Sunday, August 15, 2010

Home sweet home...

This week has been a full one. A week ago today, I and about 15 other students flying to Helsinki made it there safely. We made it there in Helsinki at 545 or so.. then we had a 3hour drive to Karkku, its where our camp was held.
So this was the wait in Frankfurt. We were all starving so many of us got sausages and pickles, because we could only use debit cards. No one had euros for vending machines. Anyways, the sausages were awesome and the mustard was so different! It has a different taste.
Now, I don´t want you to get any ideas... this was not the funnest camp ever that all of the finnish rebounds talk about. no! well maybe if you´re learning finnish, but I and 5 others were learning Estonian, so we were left out of a lot of things at the camp. It was a little pointless of going, we often joked about how it was like a concentration camp.

This was my dorm. my room was on the second floor, on the far right. I shared it with a girl from Washington state. She was pretty nice. She was learning Swedish and Finnish both.
So during the torturous language camp, we drove an hour to a bigger city of Tampere. There we had a few hours to shop. It was exciting for the Estonian group because there we met our new member, Juan. He is from Colombia and he had missed the first couple of days at the camp... lucky.

Russian Orthodox? I think so..
Probably Lutheran...

Ok, I'm not going to lie. Finland is beautiful. This was the lake that our camp was on. It was so nice to go boating for language class. =)
On the way from Karkku to Helsinki. So we could catch the ''ferry'' to Tallinn.

At the language camp. We were learning the body parts. They decided to have to 2 Americans draw the body parts, when the others said them out loud.

Now I'm in my host family's home. It's so nice. I live out in the country side, but it's peaceful. My teacher at the language camp, Sille, lives in Rapla also. I think I'm going to hang out with her fairly soon. Yay, a somewhat familiar face!



The class on the lake. We decided to skip class and go boating. It was rough getting started though. haha.

This is my and my host sister, Margit's room.

First view of Estonia (TALLINN!!!!)

This was the map of the ferry. ITS HUGE!! There were many shops on board. There was a nice perfume and jewlery shop. Everyone tries to buy the perfume there because it's tax free, so much much cheaper.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

cool!

Anonymous said...

I have the same name as your host sister:) I'm looking forward to your newer posts. It's kind of strange to hear what non-Estonians think about our land.

I hope you have a great time in Estonia!:)

Säde said...

Hey and welcome to Estonia!

I lived in Rapla as a kid. I thought it was a rather sad and boring place back then. I do hope it has changed quite a bit in recent past. However, don't let yourself be intimidated by my personal opinion. Hopefully, your stay will be a pleasant adventure, something to remember and learn from later in life.

I added my e-mail (in the URL field), just in case. If you feel you have any questions that you'd rather ask from an anonymous stranger than someone in person - do not hesitate, just drop me a message! :)

Good luck with your stay. Make sure to visit the beautiful cities of Tartu (!!), Pärnu, and Tallinn as well. I feel they represent my country much better than Rapla. :)

VäikeMari said...

Welcome to Estonia !
I haven't read any other exchange student blog,who has come to Estonia,so I hope to read of your adventures here :)

Visit also islands Saaremaa and Hiiumaa also :) And I hope everything goes well :)
Im not Rapla,but I'm also I Estonian,but I live in small town .

kristel said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

is that boy Carlos ?