... Lis

-Elisabeth

So I cannot seem to work out the blog thing here in a Hungarian school, so I am typing it all out in an email, and then pasting it is... YAY for the life of Internet in different languages. It makes me feel better though here because at least when I don't understand Hungarian, it isn't my fault.
I realize that I have not updated my blog in several months, and I have no excuse other than I had a tendency to enjoy Anne of Green Gables and Emma more than typing, but I have promised a complete update to my life by the end of March, and although that gives me 10 days, there is no time like the present right?
So I think I ended the last blog with what was happening in Lapland, which was the beginning of December, so the next exciting thing was that I went to Parnu for the first time for the weekend. Parnu is the 'Summer Capital of Estonia' and although it was cold and grey when I was there, you could tell why. It is in the south, and during the summer, there are huge (in Estonian standards) sand beaches which I am told become completely packed. The old town is not as large as Tallinn's, nor as well developed, but it was pretty, and it is a nice city to walk around. I was there because Katie (USA) and Gustavo(Mexico) called me at 1130 on Thursday night and were surprised to here I was sleeping, and decided that I should have been in Parnu instead, Katie having arrived there only hours earlier. I went down the next day, and had dinner at Steffani's, which is supposedly a really famous restaurant, which is understandable because the food was great. The next day we decided to cook for Gustavo's counsellor, something from home, so I made stir fry, Gustavo made some sort of meat grilled and Katie made a cheesecake, which was insanely good. We also had to eat hapukapsas supp, which was basically sauerkraut, which although i can now consume, it is definitely not something I am going to miss. That is pretty much all that is interesting, and we went home on Sunday to the exchange student Christmas party in Tallinn, which was pretty simple, more sauerkraut, blood sausages, which I can eat without problem now, but I don't like the taste of and karaoke, which is a big thing at Estonian parties, very odd.

That was all until Christmas, which included pretty much the same as the party, cabbage, blood sausages and singing, except there was also eel, which is, like much of the Estonian Christmas food, not on my favourites list. The Estonian Christmas is celebrated on December 24th in the evening, when all the presents are brought to the tree by a pakapikk, which is like a elf. To get your presents you had to sing or recite a poem or something to entertain the others, which was embarrassing for me, but also really cool, because my two older host brothers and my host father are all really great singers, so they would just improvise different songs. Although it was all pretty interesting, the highlight of my night was the Christmas presents wrapped in garbage bags, although that was closely followed by my host brother giving my host dad lamp fuel (no lamp included). Estonians have a very odd sense of humour.

On Christmas day I opened presents from home, not wanting to open nothing from home, and then was picked up by my first host family and drove south east to Tartu, where we were going to visit my first host mom's (Tiina) brother and family. I had been to this house before and it is my favourite house in the world, and I really love the lady who lives there, also named Tiina. We had dinner, where they made me eat something that looked very much that it had at one point lived (and died) in a swamp, but it didnt taste too bad, although my host siblings (Karl, Siim and Silvia) all looked at me like I was crazy for trying. The rest of the night was mostly sauna and sleep, and the next day we drove back to Tallinn.

Next event was New Years, which was more of a non event, consisting of lots and lots of fireworks, drunk Estonians holding fireworks, fireworks being set off beside me, and more fireworks. The official fireworks were really well done, and went on for quite a while, but no one really cared where other people were, so as Katie and I walked home there were people up and down the streets setting them off, which made the walk more exciting...

The next couple of days were calm, but I had more exchange student fun when I was trying to get to a friends house outside of Tallinn. After nearly missing the bus because I could not find the stop, I drove out of Tallinn feeling okay, only a little worried. I didnt need to worry. One stop in one town, one in the other, and I had been to the town before, although late at night. the problem was when the bus stopped before the town. then twice in the town. then i called my friend, but she said i should drive through the forest and get off at the next stop. I drove through the forest, but there wasnt another stop. We kept driving. and driving. and we weren't stopping. I call my friend again. I have completely missed the town. Thankfully I had a kind bus driver and was allowed to go back to the town once it turned around. Some how what I have just written does not convey my absolute confusion at the time, nor the amusement it gave afterwards, but just try to imagine. it wasnt the first time it has happened, or the last, but i suppose that is what this year is about, although it would be better for my heart and nerves if it didnt happen.

