Back in Tallinn and waiting for pizza

Well these past few days have sure been eventful to say the least! Let's start out on Wednesday, when I woke up to see my right hand was swollen almost 3 times its normal size and the left one wasn't far behind. Once I blinked a few times to make sure I wasn't seeing things, I recruited Hailey (my roomie) to knock on our professor's door for me since I was unable to. For the next few hours, me and the prof bonded in the Tartu ER as we patiently waited to see what the hell was going on with my hands.

Turns out, some bug bit me and I had a reaction. It was uncomfortable but not painful, so they gave me some meds and sent me off.

The Estonian ER turned out to be quite nice. I paid 17 Euro to have blood drawn, and for the meds. Everything was efficient and straight to the point, much better than waiting for 6 hours in an ER in the US then having to deal with insurance and a few hundred dollars down the drain.

Anyways.

After that fiasco, we met with a few companies later in the week, my favorite being Fraktal, a start up design business in Tartu. A few young, talented guys run this company that deals with web design and programs for people looking to build their own websites. They also do their own photography and graphic design.

One thing that I really latched onto in the meeting was how the guy we were talking to was explaining their work as a balance of technical work with design work. This is almost exactly what I'm looking for in terms of what I want to do, so I found talking to him really interesting.

Tartu Town Square

University of Tartu

Meatballs in tomato sauce, potatoes and salad.

Thursday, we toured A Le Coq, an Estonian brewery.

Once Thursday night hit, we were all exhausted. We were in bed by 10 that night, and up at 5:30 the next morning to catch a bus to Saaremaa, an island off the coast of Estonia. Here, we stayed in a beautiful bed and breakfast on a farm, and were fed the most amazing home cooked meals we've had on the trip so far. We were very happy.

View from our room, looking out over the neighbor's farm

Lunch! Wild boar soup I believe?

Open face hot ham&cheese with pineapple and veggies

Country road

We spent Saturday on a private tour around the main highlights of the island, which was super fun. We had gorgeous weather and a wonderful lunch, might I add. We went to this place where you catch your own fish (rainbow trout) and they cook it for you right there, then serve it. It was aaahhhmazing.

Our catch!

Nothing like a fresh trout lunch

Me and the Baltic Sea

Windmill

All the fresh air and sun left us exhausted but relaxed at the end of the day. We were treated to fresh pork chops and polish sausage on the grill, as well as fresh salad greens and potatoes. Yuuum.

The weekend on the island was much needed, I was getting a little tired of the city life. Estonia has definitely surprised me, about 50% of the country is forest, and as we drove through it all, I can't help but say how beautiful it is here. The woods seem to go on forever, and the trees are so dense, I just can't help but imagine hiking through them. (I might get to do so later this week, after the program ends!)

Now, we're sitting in our hostel in Tallinn, waiting for some pizza to be delivered. We spent the day in Kuressare, a smaller town on Saaremaa. It was pleasant out, we saw the Baltic Sea and hiked around a bit before catching a bus to Tallinn.

The official program ends on Wednesday, and I'm meeting the rents in Helsinki on Friday. Can't wait!

Also, Happy Father's Day! I was bummed I couldn't go for a ball busting bike or run today with my dad, but I'm sure we'll make up for it this weekend in Finland and Russia.

Eats

I totally forgot to post on food worth mentioning from the past week! How on earth could I forget.

Favorite dinner so far: Lemongrass risotto and asparagus complemented with a local brew

Definitely my favorite lunch so far: Fresh grilled salmon, veggies, potatoes and garlic sauce enjoyed on some steps by the Gulf of Finland in Helsinki on a cloudless summer afternoon.

Strawberry tart in Helsinki

Finally, some cheap but tasty kebab meat with lettuce and cucumbers for dinner in Helsinki.

Day 10 - from Tallinn to Helsinki to Tartu

Whew! Finally some time to catch our breath. I won't lie, I am totally exhausted but still running off of excitement for just being here. Let me catch up on what's been goin' down abroad here in Estonia:

Last week was shortly less than insane. Not only did we cram in our final client project, report and presentation, but we also met with variety of Estonian businesses (Microsoft Estonia, Enterprise Estonia, business newspapers, etc).

We learned lots about the e-Estonia concept too. It's amazing how Estonians can do everything online, even start a business (it takes 18 minutes online!). They can also vote and access records. They can even look up other citizen's backgrounds and such too. One lady at an IT Demo place showed us a huge business man's detailed profile, which was really interesting just because here in Estonia, there is so much more transparency than in the US. I feel like the whole week was a plot to get us to move here.

Anyways, in the middle of all the lectures and stuff, we also had a huge report to write up and present to our client on Thursday. In case I haven't already talked about it, the main focus of this class is a client project for Like A Local Guide who is stationed in Tallinn, Estonia. It's a group of young Estonians who wish to help travelers  find places to eat, stay and things to do - super cool. We conducted usability testing in a group project setting on their websites: I was in charge of testing the Like a Local Guide site with 2 others. (Please visit the site, it is honestly super cool, I loved working with them too).

