ProNutro

Firstly I would like to show you what my wonderful family sent me from NZ

I was expecting some maths books and I get to the post office and there was a huge package and this is what was inside:

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Ok so on Saturday we went to a little festival kind of thing. It was a bread day, so we tried different breads. Herb bread, meat bread, cheese bread, some kind of berry bread. All homemade and delicious! The festival was set amongst the trees, it was kind of like a museum. There were a whole lot of wooden houses with low stick rooftops that had been collected from the old days and brought together in this forest. Each one set up on the inside to resemble what it would have looked like back in its heyday. There were a lot of wooden windmills, one big main one and a whole lot of little ones scattered around. There was also a little market with stands selling homemade items like mittens and jewelry and soaps, scarfs, different foods, pottery and more.

Then on Sunday I went to church and tried those little translating headphone things. Someone literally sits and translates the service while its happening. So I didn’t miss out on anything. It was quite funny at one point they played a little movie in English and the person in the headphones said ‘it’s in English’ don’t know why but it was rather funny and I started laughing to myself. Everyone at church is really friendly and a lot of the people can speak English. 

It feels strange sitting in class at school and hearing the teacher talking in Estonian. Or hearing the other students chatting away in Estonian. I have heard it so much and often now that I feel like it should just flow from my mouth, I should just be able to open my mouth and speak Estonian. It’s like I understand what the teacher is saying but I don’t actually know the words she is using. It’s hard to explain but somehow I just have an idea of what people are talking about without even knowing the words they are saying. Hopefully soon I will be able to actually fully understand all the words that are being said around me. But until then I’ll continue to rely on my good guessing skills and my helpful (and patient) classmates.

This is me dressed as a baby

So as a sort of initiation for school we had whats called a fox day. This is where all the 10^th graders (which is my grade) were slaves to the 12^th graders. Each person had a mentor from the 12^th grade. This went on for two days. On the first day we were all dressed up funny, I was dressed like a garbage man and had to carry my books around in a garbage bag as well as a heavy rock freshly picked from the wet ground. We played silly games like dodge ball with plastic cups over our eyes. The next day our mentors had to dress us like babies. Some people had nappies on and a lot of us had to walk around with dummies in our mouths. Some walked around with squeaky toys tied to the bottom of their feet so the corridors were filled with a constant squeak squeak squeak. We provided the younger kids with some good entertainment though. At the end of each lesson I would walk down the stairs to see a whole line of little kids pointing and laughing as all the 10^th graders squeaked past dressed as babies and sucking dummies.

So at the end each class in the 10^th grade did a little performance thing. My class (10D) sang. We all positioned ourselves on the stage and we sang a song, I don’t actually know what it was about because obviously it wasn’t in English. And when I say WE sang I mean the rest of the class sang and I just did the actions because I just couldn’t actually remember the words.

We were then each giving a certificate and accepted into the high school.

So in the school cafeteria today we had the choice on rice or pasta with meatball sauce. I had pasta and a glass of milk. I was talking to a friend and she asked if I had been to the movies in Estonia yet, I replied no I haven’t and she said “well then lets go”  So I am making friends and they are all really nice and unbelievably helpful. I was explaining to some friends that Christmas in New Zealand is in summer so we usually go to the beach or spend the day outside in the sun. They all found that very funny because here Christmas in cold and snowing, not at all a day at the beach.

When I walked into my Estonian lesson with the younger kids, I was greeted with a chorus of hello, hello, hello. They are just learning to speak English so 'hello' is the one word they test out on me. While I was writing down some of the Estonian alphabet and the kid sitting next to me looked over, scanned my work and then nodded in confirmation, ‘mmhmm’ I had written it correctly. He then opened his book and showed me where Estonia was on the map and the Estonian flag and using hand gestures and a buzzing noise he asked if I got to Estonia by plane.  

Well we are now heading into Autumn and let me just say that today, today was cold. Very, very cold, and I have been told that the coldest month is February so in other words the cold I felt today was just the beginning. It only goes downhill from here. Oh Joy. 

Some Pictures:

I thought I'd show you what I looked like when I was sick and had to sit under the blanket with the hot water. 

This is a cake Epp and I made

This is the lego version of the cake we made