Third time's a charm, right?

Well this is truly incredible. I have just requested my third replacement debit card for my Estonian bank account at SEB. Let me tell you a story.

Goldilox was traipsing through the woods one day when she chanced upon a green cottage with SEB written above the door. She poked her head through the door and realized that she had stumbled upon the home of the largest bears. A Que-matic machine stood in the living room and the kitchen was full of pension plans. On the counter she saw three debit cards, identical in appearance, and since no one told her not to, she picked one up and took it with her. She tried to buy something, but to her horror she realized she couldn't remember the PIN and after three guesses she was shocked to discover that her card had turned to stone. "Too frozen," she said, and threw it away.
She went back to retrieve the second card, and this time was sure to get the PIN. She was even able to change the PIN to make it easier to remember. But when she went to withdraw money from the ATM, she somehow managed to completely forget her card in the machine and when she went back to look for it, she found out that the machine was in fact NOT a machine, that it was in fact a ravenous hippo, and it had already eaten her card and she would definitely never see it again. "Too chewy," she said dejectedly, and went back to the cottage. Trembling, she picked up the third card, but to her dismay she saw that it would be activated in a week. "Too stale," she declared and left the cottage in a huff. She made it about 5 steps before two orphaned bear cubs, angry 'cause their mum had been shot, bit off her head.

The end.

I have *never* lost a debit card before and I'm just amazed that I've managed to do it twice in three weeks.
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Estonian Word of the Day:

haihtuma (HIGH-H-too-mah): to fade out; (in local lexicon:) to disappear. Mul haihtus pangakaart automaati. [My bank card disappeared into the ATM.]

Pärnu

My week ran something like this:

Wednesday night I went clubbing and my phone fell out of my purse and was lost forever.
Thursday I failed another algebra quiz.
Friday I bought a new phone and went to Pärnu.

New phone. Yah.

I met up with Vana and Marje in the seaside city of Pärnu to celebrate a birthday and visit relatives. We stayed with the Palmiste family, and even though I ended up stealing an 8-yr-old's bed for the night I think she was okay with it. She's the youngest of three, and the only girl, and I think she was thrilled to have me around. I came to this conclusion based on the fact that she was glued to my side the entire evening.

Saturday morning I ate too much and then we went to visit the Jakobsoo family. Piret and Margus are a married couple and they are lovely, lovely people. They served us liqour and potato salad for lunch and then drove us around town for a while. Saturday night we all ate an obsene amount of unbelieveably delicious food and went to bed convinced that Piret was trying to kill us by overfeeding us. I had a stomach ache until lunch time the next day. Ugh.

Altogether, this weekend was exactly what I needed. In a land of reserved strangers and cold weather it was really, really nice to be reminded that I'm loved and that no one is expecting me to figure it all out all at once.
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Estonian Word of the Day:

Põdema (PUH-deh-maw): to suffer (to be afflicted). Ma põen pohmelli. [I am suffering from a hangover.]

Meat.

I have an announcement:

I am no longer a vegetarian.

Yes, I know. You are all probably shocked and appalled. Or perhaps some of you are delighted that I have fallen off my high horse and can't look down on you anymore. Some of you probably couldn't care less. But for me this is a relatively big deal, okay?

Estonians love meat. They Luuuuuuuuuhhhhhvvvvvvvv it. They put it into everything. Doesn't even matter what kind of meat. Pigs. Cows. Fishes. They will eat it, and they will eat all of it, all the blood and guts and cartilage they can find. Trust me. I've made Estonian sausage with my family as part of our preparation for Christmas since I was knee-high to a grasshopper and I can tell you that Estonians use the whole animal.

I ordered a "cabbage roll" today and was excited about getting a healthy dose of vitamin C and amino acids with lunch. Imagine my dismay when it was brought to me and I discovered that I had ordered a cabbage leaf filled with a mixture of spiced meat and rice! Oh the horror! Oh the tragedy! ... Oh the poor college student who needs to eat lunch and already paid for this food. Therefore it belonged to her. Therefore it was her responsibility to dispose of it properly. And throwing it away would have been both rude and wasteful.

