Hey, dude: what are you doing up?

The Estonian for "goodnight" is easy to remember: "hey, dude," intoned with a classic California surfer drawl. The illustration above -- from my language textbook -- has particular relevance to us. Chloe's room in our apartment has a twin bed. Inspired by her first night in a "big-girl" bed at Uncle Geoff and Auntie Charlotte's in London at the end of January, she was very keen to try it when we moved in three weeks ago. The first night went well; she slept her typical 12 hours. But during the next few nights Chloe had a fever, followed by a cold. Uncharacteristically, she began waking several times a night. Since she was so restless, I tried moving the big-girl mattress on the floor, but her sleep remained broken even after her fever subsided.

Then, one day, she pleaded for her tent. We assumed it was for comfort, perhaps due to the transition of the big-girl bed, perhaps to some soreness caused by the four back molars which have been taunting her off-and-on for a year now and which still remain below the gums. She was quite touchy, losing her temper often and for no obvious reason. A few times she said, "my cheeks hurt," so I kept applying numbing gel to her gums. Eventually we discovered that Chloe had a small ear infection, which, in retrospect, she'd been battling the whole time. She was on antibiotics for a week. A follow-up visit this week has shown her to be clear of the infection, which we had hoped based on her much-improved spirits.

Chloe's recent period of recovery was also one of discovery. One morning I awoke in pre-6 am blackness to the very loud sound of her bedroom door opening. My slow rise to consciousness was accompanied by quick footsteps receding into the distance. Pitter-patter pitter patter... "Chloe, bunny, what are you doing?" I called raspily. Pause. Pitter-patter (soft) pitter-patter (loud) pitter-patter (louder) -- cr-e-e-a-k (our door opening). Arms flapping wide and fast. Is she airborne? "Um, um, um, I pulled the zipper on my tent!!" Dancing; leaping. "I pulled the zipper on my tent -- halfway! I get out!"

So begin our mornings now: a loud creak followed by pitter-patters -- usually in blackness, once in a while when the sun's first rays enlighten the frigid air -- almost always not on a morning when she has school! We take turns getting up and reading to her into her room for an hour or so before breakfast. A few days ago she asked to return to her big-girl bed, so we tuck her in nice and tight, with a foam futon on the floor to protect her from inadvertent tumbles.

(at left: one of the rare occasions when we wake her)

For many months now our bedtime ritual has included saying "see you when the sun comes up," and now we really try to emphasize that particular concept. It doesn't actually work, but on the rare occasions when she does wake after sunrise, she knows enough to boast, "the sun came up!" - sac

Letters from Estonia

Chloe has discovered the joy of writing letters from abroad! We began by naming people we wanted to write to. This was one of her favorite parts. She enthusiastically named friends and family, ending each run with a very eager, "who else?" After we filled our minds with possibilities, we picked out some interesting stickers at a nearby paper shop. She gravitated toward Winnie-the-Pooh characters and googly-eyed cows. When the day came to put stickers on paper, she took it extremely seriously. Each sticker is hand-picked for a lucky recipient. There is a definite and unbreakable connection between that sticker and its human target. Due to the "who else?" phenomenon, it's an open-ended process, coming to closure only when we run out of stickers.

Chloe and I mailed the first batch of letters at the Tartu post office yesterday. It was a particularly cold day (see Alan's last post), and interiors here are kept extremely warm, so the post office itself was a haven -- even though it does feel a bit like a bus station. You have to take a ticket and watch a digital board to see which window to go to. I did not know this at first, so figuring out how to get some stamps was a bit traumatic. But we ended up with a nice teller who spoke passable English and who was patient with my request to have Chloe participate. She even let Chloe use her sponge-in-a-dish to apply stamps. Handsome whales and penguins were featured on ones for the US, and Chloe was as keen to match stamps to people as she had been with the stickers. So if you happen to receive a letter from Estonia this week, be aware that Chloe selected that whale or penguin especially for you!

