Tartu: Week 1

I've officially been in Tartu for a week and a day now. I've had only one class so far (classes started yesterday), but it should be interesting.

Orientation was in the Zoology building, about a 20 minute walk away. Not too bad, but it's uphill, and my legs kind of hated me those three days. As it turns out, the building where I'll have most of my classes is also uphill. Fantastic. But, as I headed to that first day of orientation with my roommate, I saw interesting pieces of art, lots of parks, and this cool decal:

In case you're not a fan of Top Gear, that's the Stig "inside" this "reasonable priced car."
     Orientation covered a lot of different things, and I technically have another session tomorrow specifically to get us all ready for applying for residence permits, an extremely involved process from what I gather. Last Friday was the last day of all-day sessions.






It was also the first day in more than a year that I wore blue-jeans on a weekday. I felt the need to document. It was that big a realization. I didn't do much this weekend; a lot of reading mostly. I've done more reading in the last week than I've done in a long time, mainly due to the lack of wifi in my dorm. It's been nice, actually, though I feel I probably should have been doing something else. My roommate and I nearly spent all of Sunday in the room, except for the hour that I ducked out to grab some wifi by the river. So close... I've had plans nearly every day to go get my library card so that I could use the wifi indoors and stop worrying about the spiders and bugs I keep finding on myself here in the park, but it's also uphill and across the town centre, and not near where I have my classes. Close, but apparently not close enough that I'm willing to get up and go do that. I'm out and about tomorrow anyway, so we'll see.

The view from a pier in the park near my dorm,
where I get wifi. The bridge changes colour, too.

     Last night was the Rector's welcome for international students. We had the reception in a ruined cathedral that now partially serves as the University museum. (I have pictures of the outside I'll insert here later).

White Hall, inside the Cathedral.

I went with my roommate and she met up with her tutor (each of the international students is assigned an Estonian student to help us figure out the University and life in Estonia. They act as mentors and translators, etc.). We had some sparkling beverage of undetermined flavour, some Estonian snacks and cakes, which we're pretty good once we got over the initial "I have absolutely no idea what this is or how to describe it's flavour." We talked with two professors who are, in part, from America, and one of the Student Council members who is also a medical student. Generally, a good time was had and good snacks were eaten.

From there, we went to a bar called the Gunpower Cellar, which used to actually hold gunpowder. Apparently, it has one of the tallest ceilings of gunpowder cellars anywhere. My roommate and her tutor are both in the Computer Science/IT department, and their Faculty (that's what they call departments here) have a tradition to meet at this bar on the first day of classes each year. So I joined them. Monday nights are also karaoke night at the Gunpowder Cellar, and we were keen to hear some international students sing in languages they don't understand, while intoxicated. There were songs in Estonian, German, and several 80s American pop songs.

This was the first song that was sung (part of the chorus). That's what I've gotten myself into by attempting to learn Estonian. If Google Translate is to even be partially believed, this portion of the song is about some crazy shenanigans during a shindig.
     And now I'm going to acquire some type of comestible, start the wifi gaining process, and read some no-doubt interesting articles on Russian Foreign Policy.
    Later taters!