I never really was a hardcore vegetarian. I ate fish, and at Christmastime all my high-and-mighty morals about the meat industry went straight out the window because I decided that it was more important for me to participate fully in Estonian Christmas traditions with my family than it was to worry about the fact that I was eating antibiotics and hormones. ... And also because spiral-sliced ham is probably the most beautiful thing on the face of the earth.

So with trembling knife and fork I gingerly cut through the leathery green leaf and prepared myself for inevitable doom. I told myself I was doing this to prevent waste. I tried to imagine that the meat I was about to eat was locally produced and contained no traces of evil chemicals. I put it in my mouth. I chewed. ...And a wave of guilt washed over me because it was absolutely delicious.

Then I ate hot dogs later on, for dinner. And I knew that I was ruined forever. I'm still going to keep my meat consumption to a minimum, but in a country where even the potato salad has meat in it and vegetarians are treated as disabled citizens, I figured I either had to relax and be okay with chewing animal flesh, or go crazy trying to pick it out of everything.

I tried the pick-it-out-of-everything routine for about a day. ... And it's not as fun as eating meat. So there you go.
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Estonian Recipe: Sült

Buy several pounds of chicken, pork, pigs feet, beef, cow tongue and anything else you can find, the fattier the better. Boil all of it with onions and peppercorns and bay leaves until it's thoroughly dead. Keep the juices. Cut the meat into half-inch cubes. Put it back in the juices. Heat it all up again and add a few packets of Knox clear gelatin. When it's simmered for a while, ladle/pour the mixture into shallow containers (e.g. tupperware works great). Let it cool and then refrigerate overnight. If you've done everything *right* you will be *thrilled* to discover that your meat jello has set *beautifully* into squarish gray blobs that quiver violently if you so much as look at them. Cut yourself a generous piece and douse it in white vinegar. A delicious snack anytime.

Milk bags and salty waffles.

I would like to take this opportunity to let you all know that I am sick. I welcome any and all expressions of pity and sympathy:

This, for instance, is a perfect example of a suitable "expression of pity and sympathy."

I skipped class yesterday in order to lie in bed and teach myself all there is to know about Algebra. I made some vegetable soup and drank several thousand cups of tea. I expect today will be exactly the same.

However. I want to share something wonderful with all of you, namely

MILK BAGS AND SALTY WAFFLES.

Actually the bag on the left is full of drinking yogurt which, by the way,
is way better than milk for granola.

Estonians put their dairy products in bags, which I think is fascinating. Canadians have been known to do this too, but Canadians don't put yogurt or sour cream or cottage cheese into bags, now do they? Hm? No. Didn't think so. Therefore Estonia is way more interesting than Canada, QED.

And now a word on snackfoods. SALTY WAFFLES. What??? It's like someone took a cake cone at Baskin Robbins fried it in potato chip oil. They squish a bit when you chew 'em. I saw the package at the grocery store and was overcome with curiosity. "Vahva vahvel" means "Fabulous waffle." They're something, all right, but I think fabulous is too strong a word. At least they're salty and go well with chamomile tea.

I also wanted to briefly showcase my engineering brilliance.

Yes, that is duct tape.

My gray clock is taped to the gray wall with gray tape. We're not allowed to make nail holes in the walls so it took some creativity to hang this little beauty, but I did it. ... And the tape almost blends in with the wall. .. Almost.

Anyway. I'm off to heat up some soup.
___

Estonian word of the day:

Kõdunema (KUH-doo-neh-ma): to decay. Õun kõduneb letil. [An apple is decaying on the countertop.]

Dancing high.

Does anyone else get dancing highs? Or am I the only weirdo on the block? Because I swear to god, tonight after folk dance auditions I felt like I could have floated all the way home.

Tartu University has its own folk dance troupe and they are INTENSE. Intensely good, that is. They look fantastic on stage and have incredible control of their movements. Of couse, they didn't get like that by accident. Rehearsals, I learned today, are like two-hour-long aerobic workouts accompanied by accordion. With partners. The instructor has a short stature but a tall personality, and will not accept anything less than 110% from everyone. .. my kinda woman.