In other news, I began an Estonian class this week. I have learned how to say things like "Hello, let's get acquainted. My name is Shelley. Nice to meet you!" Yesterday we covered geography. Estonian has 14 different kinds of endings depending on case and context, and you have to be careful to put the proper endings on place names. The "where" concept ends with an "s," so you end all place names with an "s," unless it is an island, in which case you attach an "l" (because you live on, not in, islands). I can now say, "I currently live in Philadelphia, but I was born in Newport. Newport is in the north-east of America." However, I will avoid saying "Rhode Island," just to keep things simple. In reality, I say things like, "Markid?" (stamps) in a quavering voice, followed swiftly by "Do you speak English?"

Aerobic exercise I am getting plenty of, like it or not! With all the walking and stroller-pushing I am doing over icy paths and snowy hills, my thighs are beginning to hint at the impressive solidity of a Scandinavian matron. However, I am occasionally trying a couple of other things to keep limber, like swimming in a local pool complex (which I hope to take Chloe to soon) and doing a little yoga. Chloe likes to climb under and on me while I do it, and we did a little pose together recently (see below).

Also below is a slightly out-of-date photo from our first days in Tartu, when we were still in our little hostel room.

Until next time! - sac

Icy Hair

It's got cold again so we have been wrapping ourselves up and limiting our outdoor excursions across Tartu. Yesterday morning we walked from our apartment into the town centre, crossing the pedestrian bridge over the frozen and snow-covered river. By the time we reached the bridge, the condensation from Shelley's breath had frozen in ice crystals on her hair, as you can see in the picture above. [If you click on the picture then it comes out larger.]

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Edge of Ice

Sometimes trivia can be useful. On the bus to Tallinn on Friday I read in one of my books that of all the world's languages, Estonian holds the record for having the word with the most consecutive appearances of a single vowel. The record-breaker is jäääär, which means "edge of ice".

Then, the next day, I emerged from a building with Chloe and as I was putting her in her stroller on the sidewalk I saw some handwritten signs taped to sticks. They were in Estonian, but I noticed two things. First, that they had exclamation marks at the end. And, second, that one of the words on them was "jää". I concluded, from the similarity of this word to "jäääär" that it must mean "ice", and hence that the signs were probably warning pedestrians about ice falling from the roof of the building.

Later that same day I was with Chloe in the University cafeteria and saw that one of the drink offerings was "jää tee". Iced tea, I presume ... .

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Men Screaming

On Sunday afternoon I went to a concert by Huutajat, an apparently famous (and infamous) ‘shouting choir’ from Oulu in northern Finland. It was a popular event, with Tartu’s largest concert hall practically full. I had never heard of Huutajat until seeing a trailer for the concert on Estonian TV a couple of days earlier.

And they do exactly what the description suggests – 24 men shouting their way through arrangements of various pieces of music. All the melody is removed, and often only bits and pieces of the original words remain. It’s hard to describe the effect of this – a bit like a vocal version of “Stomp” (this was Shelley’s way of putting it, based on my description of them).

The members of Huutajat dress identically in black suits and black rubber ties (apparently made from inner tubes …). They seem to specialize in arrangements of two sorts of pieces: Scandinavian folk tunes, and national anthems / patriotic songs. Their rendition of “Rule Britannia” was one of the highlights of Sunday’s concert, while their arrangement of the Star-Spangled Banner was just plain weird. An award-winning documentary has been made about Huutajat. Below is a link to a preview clip.



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Alan's Day Trip to Tallinn

Yesterday (Friday) I spent the day in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, and on the other side of this small country from Tartu. The reason for the trip was to liaise with my contacts at the U.S. Embassy, because as a Fulbright Scholar I am part of their responsibility. Tallinn is known as having one of the best-preserved medieval centres of any city in Europe and I was fortunate to have a couple of spare hours during the day to stroll around. The picture above is of the main square (Raekoja plats) in Old Town. The picture below is of the Russian Orthodox cathedral that overlooks the eastern edge of Old Town, and -- on the right -- part of the old city wall and fortifications.

For comparison purposes I took a bus from Tartu to Tallinn and a train on the way back. Both take two and a half hours, and they are both cheap, seemingly efficient, and somewhat run-down. The U.S. Embassy is located a few blocks south of Old Town. On my walk to it I came across the following modernist 'tree-house'.

