A Tartu Family Reunion: 10 Years Later

It's hard to believe it's been 10 whole years since I packed my bag and moved halfway around the world.  Trips since have made me wonder how I did it, since language barrier is something I have constant anxiety about while traveling. I tell myself I've done it before, and I still wonder how! (It's also been a long time since I've written one of these...) 

As I landed in Tallinn, I wondered if I had thought I'd return to Estonia. When people have asked about my year abroad, I've always known that what made my experience were the friends I made and the times we had. A few of them stayed longer than I did, one has moved in and out, but largely my friend group dispersed back to their home countries. Without them, Tartu isn't the same. So did I think I'd come back? I wasn't avoiding it, but it's a long way to go! 

Our group chat has been talking about a reunion for a while now, and while it sort of had a timeline, it also came together fairly last minute (at least for this long-range planner). But five of us managed to traverse Europe, Tallinn, and arrive in the 2024 European Capital of Culture! I did try the rhubarb and mint Capital of Culture-branded soda... not bad. 

With work schedules, we only had a long weekend, but we tried to make the most of it. We visited the restaurants that still exist and all the new construction: a new shopping center in the middle of town, a new museum (I'd visited the site previously had it just smelled of horse), plenty of remodeled and new housing,  pop-up bars in parks and along the river, roadworks... My internal compass wasn't as strong in Tallinn, but Tartu's came back, no problem. It didn't feel like coming home, but was certainly somewhere I knew well - like visiting Anchorage or London. Though having not used Estonian in 9ish years, I stuck to the basics, linguistically. (It's odd to recognize words but not remember what they mean.) The hotel I chose was one of the first parts of Tartu I saw in 2014, when the taxi driver (whom we practically had to beg to take us foreign students into town) tried to kick us out there, instead of at the dorm. A dorm I found out the next day is a very short walk away. 

Our first night back consisted of pizza, a night time stroll, and a couple drinks. I'd been gone away the longest, the others either still live in Tartu, moved out a couple years ago, or had visited since our time as Tartu residents. (I have seen all but one of my friends since leaving Tartu on other trips, like at their weddings, except one who I finally caught up with back in Tartu!) We talked about how our lives had changed, our outlooks, and even our conversations over the course of the weekend. Being "adults" sometimes doesn't feel any different from our student days, but other times it really does. 

We met up the next morning at the new National Museum - Eesti Rahva Muuseum - (see the previous horse-y field, that was, apparently, and abandoned air strip). The building is designed to still look like planes could take off atop it. It's MASSIVE and they have put some very cool tech inside. Once past the ginormous atrium, the exhibits will translate for you with just a tap of your ticket. And they'll copy the caption of the text to your own personal ticket-based-webpage so you can take the museum with you. Very cool. They've also done some really interesting museum construction pieces, incorporating HVAC systems into a forest display, having interactive Estonian language exhibits, creating cordoned off spaces in interesting ways. 

It wouldn't be Estonian without the weird elements, and I'm not even talking about the surrealist art display, since that's Czech. There was a exhibition at the back about some sort of cult-seeming rave group? Another downstairs that ended in the men's bathroom where you could take a quiz, receive a QR code from a juke box, and sing karaoke? Or just lay on an ottoman and pretend to be a moth. 

Across the street was the Upside Down House, Tagurpidi Maja, which only opened a few years ago. We agreed it was a unique experience, but not very time consuming and a bit expensive. What you get is right on the label, a house that is upside down. If you've played the game where you wander your own house holding a mirror and stepping over ceiling fans and door frames... it's just like that. It was odd and amusing, but mostly empty rooms. 

We ended the day with a birthday party in Russian/Estonian style. One of our number still lives in Tartu and we went to her place, met her husband and son, her friends and their kids, and listened to the medley of languages they speak to their children. Russian, German, Estonian, English... 1.5 of those I can manage. Apples were falling from the trees, there was plenty of food to go around, and we planned/debated a mad-cap adventure for the next day. 

