Here's the mail, it never fails. It makes me want to wag my tail. When it comes, I wanna wail, MAIL!

Today was SUPER MAIL DAY! because I got a letter AND a package. I feel so spoiled.

The letter was from Sumi, and it was on the most beautiful stationary. And the back of the envelope has this tiny little mustache. Heck yes! Personally, I think handwritten letters are the best, but until such time as I can pluck up the courage to go in and screw up in the post office, my digital post cards are just going to have to do. Thanks, Summer! It's gorgeous! And I'm excited at the prospect of getting to meet up with her somewhere. Europe rocks, just sayin'.




Why won't it let me put these next to each other?!?!




To pick up packages, I have to show an ID, and while I await my residence permit (and since I'm not sure my driver's license counts here), I bring my passport with me. I sign the form so the lady can go get the box, yada yada yada, and while she's checking that the number on the box matches my slip, and my name matches that on the slip and the box, etc. I see the return address label: Megan. Ermagherd, mer berst frend sernt mer er perkerge! Now, this lady is taking her time (in comparison to the last package), and I'm getting all excited. True, customs forms take some of the surprise out of packages, but hey. Once I have the package, of course I'm doing the selfie thing.

 (While simultaneously trying to plug back into my audiobook for the walk back.) And I'm actually grinning like an idiot because I'm super stoked to see what's in the box. You ready to see what's in the box? Turns out, not just from Megan, but the ME-MC-AW-SAH crew (though, clearly without the SAH...)




Better question is what isn't in the box. Food, chocolate, puns, packing peanuts with real attitude action.

The box

The contents

"Tests may make you say Ghirrrr...."
"But you can always crawl into bed!" I'm going to have to use
Katja/Anna's oven.

"What's the scoop in Estonia?" It finally froze? But still no frost/snow.
(And the chips were totally crushed, but I ate them anyway.)
"We know this is a bit cheezy, but..." And that's about all the
cheese in that cheese dip, "a bit."
"They're not for poker, but we hope you like these chips!"
They won't be the same without my ME-MC-AW here.

"These puns be funny, you'll be Roloing on the floor!" I'd just
eaten my last Rolos a couple days ago.
"After all this food, you may be "double stufed"." I can get
Oreos here, and whenever I do, I think of Pat. I just had some
Oreo chocolate that was AWESOME!

"Before you know it, you'll be back home in a JIF." Apparently,
this is the most desired food of American students abroad. Can't
say that I've had cravings, but I might have some now!
"We hope you like what we've krafted together!" I do. It's brilliant.
You're brilliant. I have the best friends.

And of course they drew on the peanuts. I think the monocle is
my favourite, though Bowties are Cool. 

The Great Wall of Puns. Right next to my
AK Fudge box from my gramma.

Though seriously people, shipping is expensive.

On a completely unrelated point, I was going to write something about the Human Foosball tournament I was in last weekend for Tartu's Student Days, but I couldn't figure out a whole posts worth of things to say. There are pictures up in the gallery though, so check those out!

Eesti Keel

Tere! Kuidas läheb? Minu nimi on Sorcha. Ma olen üliõpilane ja ameeriklane. Praegu, ma elan Eestis. Ma olen pärit Ameerikast, Alaskast. Ma räägin inglise keelt (ma emakeel) ja ma õpin eesti keelt. Ma oskan natuke hispaania keelt. Minu Alaskamaja on pruun ja valge. Minu Eestimaja on valge ja sinine. Minu lemmikjook on tee. Mu lemmiksöök on tacos. (Ma armastan tacos. :))Mu lemmikfilm on Mamma Mia! praegu. Minu lemmiklaul on Tom Jonesi"Not Unusual". Mu lemmik"bänd" eestist on Arvo Pärt. Minu lemmiksõna eestis on "hapukoor" praegu.
Need on mu sõbrad Katja, Philipp, Lucia, Johann, Mailis, Jordan, ja Anna. Nad on pärit Saksamaalt (kolm), Poolast, USAst, Itaaliast, ja Eestist. Ja... Elu on lill. Elu on ilus. Ilm on külm. Ma lõpetan. Nagemist!

So, I have a test on Monday, and class was cancelled yesterday. While this is nothing like what's going to be on my test (since it's more vocab... and I know more nouns than I can put into sentences, limited verb knowledge and such), I figured, what the heck? Why not? I will totally admit to using my book. For schnizzle. I'm not that cool yet. I'm also going to say that I'm not entirely sure all of that's right, though I'm fairly certain most of it is. If anybody wants to see a translated version, let me know! Estonian a English es muy fácil. Seriously, Spanish keeps getting in my way. *Sigh* If only they were more alike. I want to fill in anything I don't know with it's Spanish equivalent, be it word or grammar.

Tsau!

