Baltic Tour Highlight #2: Actually Being in Estonia

Me, hanging out in Tallinn's medieval wall.

I have been studying Estonian for about 18 months now, and I started doing so for reasons too complicated to get into at this moment. However, one of those reasons was NOT that I had been to Estonia.

Needless to say, I was very excited to actually visit the country, after I had heard so much about it and spoke its relatively obscure language in class everyday for the last five quarters. I saw many things I had only read about, heard about, or seen hand-drawn pictures of. I spoke the language. I had whole interactions without English, even though almost everybody speaks English. I understood signs, and announcements, and random drunk people on the street. I bought Harry Potter in Estonian (For those interested, the Estonian title is "Harry Potter ja Tarkade Kivi" or "Harry Potter and the Smart Stone").

All of this was enormously satisfying. Me and my Estonian-class buddy began speaking to each other in Estonian almost as soon as we landed in the country--granted, he spoke much more than me. Mostly our conversations consisted of him saying something to me about where we were going, or describing something, and me replying with "Ja, on küll" (Yes, of course), or "Oh, Jah?" (Oh, yeah?). We even had an entire conversation in Estonian with Veljo Tormis, even though he wasn't that interested in talking to us. (This is a big deal. Ask any choral musician.) I was pretty anxious about my approximate-Estonian-age of about 4 1/2 years-old, but I managed to pull it off.

Me and my Estonian-class buddy, happy to be in Estonia, speaking Estonian (sort of).

Baltic Tour Highlight #1: Unexpected Stop in Frankfurt

As many of you may know, I recently spent a week in Estonia, Latvia, and Finland with the UW Choirs. And, as far fewer of you know, we flew directly from Seattle to Frankfurt, Germany, which took a really long time.

I was not a fan of the long flight, but I was even less a fan of the six hour lay-over we had in the Frankfurt Airport waiting for the flight to Tallinn. Luckily, some very smart people thought ahead, and most of us made the 15-minute jaunt into downtown Frankfurt, where it was a surprisingly lovely day.

Beautiful old things:

Some very nice old monestary/convent (I can't remember). What I really love about this picture is all the beautiful flowers!

A square. We think this is the town hall square, as we saw a wedding party exiting across the way.

And even older things:

A church built on grounds dating back to the 9th century.

The inside of said church. Although it looks brick, actually all of the stone had been painted red with fake white mortar painted on. Don't ask me why!

And even some interesting new things:

The outside of a mall. Pretty neat stuff.

All worth the 3 Euros and the short train ride!

Sweet Meet 2010

I know many of you are waiting on bated breath to see what happened to me in the Baltics last week. If you need a fix, check out this blog:

http://uwbalticblog.wordpress.com

I promise, I will post my own personal highlights soon. However, I have been meaning to post about my experience at the Sweet Meet. About six weeks ago, I attended the Sweet Meet. You may refresh your memory about this event by reading my post about it from last year. In any case, this year, it was time for the ladies to bake, and I was excited. I made two kinds of cookies, and some amazing brownies, but I couldn't figure out a good way to display them. Half of this is about how good your dessert looks. I finally decided on the following:

Not only did it go for a good price, but it won a prize. The Eternal Perspective prize.