Setting aside the debate and the drama, our next day was a road trip. We rented a car and headed toward the villages along Lake Peipsi. Our first stop was the Juhan Liiv Museum, the home of a 19th-century Estonian poet. A very enthusiastic caretaker gave an Estonian-only tour to Tobias, who translated at the conclusion of each building (while there are several, they aren't massively filled). We saw where he lived during his years with dementia and where his family lived while they farmed. We played on the Baltic swing, naturally; collected apples and read Liiv's poetry while eating them; saw the sandcastle built in honor of Liiv thinking he was destined to be the King of Poland. 

Our quiet day in the countryside continued at Alatskivi Castle. We wandered the grounds, took in the pond and lily pads, and even saw a snake! I don't think I've seen a wild snake before this little, black cutie slithered into the grass. While we'd planned to eat lunch at the Castle, their restaurant wasn't going to be open for longer than we could stay hungry, so we walked through the trees to a fish & chips shop before hitting the Onion Road. 

Apparently, the area along Lake Peipsi is known for producing high quality onions. Driving through Kolkja looked like a garage sale, but people only had stacks on stacks of onions (and some garlic). If agricultural products could cross borders, I'd have brought some home to test - they're certainly smaller than what we get here, but that says nothing about their deliciousness. We tried an onion hand pie which was very good, stopped at a few other shops while a friend shopped, before arriving at the Peipsimaa Heritage Center for their chicory.  

Now, I don't know anything about chicory, but seems it was a big deal at some point. The chicory museum takes up a floor of the heritage center, and its included in their cafe in the back. (Any of these shops and homes in Kolkja, one could just wander in the backyard and find a cafe or a restaurant.) We snacked and drank and enjoyed the weather. All five of us were together during the party and at this chicory cafe, and we still enjoyed each other's company after all this time. 

We visited Lõunakeskus the next morning, the shopping center on the edge of the city, which has had a major face lift in 10 years, but still has the ropes course over the ice rink, which I hope never changes. We tried to stop by the University Library, but since the semester hadn't started, none of the University buildings were open. But four of us met up for tea and cake at Werner, a classic of the Tartu student experience. Ordering my usual at Werner was 90% of the Estonian I managed while living there - a mango chai and their signature carrot cake (I got the last piece of the day!). One of my friends is now a researcher at UT and let us into the Linguistics building, so we did get to see inside ONE of our old buildings. This was the last of the time we'd get to spend together, unfortunately, with family responsibilities elsewhere. Here's hoping it isn't another 10 years before the next Tartu Family Reunion, but if nothing else, Tartu will still be there then. 

The winning design (or maybe just my preferred design?) for a new culture center in the middle of town. Currently, there's a nice park here. They didn't ask me, but I don't like the whole concept. 

I spent the extra time making sure to stop at the places I'd go all the time: my dorm, grocery stores, my walk to classes, the park bench where I stole WiFi from the trees for my first couple weeks abroad. And eating kohuke at every opportunity, constantly, for six days. Coming from somewhere with a high cost of living, Estonia will always be cheap to me, but inflation certainly has made its way to Eastern Europe - the things I used to buy regularly have doubled in price (kohuke up to 50¢ a pop), or gotten much much smaller (my poor stritsel). New books are half of what I'd pay for them at home, or cheaper, though they still can't compete with my local used bookstore. 

In the morning (Estonian Independence Day), before the train back to Tallinn, I walked up Toomemägi, just to make sure I still could. The "steep hill" isn't actually steep, but it always feels rough. Understandably, the walk is different without a full backpack and snow boots. Instead, it was a lovely sunny day where I could wander the church ruins at the top and think about the Middle Ages in which this town, and my university, were founded. I thought about buildings and tree roots and people, what life was like and how it's evolved. It was a pensive moment. 

Independence Day may have brought out a few more flags, and a message from the President on the trains, but wasn't filled with the pomp and circumstance - and parades - we expect of an American Independence Day. The train moved through the fields and towns and sunshine, and off we went afterward into the wild blue yonder. 