Narva: Even if just for 4 hours

After 3 hours in the bus, we arrived in Narva, Estonia's third largest city. We'd checked it out and discovered only a few tourist attractions. That coupled with the standard college student desire to never spend money, we'd only planned on staying for a few hours. It did mean we were pretty focused when it came to getting things done. Once again, we went with a bit of a plan (but not really) and mapless. It's definitely been interesting traveling this way. Completely opposite from what I'm used to, but I find it works. For the most part, things are well labelled and these towns have been fairly small, so I haven't really needed a map. Certainly helps that the attractions around here are tall.
The first stop on our list was Narva's claim to fame, Hermann Castle (pictured on the left, with the white tower). It was founded in 1256 by the Danes, but for most of it's history has been a German Teutonic castle. For more information, see the Wikipedia page I borrowed that from. The other castle (in the picture on the right with all the trees), is also interesting, and part of the draw of the castle for us, but we'll get there in a minute.

There are several exhibit halls around the castle that are interactive (we ended up following a school group for a couple rooms), and then a few more on the way up the tower. In one of the rooms there's a giant map puzzle of Estonia. So, of course, we put that sucker together! It's got major industries and wildlife in different areas of the country mapped out in pictures.
 There were some interesting pieces in the exhibits, but not all of them were translated into English, so I can only get so much out of them.

I love a good Russian Pretzel flag. Described in Estonian & Russian,
so your guess is as good as mine!

The Narva River, circa way-back-when (17th century, from
the look of the ships). Hermann Castle on the right side...

 BEHOLD! Ivangorod Fortress! That there, right across the river from Hermann Castle, is Russia. The bridge on the left is a pedestrian/vehicle border bridge, sparking a conversation of whether the fish are Russian or Estonian. Narva is definitely more Russian than Tartu; signs are in Russian, more people speak Russian as you pass them on the street, etc. Influence is definitely there. There were lots of people going back & forth across the bridge shopping. We paused thinking, "Does Russia not have shopping?" before moving on. We did spend a good two hours wandering the grounds of the castle before heading to...

Our merry band of international students

Alexander's Church! The church was closed, but it was still interesting from the outside. It was built between 1881-1884 to commemorate Alexander II. It was damaged during both world wars, destroying the bell tower and latter organ. In 1962 it was turned into a storehouse, to be returned to its congregation in 1990. It had a surprising number of doors around the outside of the building, all of which were locked (not that we checked). For whatever reason, I find most churches/cathedrals of this type more interesting from the back. One fantastic example is Notre Dame; yes, the front is impressive, but that's also the side everybody's interested in so of course there's lots of time and energy put into it. But the back of Notre Dame is absolutely gorgeous. There's another cathedral up the hill from my dorm that's similar. Alexander's church, however, isn't necessarily prettier from the back. Not sure what it is, but this one's impressiveness (for lack of a better word) didn't increase or decrease depending on how you looked at it.

That way to Russia!

I meant to eat some pels before I left home, but it just didn't happen. But when I knew we were coming to this particularly Russian portion of Estonia, real Russian pels rose up to the top of the "Eat that before you get back on the bus" list. So even though I'd learned from the last trip and brought lunch with me, when the cafe we'd stopped at had pels, I was in. While they were good, it didn't have the toppings I'm used to seeing on pels; there was no butter, no curry, not even the half slice of bread (Sorry, Marissa). Just pels + sour cream. Good, but different.

To go along with this Russian lunch was the particularly drunk Russian patron of the same establishment. After asking where we were each from, he decided to make sure I knew his opinion of the U.S. government. He repeatedly assured me that this had nothing to do with me, Americans or America in general, just that he's really not a fan of the U.S. government (though, his words were a bit stronger; whether this was the intoxication or the use of standard American slang, the world may never know). He then proceeded to repeat his opinions during the duration of our lunch.

 A certain Russian sub, years ago, alerted me to the fact that Russian has no articles (fun fact: neither does Estonian). This meant that, during a particular phrase repeated by this Russian fellow, the simple addition of "the" transformed his dislike for Presidents Obama and Bush into praise. I found the amusing, considering how long and vehemently he went on. 

     Eventually, however, having finished our meal and left the cafe, we found our way back to the Orthodox Church of the Resurrection near the bus station. During the meeting of Alexander III and Wilhelm II on August 5th, 1890, the foundation stone of this church was laid. The inauguration took place November 17th, 1986. Does this mean the church took nearly 100 years to build? Probably. Though much smaller than the Orthodox church I visited in Tallinn, the interior was much the same, and felt about the same size. It's places like these that certainly help me understand other religions. Between the clergymen conducting prayers and church-goers lighting candles and doing other church-like things in this beautiful space, it shows their devotion and commitment. Religion is a huge part of European history, and their churches definitely display that. 

    On our way out, we tried some apples (which were delicious), and headed back toward the bus station, Tartu bound. Turns out, the last bus back for the night is very popular.