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Art Installations

Chloe has dabbled in various artistic media for a while now, including watercolor paints, crayons, and coloured pens. Her attention span is usually quite short, not unusually for a 2-year-old, but she seems to enjoy doing it and also watching Shelley produce pictures of various characters from the books she has been reading. There is one area, though, where she has been unexpectedly creative, and that is in creating sculptures, or 'installations', out of whatever things are around at the time. The first time we noticed this was last month in Oxford. She had stacked up some laundry baskets, and when we asked her what it was she said, "It's a woman."


Last week in the apartment she had finished breakfast and then stacked up her breakfast things into a tower and informed us that it was a "baby."


And her latest, more minimalist, installation involved hanging a banana from a hole in the wall of the kitchen -- "telephone."


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Chloe's at preschool!!

Today was Chloe's first day at preschool!! It is actually the kindergarten of Tartu International School. We visited for about an hour yesterday to meet the head teacher, the kindergarten teacher, and to see the facilities. Even during that short initial visit, Chloe was enthusiastic and did not want to leave when it was time to go.

The language of the school is English. The kindergarten currently has four 4- to 5-year-olds and one other 2-year-old (described to me as "almost 3"), a Latvian girl who attends on Tuesdays and Fridays. The kindergarten was happy to accept Chloe too, even though she's just 2 yrs and 4 months. The program is half-day from 8 am to 12:30 pm, with a lot flexibility as to frequency of attendance. Due to Alan's teaching and my own writing (and Estonian-learning) schedules, we have decided on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings. This has the advantage of not overlapping with the days the other 2-year-old attends, so Rebekah, the kindergarten teacher, will only have to mind one toddler at a time. (For more information on the school as a whole -- though not much on the kindergarten itself -- see the Tartu International School's website.)

Among the older four students in the kindergarten, only one, a girl (Katie) from Alabama, is a native English speaker. The other three, all of whom are boys, speak Latvian, Finnish, and Danish. Even the teacher, Rebekah, can't understand what they say to her! On the other hand, they are already understanding much of Rebekah's English, since kids learn so fast. Rebekah is Estonian and speaks excellent English with a distinctively American accent. (She lived in Lexington KY and Nashville from ages 5 to 8. She is also in her last semester of an English degree at Tartu University.) Rebekah said that she finds talking to Katie a relief because they can actually understand each other. I think she is definitely going to get a kick out of Chloe and her little verbal insights. Almost all of the kindergarteners just started last week, so it is a new situation for nearly everyone.

Today was Chloe's first full morning. I checked in a couple of times, but she was always engrossed in the available activities and really didn't need my comforting presence! The pictures below show some events in the classroom, including a flashcard game in which Chloe excitedly gave all the answers! (It must be said that Matthias, the Danish boy, displayed some very impressive animal noises as his form of response.) There is also a photo of Chloe being offered a selection of rolls at the 11 am school-wide lunch. A particular highlight was recess, which she told me about excitedly: "We went up and down on the snow! They gave me a SLED!" Rebekah said that the older children, especially Katie and Matthias, argued over who was going to help Chloe get down the stairs, etc. Chloe absolutely loved the whole experience and did not want to leave at the end of the morning.

Until next time! - sac

Adventures in Estonian: Part 2

Shelley has signed up to take Estonian lessons, starting next week, that are offered free by the University for visiting academics and their families. In the meantime we are gradually working more things out about the language using a mixture of guesswork (usually not very successful: for example orange is "apelsin"), a small dictionary helpfully lent to us by a colleague, and some more unconventional sources ... .

For example, I attended a choral concert last week in the recently renovated St. John's Church in the centre of town -- one of several red brick churches in Tartu. The second half of the concert was a Requiem by the early 20th century composer Cyrillus Kreek, and most of the text was in Estonian. Listening to the choir while reading the Estonian words in front of me was very helpful in getting a sense of how to pronounce the various vowel sounds distinctive to Estonian -- particular since so much of singing is just vowel sounds! We have a key to pronunciation in the back of our guidebook to Estonia, but it is almost impossible to work out the actual sounds from the descriptions. For example

"õ is pronounced with the lips in the position of a short e while the tongue is retracted."

"ü is produced by pronouncing i with a protrusion of the lips and a narrow opening of the mouth." [This ü is an important vowel, since it is the first letter of the Estonian word for "university"! [see above pictures]

Another source of information, not for pronunciation but for vocabulary, have been the 'word-picture' books I found in the children's section of the public library. Seeing the words next to pictures of the appropriate objects is helpful, although I'm not sure how much use I will have for 'zebra,' 'giraffe', and so on. There seems to be almost no overlap between Estonian children's books and those from the English speaking world. I had expected to see various familar titles in translation, but the only series I did see in the library was "Winnie Puhh" (and his friend "Tiiger").