I haven't reread my blog posts of my Estonian impressions in years, and life has made my memory much worse than it was when I was in my "carefree" youth. There are pieces I remember, like: watching the Tallinn skyline fade from view as I took the ferry away for the last time in 2015; walks in the snow and deep talks with my friends; potlucks and potlucks and day trips; early morning and late night bus rides; fighting with a bus driver in Estonian; the fudging magpie loudspeakers; telling myself to say "yes" to new things; the literature class in English that was actually an architecture class in Estonian... This trip reminded me that while I don't remember being lonely in Tartu, I did spend a lot of time by myself. I walked to and from class alone, I spent many evenings reading or watching movies or doing homework, I took trips by myself, I didn't have friends in my classes (apart from Estonian). It also reminded me that each of my friends had a different Tartu experience than mine, and some have had more Tartu experiences since. 

Estonia has clearly had a lot of growth in 10 years, with its obvious construction, expansion, and development. I continue to love having studied some place "small" by many standards; it isn't a massive town to many - its population is big to me, but it's never felt big. I love having experienced Eastern Europe and being able to recommend it to my friends. I love the friends I made along the way and that we still get to peek into each other's lives from time to time. I love having challenged myself 10 years ago to take this massive leap and still don't understand how it worked out. 

Do I think I'll go back? 

The Times we had: Tallinn

Saturday morning, early (but not necessarily bright), an American, an Italian, a Pole, two Germans, a Spaniard, a Frenchman, and I headed out of our dorms toward the train station, bound for a weekend in Estonia's capital city with no real plan other than a rough idea of the train schedule, tickets to the ballet, and the name of a hostel. None of us had been to the train station before, but I knew roughly where it was do to a drive-by the day before. Luckily, the Tartu train station looks exactly like a train station.

 Seriously, movie style. This is the back side from the platform, but as soon as we saw the front we knew we were there. We arrived minutes before our train did. Points for timing.
  Tallinn is 2ish hours away by train, so we had plenty of time to do other things. There was some sleeping, some studying, and some reading done by the collective group.

Tallinn train station

As it was early on a Saturday, the city was still more-or-less asleep. The only people up this early are tourists (yay us!). We managed the entire weekend nearly mapless, so we just headed off in a direction. We found ourselves in Old Town, and at the top there are a series of buildings: some of worship, some of government, some of the tourist souvenir variety.
     This is the Church of Nikolai the Miracle Worker, and it sits fairly prominently on the Old Town hill, and can be seen from almost anywhere, which made it a pretty great rendezvous point when we broke off into groups. It's a Russian Orthodox church built 1822-1827, and as you can see, currently under construction. There has been a Russian Orthodox church on this site since the 15th century. This one was the first dome building in Tallinn.
     Going inside, it's very different from the other churches/cathedrals I've visited in Europe. It's not stone on the outside and carved and embellished on the inside, but almost the opposite. The outside is completely bedecked in craftsmanship of a number of types. It has four entrances, each with it's own impressive archway and religious iconography. The inside is painted in much the way you would expect it to be carved. It has intricate gold working near the altar, but other than that, all the walls and ceilings are very 2D. It was beautiful, especially filled with people using it for the purpose for which it has been built, just different from the other buildings of a similar nature I've experienced.
    This is Tallinn Town Hall, and it sits in the town square, another super easy place to meet up with people. It's the only remaining gothic town hall in Northern Europe; construction was completed in 1404. The tower was destroyed in the bombing raid on March 9th, 1944, but was restored in 1952. Today it is used as a representational building to hold ceremonies and concerts, and houses a display on the original 1530 weathervane. This is where we met up with an old school friend of Phillippe's who took us to lunch. Unfortunately, Saturday at noon is when everyone's eating lunch, so it took a few stops to find somewhere. The pub we ate in was empty, which was great for a group as big as ours. It was the oldest pub in Tallinn and pretty much all of us had burgers. My first Estonian burger, and it was pretty good; they put a spice on the fries that made them especially tasty.
    After lunch we wandered a bit more, and attempted to locate our hostel. We had news that they lost our reservation, and hoped they still had space for all of us. After twisting and turning through Old and New Tallinn, we found it, and they had room, which was fantastic. By this point, we'd been go-go-go for so long that I was ready for a nap. Most of the group went to the beach, but a few of us stayed back to try to at least curb the drowsiness so we would last through the ballet that evening.