I nearly died, but I think I did alright. I hope I get in....

... and if not, then mom already assured me that the Estonian folkdance mafia will take care of it.
___

Estonian Folk Dance Lesson: Valss vs. Voorsamm vs. Labajalavalss vs. Vahetussamm (or, How Many Versions of the Waltz Step Can Estonians Invent?)

Valss: Similar to ballroom waltz, but actually completely different. Rather than stepping straight forward or backwards, couples step to the side and turn along the line of the circle.
Voorsamm: Again, basically a waltz step, but danced without a partner, usually holding hands with others in a straight line. The first step is large and leans a bit to the side. Moves with energy.
Labajalavalss: This is what the "valss" would look like if it was danced sitting down in chairs. Literally translated it means "flatfooted waltz." ... Be sure to wear arch support.
Vahetussamm: Kind-of a waltz step, but in 4-4 time. Can be danced on your toes, or walking, or as a gallop, or anything, really.

Okay? I hope you're all taking notes. There will be a short quiz next period.

Haapsalu

This weekend I went to Haapsalu. ... Here's a map:

FYI: In order to get from Tartu to Haapsalu or vice-versa, you pretty much gotta go through Tallinn, which takes around 5 hours. ... Let me assure you, it is a very, very long 5 hours.

Haapsalu has always been one of my favorite destinations in Estonia because Marje lives there. She and her husband own a farm/paradise just outside of town and I have spent many unforgettable summer nights there being eaten by mosquitoes and laughing with friends and relatives around the bonfire.

This time, however, the weather was less conducive to bonfires and much more conducive to MUSHROOMS.

It took three people 10 minutes to fill two buckets and a basket of mushrooms around Marje's house (which, incidentally, is the unbelievably picturesque thatched-roof cottage behind us).


Then we cleaned 'em.

Then we fried 'em with onions and added an enormous quantity of sour cream.

Then we ates 'em for lunch.

The end.

The cabbage is a humble plant.

Do bees hibernate? I think they do. It would make no sense for them to be flying around in he dead of winter, since there's no food for them, and besides insects are cold blooded and so require an outside heat source to stay active.



I like bees, theoretically. They pollinate my food and make honey. They're smart and they're pretty interesting, as far as insects go. I support the bee. I'm terribly worried about the tragic worldwide decline in bee populations in recent years. However, despite all of this, I must admit that I'm scared of them. How can something so small cause SO MUCH PAIN??

You see, yesterday I got stung by a bee. I was shopping for onions and all of a sudden I felt something very sharp and very painful and when I dropped the onion I watched a bee fly out and realized I still had its stinger embedded in my right ring finger. I was trembling so badly that I had to ask the onion lady to remove the stinger for me. Luckily, I'm not allergic to bees (at least, not more than normal), but I went to the pharmacist anyways and picked up some antihistamines and went home to ice it.

The cabbage is a humble plant.

In addition to its use by Europeans for food, it has many useful medicinal properties (from Wikipedia):

Cabbage is an excellent source of Vitamin C. It also contains significant amounts of glutamine, an amino acid, which has anti-inflammatory properties.

In European folk medicine, cabbage leaves are used to treat acute inflammation.^[6] A paste of raw cabbage may be placed in a cabbage leaf and wrapped around the affected area to reduce discomfort.

Estonians believe in the power of cabbage. They will wrap any body part with its waxy leaves and insist that it will cure anything from a sprained ankle to a migrane.

So I decided to try it.


I slept with a cabbage leaf taped around my finger and this morning when I woke up the swelling had gone down and it didn't hurt as much. True story. ...I'm as amazed as the next person.

So in conclusion, I believe that this very careful scientific experiment proves the power of cabbage. All hail Brassica oleracea (Capitata Group)!

ceremonies and tradition

Estonian Culture Profile:

Estonians LOVE their ceremonies and tradition. Giving speeches and such. Like today, the first day of the academic year. I listened to three or four long and boring speeches. Because it was ceremonious.


... but you know, I kinda like it too. Ceremony and tradition makes things special.