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People Watching

In front of one of the old University buildings, currently being renovated.

Inedible

Alan neglected to mention in his last posting that he and I actually tasted Estonian unchocolate -- and had to spit it out! It's not so much its blend of flavors as its texture. Instead of feeling smooth and melty, it wads up into slimy, unchewable clumps. As if you needed another reason to be thankful for real chocolate.

Alan said that he took a few pictures of Chloe holding the Kamatahvel. With each click of the camera, she took it upon herself to announce, "It's not real chocolate!" I guess it's not just a happy coincidence that the letters of "Chloe Costa Baker" scramble into "Baker's Chocolate!"

I'd like to set the record straight on the milk fat fiasco ("Miscellaneous stories"). Hey, I studied in France. I know that Europeans use commas as decimal points!! So I am not ignorant -- just inexcusably dumb! I think my reasoning was, "Point zero five times something gives you five percent of it... yum! Super-rich fatty milk!" I was also shamelessly taking my cues from other shoppers. Let me give you the picture. It was my second day in Estonia. I'm going, hmmm... that carton has a cow on it... but it says "keffir," and the English-language menu I saw yesterday had listed keffir as separate from milk... so it can't be milk. Maybe it's buttermilk. I'm pretty sure they drink that in Eastern Europe. Remember how Margorzata [my Polish housemate at Cornell] used to leave her milk carton on top of the fridge on purpose so her milk would curdle?? Then she'd drink it down... yes, I think "keffir" is buttermilk -- I'd better not pour that over Chloe's cereal! Oh, here's a little one that says "voor," that's probably cream. Yes, it says 35% -- definitely cream. Oooh, there's another carton with a cow that says "piim." Does "piim" mean milk? Oh wait, that woman just took a carton -- she's got a child and a toddler with her. Yay, definitely a full-fat milk shopper! One for my cart, too -- come to mama, "piim!" Hey, FIVE percent fat? It's even richer than full-fat milk back home! Nice! What's next on my list?

Then there was the time that I signed up for a membership card at the department store. I was filling out Alan's information and had to put his birthdate in digits. Being Euro-savvy (just like with the decimal point) I said, "Day first, then month, right?" which was confirmed. I then proceeded to write "4 - 2 - 1969" -- i.e., the American order of Alan's birthday. Not ignorance. Just plain stupidity! (And maybe exhaustion, frostbite of the brain, and/or pregnancy hormones!) It didn't dawn on me until much later in the day. It turns out (which I did not know when I filled out the form) that the membership card gives a double discount -- 10% rather than 5% -- on your birthday as well as for the 5 days before and 5 days after your birthday. Here I was disappointed that I the date was Feb. 3rd, six days after my own birthday -- and then a little mystified as to why we were getting 10% off when using Alan's card, but 5% off when using mine. Then I realized what had happened -- and we were thrilled, as we had a ton of shopping to do to stock up our apartment!

I understand that it has been unusually cold this week in many parts of the northern hemisphere. I have heard from family and friends that there have been over two inches of snow in southern England, where it very rarely snows; temperatures well below freezing in New England and even in the Philadelphia area, where we usually live, and where winter is usually (to me) almost disappointingly mild; and bitter temperatures in the American midwest even equal to or below what we are experiencing here in Estonia! For about a week the highest daytime temperature has been around 15 or 16 below zero (C), i.e., low single digits in Fahrenheit, descending into negative Fahrenheit temperatures at night. Our landlord, who lives upstairs, came down the other day to make sure we were warm enough (he's cute that way), going from room to room and making sure each space heater was up to its maximum. He said that there is usually one extremely cold week each winter, and he thought this would be it. He did add, though, that Estonians don't usually say it's "cold" until it's 25 below (C)!

