STILL I AM HAPPY!

Last night I got naked and jumped in a pond.

Let me preface that a bit more.

Yesterday my grandmother and two other relatives drove through Tartu and picked me up after class. We went to Otepää and stayed the night in a guest house on Jüri's estate. Jüri is related to us somehow through marriage and happens to be a minor Estonian TV celebrity... he's one of the judges for the Estonian version of "American Idol." He is extremely personable and also quite wealthy. .. And he has about 6 saunas and 5 artificial ponds on his estate in Southern Estonia.

By the time we arrived at around 7pm, the "Russian-style" sauna was ready and waiting for us. He had also heated "the barrel," which turned out to be a outdoor hot tub with a chimney.

Right to left: Sauna, the Barrel (hiding behind the tree), pond.

For those of you who have never had the authentic Estonian sauna experience, it goes something like this:

-Have a drink, loosen up
-Strip nekkid
-Sit in a tiny, steamy, stiflingly hot room until you're drenched in sweat
-Beat yourself with a dried branch and convince yourself that it's for "exfoliation"
-Sit some more
-Finally, when you feel like you're going to suffocate or melt away completely, run outside and jump into a pond, or a pile of snow, or on unsuspecting strangers
-Scream like hell and curse your own damned sense of judgement
-Run back in the sauna
-Plaster the biggest smile on your face and brag about what you just done to everyone within earshot.

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly how it goes. Afterwards you feel like this:

Marje, God bless her.

More photos from my mid-week weekend:

The guesthouses. Yes. Plural.

Close-up of the Barrel

Jüri, Marje, and homemade canned delights.

And I'd really love to share this gem with you all:


Translation:

BE NEGATIVE

-Today will be a shitty day!
-Everything I do will end up shittier than I think it will!
-Being in a bad mood will fix everything!
-Everything can be done badly!
-I can always find something to screw up!
-My self esteem is especially shitty!
-Today I'm going to make someone feel awful!
-I'm going to be depressed!
-Life is truly horrible!

STILL I AM HAPPY!

Amen.