Anyways. Not gonna lie, I think we were all pretty nervous about the whole thing. We had 3 straight days of scrambling to get everything together, especially since it was a real life client project, not some random class assignment. In the end, we all bought a liter of cider each and cranked it out together:

 After it was all done, I think that the client was really pleased with our work. In fact, we all dressed up for the presentation and made sure to be professional, and when we walked into their office, they had us take off our shoes and sit in bean bag chairs. So that was nice, and really reduced the stress of the whole thing.

Overall, I feel like the client project was an unmatchable experience. I got a ton of good experience working on a diverse team for it, and I also feel so good now that it's over and we can enjoy the rest of our trip.

Speaking of enjoying our trip, Friday after everything was done, we all decided to take a "tour" from our client. This so-called tour is called the "Pub Crawl" for a reason. And yes, our professor came along too, and in fact was probably the most excited about it. I won't go into detail, but here's a few pics to sum it up:

The crew, including 2 Germans and a tour guide, outside of an Old Town pub

me, Hailey and Katelyn after stop #1 of the tour

We managed to find some Waldos towards the end of the tour!

Bright and early the next morning, me and 3 other people in our group made our one free day into a day trip to Helsinki, Finland. We adventured around the city from roughly 10AM till 8PM, and were exhausted afterwards. It was a blast though, the weather was perfect, and we all even got a little sun. It was probably my favorite day over here so far.

Helsinki

We ended up all crashing on the ferry ride home and are still recovering from all the sun and walking. I loved the city itself though, can't wait to explore it more with my parents in a week and a half!

Now I sit in our hostel in Tartu, Estonia. I'm exhausted, as is everyone else. But we have a walking tour tomorrow morning, and from what I can tell after being here for half a day, I love Tartu. It is way more of a university town than Tallinn, and it's way less urban. And I truly appreciate that since all the skyscrapers and people were getting old for me... I need some trees and grass at some point.

Wow I just wrote a novel so I think I'll try to post more often with less words in the future! If you made it till now, you're probably my mom ;) well, off to dinner soon (gonna go grab some pizza with the girls) then early bedtime. Tomorrow we're up and at em to start our next little assignment: International Resumes. Peace.

Tere from Tallinn!

After having one fun night and saying goodbye to some of my favorite goons in Houghton...

...it's been a full 6 days here in Tallinn so far, and I decided to get the posts rollin while I'm not falling asleep while reading my book for the 5th time this week. It's been crazy busy and exhausting to say the least, but it's also been very enjoyable and fun.

We flew in last Thursday afternoon to Tallinn airport and settled into the hostel which would become our home for the next 10 days or so. After settling in, we strolled through downtown Tallinn and into the Old Town, where the medieval wall still surrounds the cobblestoned streets lined with shops, places to eat and bars. The weather was gorgeous, sunny and a pleasant 65 degrees (quite the change from the drizzly 40 degree Houghton days...) We eventually located a traditional Estonian cuisine place, had a free shot of Shnapps in a cute little glass, then enjoyed a goblet of cider and some tradish food. I had a yummy pork chop, which hit the spot. We also shared a sample platter, full of pickles, pickled herring, traditional bread, fish spread, and more.

our little Schapps!

Sample platter

Tallinn!

Friday we all woke up and grabbed a quick European breakfast full of bread, cheese, little sausages and even herring (I haven't had any yet, though), then headed off to our first lecture, given by Erkki Bahovski, Communication Officer of the European Commission representation in Estonia. Can't lie, I think that we were all dozing off due to the combo of jet lag and a hot day, but I still found it cool!

Then we enjoyed a walking tour through Old Town. Then it started pouring rain so that was fun, and we had to end early. After piling onto a bus, we made it to some international student thing where we got food, drinks, and watched some dancing.

Some old skool dancing yo

After that, me and my friends Katelyn and Hailey as well as the others in our group, hit a few bars and met some really fun locals. We ended up having a rather enjoyable evening.

Saturday and Sunday were spent exploring Tallinn under the hot sun, which was incredibly enjoyable. Ate lots of good food and soaked up some much needed vitamin D.

Chillin' on the Gulf of Finland

Streets of Old Town

Monday was back to reality. Lecture at 10AM about the e-goverance system in Estonia from Dr. Arvo Ott. It's so crazy how practically no one knows where or what Estonia is and yet they are so technologically advanced. They are in fact one of the leading countries as far as technology goes - free WiFi everywhere, and 1.2 million of its 1.3 million citizens have these ID cards that give them the ability to access all of their records and even vote online. It's truly remarkable.

Next we toured a design company, Velvet, which was neat, and by then we were all so exhausted that we immediately went back to the hostel and cooked ourselves dinner then worked on our client reports (presenting on Thursday!) and crashed so hard.

Today, we got to visit with Erkki Bahovski again and the representation of economics at the European Commission. Then we were lucky enough to meet with Mr. Valso Randpere, member of Parliament, to discuss his work and such. After that we bussed on over to Enterprise Estonia and learned more about Estonia's economy and technology.

Now we're sitting in the kitchen, talking and waiting for the sky to get dark so we can sleep. The sun goes down at 10:30 every night, and comes back up by 4AM every morning. It's insane, but I've slept so hard here.

Here's some of my favorite meals I've had so far too, of course! Can't forget the food!!!

Oh wait, that's not food but I mean the cider is definitely an Estonian specialty.

Blueberry&Strawberry sorbet on a cookie

Amazing pasta!