But I have never personally contended with weather this cold. I am learning some things. Like that my black suede gloves are way too inadequate for exposure to this kind of air, e.g. while pushing a stroller. My hands get numb within a minute or so of walking, and the skin on my hands is like sandpaper. I finally got the chance today to get to the department store -- outings are minimized and made as brief as possible! -- and got fur-lined mittens to go over my gloves. I also bought slippers for myself and Alan (Chloe already had nice warm LL Bean doggie ones -- thanks, Midge!) which have made us much warmer inside our apartment. My old down jacket is perfect for this weather, though, and Chloe is very cozy during our brief times outdoors in her snowsuit (ditto, M,!)

Another thing I have learned is that wearing my contacts while outdoors is much better wearing my glasses. The bespectacled among us are well familiar with the phenomenon of our glasses fogging up if we breathe into a scarf on a winter day. Because of this, we usually keep our nose and mouth uncovered. I tried that when Chloe and I ventured out earlier this week. For the first 30 seconds I was ecstatic that we were out of the house -- and then the severity of the cold hit me. My throat and lungs ached from breathing the arctic air, and yet I could not cover my face. Each step was excruciating! The 15-minute walk felt like an eternity, and I questioned my wisdom in thinking Chloe needed a change of scenery. But we did enjoy lunch with Alan and time at the playspace. We were just utterly wiped out when we got home. And didn't go out again for two more days!

So now I wear my contacts. The only drawback is that my tears freeze in tiny crystals on my eylashes by the time I get into town. I am learning lots about physics!

Here are a couple of pictures showing how Chloe feels, and how she keeps busy, after a few days indoors.



Until next time! - sac

Unchocolate

One of the unique creations invented in Estonia is Kamatahvel. Invented in the 1970’s when world cocoa prices skyrocketed and became scarce in then- Soviet Estonia, an employee of the state chocolate manufacturer, Kalev, decided to try something different by replacing the majority of the cocoa in chocolate bars with kamaflour, a traditional Estonian flour made from rye, barley, wheat and peas. The resulting product, which is vaguely reminiscent of chocolate, became very popular, especially among those who could not afford the real thing. After independence, perhaps due to nostalgia, Kamatahvel was produced once again and it can be found in most food shops.


And then there is the chocolate spa treatment ... . This may also be unique to Estonia, and it uses real chocolate. Here is an excerpt from the spa's literature (reproduced verbatim). The spa is located in the coastal town of Parnu, about 90 minutes' drive west of Tartu.
"Spa Chocotherapy – the sweetest well-being and emotional pleasure
Based on the multiple benefits, both on physical and psychological, that chocolate has for the body we have developed “Deluxe Chocolate” : To enjoy all the benefits of chocolate without eating a single calorie extra. Delicious body treatment based on cocoa that units skincare benefit + emotional pleasure. Cocoa wrap melts into the skin to help:
Improve the silhouette, sculpting it.
Inprove the appearance of “orange-peel skin”
Hydrate and smooth the skin
Provide the skin with energy and vitality
Goodbye at last to stress and welcome harmony based on chocolate!"

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Adventures in Estonian: Part 1

Estonian is a famously difficult language for foreigners to learn. It is closely related to Finnish, distantly related to Hungarian, and basically not related to anything else. On the plus side, it is written in the Roman alphabet. More precisely, it is written in the Roman alphabet minus several letters. There is no letter c in Estonian, also no letter q, and no w, x, y, or z. (One of Chloe’s favorite songs is the alphabet song, “Now I know my a, b, c”. I suppose in Estonia this would come out as, “Now I know my a, b, d” …!

Another confusing thing about the Estonian alphabet is that the vowels can also have accents of various sorts, but these accented vowels are considered to come at the end of the alphabet, not in the same place as the unaccented vowel. For example, if a word begins with “a” then it appears towards the beginning of the dictionary, but if it begins with “ä” then it appears towards the end.

We did some more empirical research into Estonian orthography last night when we cooked up some alphabet soup that I had bought at the supermarket. We were wondering if any of the ‘non-Estonian’ letters would appear – and they did. Also, no sign of any accents … .

Vocabulary highlight: The Estonian word for child is “laps”, grandchild is “lapselaps”, and greatgrandchild is “lapselapselaps.”

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Miscellaneous stories

The morning of our second day in Estonia, we heard Chloe talking in her sleep about ice cream. When I asked her what kind of ice cream she had been dreaming about, she said “vanilla.” Perhaps it was triggered by all the snow we had seen on our 2-hour drive from Tallinn to Tartu the day before.