Another of couple of days rest and I went to Parnu with my host sister. There is a big waterpark there and my host sister (Lisanna, 10) was dying to go in and play with someone who would actually play. After 3 hours of running up and down stairs to go on the watersides and this really awesome river,(http://www.terviseparadiis.ee/eng/?p=51&sd) we went to relax in the sauna. My host sister, being 10, dared me to jump into the plug pool after sitting in the sauna for 20 minutes, and me, having the maturity of 10, said it wasnt a big deal and jumped in. i have never in my life moved so fast out of a pool, and I think there should probably be a sign warning anyone with heart problems against it. We were staying in this really nice guest house, and if you were to combine the size of my host parents suite and ours, it would have been the size of our flat in Tallinn, and that is not small. The next day I wandered around Parnu by myself, met Gustavo for lunch with some of the exchange students from YFU (Youth for Understanding, not nearly as cool as Rotary) and then spent the rest of the day hanging out with Gustavo and wandering around Parnu.
Next day we drove back to Tallinn, host sister pouting because I wouldn't go swimming with her, and back to regular life, because school started again.
Okay, now at least I am into this year. Not a lot happens in January, but anything that did I write about when I can feel my arm again. -- -Elisabeth

Alright, quick post right now, because I have a million things to do, but this needed to be recorded for history, because it is so funny.
Background
In Estonia I take the English class, which is taught by an American post grad student, and we are now learning about film noir and "hard boiled detective stories". My teacher was talking about how the detective in the story had unhealthy relationships with women, and a guy in my class quipped (isn't that a great word too), "yeah, all their dates are at McDonald's."
anyway, I thought that was priceless, and needed to be shared with the world.
I will write about my Christmas and New Years sometime, I promise, as it was pretty interesting, but I now have to learn the entire French language before Monday at 10, so more will have to wait.
Happy Birthday Dad, and lots of love to everyone at home.

Alright, I said I would finish what is left to be finished, so here it is, my Lapland trip, the highlight of my November, which included only hours of November, but I cannot say highlight of December, because there is still a lot left of that to go.
So Rogério couldn't go on this tour, so it was just the five of us, Arik, Gustavo, Katie Luisa and I from Estonia. We left on a ferry at 3 on Thursday (Nov 30) and the ferry ride over was thrilling in itself. It was really windy, so big waves and the boat was wobbling around, which was fun for Katie and I, but everyone was not so happy about it. we got over to Finland and two Rotarian people were waiting for us to take us to pizza. dinner was good, we hung out at their host for a while and then the husband, Birger (i think) and the five of us got into a cab, a big van really, and went to where we were being picked up, which was the Helsinki Olympic stadium, beautiful place in the middle of the night, i wish i could have seen more of it. For the next 14 hours we were on the bus, catching up with the people in our district, who i hadn´t seen in 6 weeks, and as we went farther north, people who I hadn't seen since august.
We finally got up to Lapland, tired and cramped from the bus ride, but pretty excited, got some food, and then we were of to our choice of skiing, downhill or cross country, snowboarding or sledding. I had borrowed these little tiny trick skis from my last host family, which they told me were easier than the longer ones, but they lie!! the boots were a little too small, so my legs hurt most of the day, and although they were easy to turn with and i didn't trip on them, they went soo fast and had so little surface area, the whole first day i fell down every time i needed to stop. Needless to say, i was wet. it was frustrating for many of the people who had never skied (spelling, i don't know) and most people went home a little bummed out, but that night was a lot of fun, we hung out with friends, and went for a campfire thing, and we had a good time. This was also the first time we had met a lot of the ´oldies´, as they had come in January, and weren't at Karrku with us in August. They are a great group, mostly Australians with a girl from New Zealand and 4 people from South Africa.
Saturday was also skiing, but this time it went WAYY WAYY better. the two y´s were needed as it was that much better. Got the hang of stopping, and managed to be able to play a little more with the skis, and because of the length, i was always the first down the hill. I even skied down backwards at one point, because it was fun, and easy, and i wanted to say i did it. Point of Clarification at this time, this was more of a COP hill than a mountain, but it isn't really their fault they have no mountains. End of the day came, and we went home, sauna´d, and rolled in the snow, which was great, but sorta hurt at the same time. we had dinner, and went into town to hear a concert prepared for us by some Finnish kids, which was fun, but also got a little tedious when we just wanted to hang out and chat.
Sunday we went to a reindeer farm, got to feed some reindeer, and then we heard about the wildlife in Lapland, which was interesting, but due to lack of sleep, i may or may not have fallen asleep during the taped slide show, but in my defence, the mans voice was very soothing.
that afternoon was probably the most Finnish one we had. first we got out fitted with snow shoes, and wandered through the woods, which turned into an extended, moving snow fight, where no one was safe. the Brazilians especially could not get enough of the snow. we got to a place where we traded our snowshoes with another group, and got to go in reindeer pulled sleighs. it was like something from a fairytale, although a little bumpier and the reindeer have to work on their consistency. After the reindeer, we walked to where they keep the huskies for pulling the sleds, and we got to hold the puppies, which was really cool. we then got into little carts behind snowmobiles and got taken to where we rode the sled dogs. well, at least behind them.
that night we had more talent type things, but then we just sorta took over our wing of the hotel and talked, and hung out and at one point the Brazilians were trying to teach us how to dance, but i am afraid that those people derived from former British colonies are incapable of moving their hips in a dance like manner.
The next day we left Lapland and headed south, first stop, the arctic circle and Santa Claus´village. It was really neat to think i had spent 72 hours above the arctic circle. We didn't have the patience or the time to wait for Santa, so instead we recruited a bunch of little Finnish kids dress as elves, and took pictures with them, which was pretty fun.
that was the last important event on our trip, and we set ourselves for another 14 hours on the bus, which wasn't long enough, because the next time we would see each other was in April, and we would maybe never see our oldies again, as they all leave at the beginning of January.
That is my Lapland trip, typed out for the convenience of those at home, but also so my dwindling memory can have some sort of written recollection in the future.
Hope everything is going well where ever you are, and MERRY CHRISTMAS, and all those other holiday´s, but I am not going to be politically correct. Hope Santa is nice to you all.

