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."


arb