The adorable gate for parking at the opera/ballet building.

     We saw "Medea", as performed by the Estonian National Ballet & Estonian National Symphony. I don't know that I've ever been to a ballet before, especially not one like this. It was different from what I'd imagined; completely tutu-less, nearly pointe-shoe less, seemingly chaotic movements that only made sense some of the time (i.e. Medea's decent into madness). But it was still well done.


And of course even the building was beautiful. The ceiling had a huge chandelier, and a gorgeous depiction of theatre goers of many different eras. There were busts of famous dancers/musicians in the hallways, and costumes from great performances on display.
     But of course, after the ballet, we were hungry. Once again, we split into groups, and ours headed for burgers, ending up at Hesburger. After ice cream, burgers, and Estonian TV with people speaking with Russian & French accents, we were off to bed.
    Sunday was the Tallinn Marathon, so lots of streets were closed, or partially closed, and crazy people were running everywhere. Not just the preset marathon course, but everywhere. It was like an entire city of Martins. There were people from the various gym franchises passing out flyers, a line of shops full of work out gear, and general "there are lots of people here" chaos. There were runners from all over Estonia, two teams from Great Britain, people from Poland and Finland, and even a man from Ethiopia. Who races an Ethiopian?!

    First on the list of things to do was walk on the wall of the city. It's a steep climb up, but you come to this little room which has benches and windows and this suspicious box in the centre. Turns out, the box covers a hole in the floor, from which one could drop things on unsuspecting passersby in the tower below.

There's a room above this one labeled "Room for Wage War", full of arrow notches and a door with a spectacular view of Tallinn. Below, you can see the wall of the city from above, as well as the walk we took on the city wall.

View from the war room

     I'll admit to not having eaten out much in Tartu (and by not much, I mean 3 times) but what we don't have is Mexican food. As much as I like Taco Bell, I'm willing to accept other "Mexican" restaurants as well, but we just don't have any. Tallinn, on the other hand, does have Mexican food. And it therefore became necessary to stop by...

Never before has so little made one so happy. I had pork tacos that were SO GOOD! I was tempted to get one of everything, but reality took hold. Those tacos lit up my whole world... I was so happy. Clearly, it doesn't take much. *sigh* I miss it already.

     Our little group didn't all eat Mexican, so we headed toward this "pancake house" that we kept hearing about. We'd stopped by the day before, but this place is pretty popular, and was packed. Luckily, there was a free table. What came out of the kitchen wasn't so much a pancake, in the North 

American sense, as a thicker crepe. This sparked a discussion, and at some point we're all going to get together to make international pancakes. I ended up getting an apple, vanilla, and cinnamon pancake, which meant that was lunch #2 for the day, since these things are big, on a Waffle Co. vs. Eggo scale. All of our pancakes were really good, and I totally understand why this place is so popular. 

    We still had a few hours after lunch before our train headed back to Tartu, and after wandering around the Old Town a bit more and stopping by the viewpoint, with the "The Times we had." sign, Anna decided we should head toward the ocean, and that's what we did. 

    Nowhere does the ocean smell quite like it does at home. Does Alaskan water have a high saline content or something? Because neither the Baltic Sea or the English Channel smell salty or ocean-y at all. And we saw exactly two seagulls, though we weren't watching very carefully and they could have been the same bird. Either way, there was sun and an ocean breeze. We were only there about 20 minutes-half an hour, but it was so quiet and calm. On the way back, we learned that Germans consider a bird pooping on your head good luck, and we were completely willing to let Katja go on believing that. 

    All in all, it was a pretty fun weekend. I got to see some things, eat some things, and hang out with people I haven't before. It did make me excited for the other travel opportunities open to me around Europe, but I need to make sure my residence permit goes through first. After that, Europe is my oyster!