On the subject of dairy products, Shelley came back proudly with a carton of milk from the supermarket, impressed at its high fat content of 5%. But when we poured it on our cereal the next morning it came out looking like water with a slight white tint. Turns out it was 0.05% milk, i.e. one hundredth of the fat content she thought it had. Part of the confusion was the European style of writing decimals using commas, i.e. 0,05%

I’d spent a long time before our departure to Estonia debating what kind of winter footwear to bring with me for trudging through the snow and slush. I eventually opted for my largest (and heaviest) pair of hiking boots – nothing but the sturdiest for these Northern climes. On our arrival in Tartu, as I climbed out of the taxi to make first contact with Estonian snow, the entire sole fell off one of the boots and onto the floor of the taxi. So much for sturdiness! The boots are now decorating our apartment and I am sliding around in pathetically non-gripping, non-waterproof shoes.

The Estonians favor very abstract symbols for men’s and women’s toilets, consisting of either Δ or ∇, together with a dot just above each one. When faced with the choice between these two for the first time in the Philosophy Department I was very unsure which to pick. (I took Chloe in one time to use her potty. She looked at the urinals along one wall and said “Who’s going to use the pretend toilets?”)

Our spacious apartment is owned by the coach of Tartu’s professional basketball team, who also lives in the same building. A Lithuanian player on the team had been temporarily occupying the apartment before us. When we first inspected the apartment I noticed three pairs of massive shoes lined up by the front door.

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Filosoofi Department environs

Here are a few pictures from inside and outside the Philosophy Department (the Estonian for "philosophy" is "filosoofi"). First, one of me working diligently in my office. Second, the view out of my office window onto the side street running behind the main University building.



The Philosophy Department is located a stone's throw from the main square, so looking back towards the river from the front steps of the Department you can see the Town Hall and part of the square itself.


In the other direction is a view up 'Cathedral Hill', with the ruins of Tartu Cathedral at the top. It is the presence of this steep hill that made Tartu of such strategic importance over the centuries.


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Brrr...

The air temperature today was -14 degrees Celsius (without factoring in wind chill), or about 8 Fahrenheit. My 12-minute walk to the Department, across the river and through the cluster of 18th-century building surrounding the town square, was a battle against heat loss. I wore my hat and scarf and turtleneck sweater under my coat, and when my face started freezing I wrapped the scarf over my nose and mouth. Then my breath began condensing on one lens of my glasses. By the time I got around to taking a glove off to clean the lens, the condensation had frozen solid! By the time I reached the comparatively warm haven of my office, my eyeballs were hurting from the cold. - arb

The photo to the left shows the street we live on, where Alan's frigid journey began. For those of you who like to visualize with maps, Alan's frozen walk can also be plotted using this map of Tartu center. We live north of the river, on Kivi (between nos. 52 and 53 on the first, more detailed map). Our apartment on Kivi is just off the top of the map. The thin bridge in the middle of the river is a footbridge we use to walk into the picturesque center of town, which has several different snow-covered
parks (see Chloe enjoying one at right) even along our short route. The town square Alan mentions above is marked on the map as Raekoja Plats. His department is no. 14.
Chloe's favorite playspace (below right) is near no. 20. My favorite little cafe is on Rüütli, not far from no. 6. Chloe and I like to go there to share some hot chocolate and pastries. While I place my order by pointing and mispronouncing, she dangles her feet from the "big girl" chair and bides her time by digging small fingers into a tiny box of raisins. And we have all been spending a great deal of time at a large mall -- the light grey blob on the corner of Riia and Küüni, toward the right of the map. It contains a huge department store where we have been purchasing household items as well as a few toys and art supplies for Chloe. There is also a little supermarket in the basement where we do most of our food shopping, and a very nice cafeteria-style eating area with good quality food, impressive views of Tartu center, and a small play area with legos adjacent to the dining area!

