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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