FACT OF THE DAY:
According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeers grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December. Female reindeers retain their antlers till after they give birth in the spring.
Therefore, according to EVERY historical rendition depicting Santa's reindeer, EVERY single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen, had to be a girl.
We should've known... ONLY women would be able to drag a fat-ass man in a red velvet suit all around the world in one night and not get lost.

not my words, but I thought it was interesting.

Alright, part two of today´s catch up on blogging. Essya´s trip to Estonia and our fall vacation together. Essya, as most of you know, is on exchange right now in Hungary, and being the only person from home I know on the continent, as well as being fantastic and an amazing friend, we obviously had to get together, so she flew out here on Oct 27th so that we could hang out for a week. My host brother and I went to pick her up, all that great stuff, we were having a horrible rain storm, we went home, talked way too much. Exciting stuff happened on Saturday when we went out to the farm that my host mom´s, Tiina, friends boyfriend owned. It was really beautiful, and it started snowing, and we watched movies that night, then went to sleep. The next day we woke up, and went on a walk around the farm, which was more of a guest ranch type thing, quite beautiful, all sorts of different places to sleep and things to do. We then drove to his saloon, which had buffalo in the building that you could pet and all sorts of cool decorations. It was sorta like a petting zoo, and you could feed the pigs and different animals, pretty neat. After this we went to his new milking facility for the cows, which was pretty cool, not a great sound, but I met a true Estonian milk cow, which has no horns, and we even managed to get Essie to pet it. The really not pleasant part was when we went to the next barn, which smelled terrible. We then went to the Toila spa, which has 6 saunas, a play pool and a real swimming pool, and the 4 younger of us splashed around and had a generally pretty good time. Then we went to a hotel, which we were quite certain was a front for some Russian mob stuff, but it was pretty nice. Next day we went to Narva, which is on the Russian boarder, Essya saw Russia for the first time, I had already been there before, and it again was really cool to be that close to Russia, hard to describe. then we went home.
Tuesday was Halloween, and we went out to a party, although we left the costumes behind, but people dressed up, although Halloween really isn't celebrated over here. Wednesday Essya met Katie, Arik, Gustavo, Rogério and Zaki, the south African from YFU, another exchange program, and we went out for dinner, and then out dancing. We had a good time, but Essie, the fashionista that she is, wore lovely, skin bearing shoes, which we then made her wander all over the downtown of Tallinn in. Needless to say, her feet were cold.
Friday we went out again with Zaki, and some of his friends from exchange who were living in Tartu, which was great, because Zaki left on the 28th of November, and we needed to see as much as possible of him as we could, he was really fun to be around. Saturday Essya took our family out for Indian food, and my host dad and counsellor, Vallo, said that I should probably be able to see Essya in March, which would be fantabulous, (mix between fantastic and fabulous). We met my new host family that night, had dinner with them, and they seemed pretty nice, although the little girl, Lisanna didn't talk to me all that much, even if i tried my Estonian (i know now that she talks a lot and is really great).
Next day, Sunday, Essya had to leave, but not before we wandered around Old Town Tallinn, in and out of churches and other buildings. We had cake and pie at a really great café that I had found, and we hung out until we had to take her to the airport, which was obviously pretty sad, but it was better knowing I would see her in 4-5 months rather than 9 months.
That was my week with Essya in October, which was really great. I will write about November, which was pretty boring, and my Lapland trip maybe later today or tomorrow.
love you all and hope you are all doing well, getting ready for Christmas or whatever you celebrate, if not, not getting sick. Elisabeth