Chloe and I have stayed inside for the past two days, partly due to her getting over a little fever. These photos, taken when we were apartment hunting, give an idea of our environs. Our apartment feels very large. It's 124 square meters -- the whole ground floor -- and has very high ceilings. The owner has won an award for redoing the apartment in its original 1911 style, complete with period wallpaper, stencilled at the top. Even on this ridiculously cold day, it is cozy in here with our variety of space heaters -- and we love the constant heat that circulates under the tiled floors in the hallway and very toasty bathroom! We have not yet taken pictures of these much appreciated features; perhaps I'll include some in a future post. - sac

Above: The exterior of our building; Chloe assessing kitchen facilities during our first tour; the dining room as viewed from the living room. Below: The study where I'm writing this blog.

We're at Estonia!

"I'm at Estonia!" says Chloe periodically. In December, with no instruction from us (but lots and lots of hearing us tell other people about spending the spring abroad on a Fulbright) she began saying, "We're going to Estonia." We clarified that first we would be going to stay with her Granney in England. After that, when asked where she would be going after Christmas, she answered, "England and Estonia."

We spent most of January in Oxford, but during the last week of January we stayed with 4 sets of relatives and friends in London, Cambridge and Ipswich, ending at a lovely B&B very close to Stansted Airport in preparation for a 6:45 am departure for Talinn. At two and a quarter, Chloe is a very amenable and seasoned traveler, but staying at 5 different locations in 6 days understandably confused her a little. At least a couple of the times she awoke in a new place, she asked with anticipation, "Are we at Estonia?"

On the morning in question Chloe actually awoke in fuzzy purple pj's while Alan strapped her into the car seat of our rental car. Instead of howling in confusion, she blinked pleasantly as we layered fleece and jackets against the fridgid and pitch-black East Anglia air. "Where we going?" At long last, the answer was: "We're going on an airplane -- to Estonia!"

We had a smooth two-hour flight to Talinn. Some sleepy young men in the middle of the plane looked like they might be headed for one of the infamous British stag (bachelor) parties that have been descending upon the Estonian capital in recent years, but they gave no trouble. When we landed, we knew to expect a driver who spoke no English (in fact a handful of rusty German words sufficed nicely) who would take us on the two-hour journey to Tartu. However, we were pleasantly surprised to be greeted first by an English-speaking representative from the US Embassy. She welcomed us to the country and expressed a hope that we would return to Talinn to visit the embassy as soon as was convenient. She gave an interesting first impression of Estonia -- young, tall and thin, with cropped, dyed platinum-blond hair and a fitted suede jacket fringed in spiky fuschia faux-fur. As I watched to her speak I was reminded of both "The Fifth Element" and "Minority Report." I never expected a government representative from a former Soviet Republic to be so postmodern!

Our attempts to get an apartment in Tartu from abroad all fell through for various reasons, so we initially stayed in a guest house run by Tartu University. This meant a tiny but very clean dorm-type room with two twin beds and a miniscule kitchenette area. We pitched Chloe's tent in the middle of the floor and worked out a reliable routine for getting her to sleep. We then tiptoed around doing things like emailing on Alan's very quiet laptop. In such close quarters, the one thing we couldn't do after her bedtime was eat, so (5 mos. pregnant) I tended to shovel in fruit, cereal and chocolate during her bedtime stories with Alan!

Working with an agent recommended by the Tartu philosophy department, we found an apartment on Thursday, our second day in Tartu. (This photo shows us apartment-hunting.) However, a chain of mover-outers meant that we could not move in until Sunday (yesterday), so we spent four nights in our cramped quarters. We were all very cheerful, though. The hardest thing was that the guest house is uphill from the university, restaurants and shopping -- not a long walk, but an arduous one with a child in a stroller, another in utero, and lots of snow, ice and slush to negotiate! Our new apartment is vast, very nice, only a 12-minute walk from the university -- and in a FLAT part of town!!

We are so far impressed with Tartu: friendly colleagues for Alan; interesting buildings; lots of English speakers; free wireless in almost every public space; high-quality and very affordable food; even an excellent (and barely used) playspace for babies & toddlers a short walk from here. Our first days were 7, 10, and 2 degrees below zero (Celsius) respectively, so we have bundled up -- and I must say that Friday, at 2 below, felt balmy. More toddlers are transported via toboggan here than via strollers -- and the strollers we do see around us have heavy-duty tires that make our jams and struggles look pathetic. I have truly been fantasizing about snow tires for our MacLaren... but we will most likely try to purchase a second-hand stroller, and -- when the snow firms up again -- probably a little toboggan!

Until next time! sac