I looked at today’s photos just now, and for those of you who like my terrible photos, today’s gonna be a bonanza!  Seriously.  I took three pictures of the same building, and one picture of a stairway I kinda liked.  Ridiculous.

Last night was another late night.  I definitely slacked off on my studying this weekend, but Tartu has been a whole lot of fun, so that’s okay.  I went out to pretty much every “college bar” in Tartu, and they were pretty much awesome.  Kinda divey like the Two-Way in Chicago, but without the creepy locals.  I guess all the creepy locals must hang out elsewhere.  Hung out with two other US-Americans, the Canadian that runs the place, and an Australian.  (I may have convinced the Australian to take the Estonian class with me in Tallinn.  We’ll see!) Met a handful of locals, none of whom understand why I want to learn Estonian, and generally had a pleasant time.  As happens, unfortunately, I didn’t get up today until around about noon.  The remaining American and I wandered around town, and I took pictures of stuff.

I also ate a pancake for breakfast, stuffed with cheese, mushrooms, and corn (?), for lunch I had a broccoli pizza (?), and I made bean burritos for dinner.  Made them!  Like, on the stove, etc.  Cool!  I also had some ice cream.  Man, I ate a ton today!  Way to go, Brett!

I think tomorrow if I wander around, I’m going to take pictures of people wearing teal/turquoise.  That color is way in.

YO!

I saw another V40 today.  Rad.

OKAY.

ALRIGHT.

I kinda don’t feel like typing at the moment.  But I’m going to.

So I like the hostel I’m staying at still.  There’s a bunch of native English speakers here, which is really pleasant.  I’ve met plenty of people who speak English, but it’s weird how pleasant it is to talk with other natives.  Anyhow, we went to a bar that’s built into the side of this big hill, so that was cool.  I didn’t get any pictures last night, but I took one this afternoon that’s not totally terrible.  Apparently it used to be some sort of an armory or gun powder storage place.  It was cool.

The map I have of Tartu has all the cool sites marked on it, and a convenient little yellow line that you can use as a walking tour, so today I followed the line around town and saw all the big sites.  I took a ton of pictures, and it made me realize I am doing exactly what I always complain about in other people’s photos.  Just taking pictures of things, you know?  I used to try to put myself in all the pictures, so..  you know, at least there’d be that.  Most cool places you can find other, better photos of (like post cards or whatever) but it’s rare that you find a nice photo with your face in it, right?  Oh well, boring pictures of old buildings.  We’ll all just have to deal with it.

So I was a tad bit hungover this morning, just a tad, but I did stay out rather late and get up rather early.  NBD.  The problem is that there’s this pathology museum which is basically an old scary house full of jars with weird alcoholic livers and smoker’s lungs and deformed babies, etc.  That would turn my stomach on a good day, yet I still thought I should check it out today, a bad day.  Not a good idea.  Perhaps the worst idea I’d had since going to a bar at 2am a couple weeks ago.  JUST FYI.

I had a pretty good lunch today, which was great!  (Yes, I mean the meal was good, but it was great to have a good meal.)  I think it was supposed to be a french place.  I got some grilled eggplant with mozzarella and tomatoes, on top of a bed of lettuce doused with honey mustard dressing.  The whole less than the sum of its parts?  Perhaps.  I did have the entire interaction with the waitress in Estonian, so that was cool.  (To the extent that nodding/shaking my head counts as Estonian…)

I feel like a smoothie.  Or maybe just ice cream.  OR MAYBE A NAP!

Yesterday was a big holiday, so a lot of things were closed. I was in a city called Parnu, which is a nice little beach/tourist town. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t quite so beachy, so I just spent a lot of time walking around to different closed museums and trying to avoid the rain.

I did go to the best Tex-Mex restaurant in all of Parnu and ordered a burrito.  What they served me was sorta kinda like a burrito, thought the salsa was sweet like ketchup, and the beans almost, but not quite, were lima.  A little odd.  But the tortilla was convincing, so that’s something.  That meal actually prompted me to get a pizza for dinner, just because I wanted to keep up the foreign-theme.  Today in Tartu (I arrived a couple hours ago), I went to another Mexican restaurant to compare.  Basically, just like at home, all I ever want to eat is Mexican food or the closest approximation thereof.

Estonians, kinda like Texans, are quite proud of their flag.  Yesterday was a national holiday, so it’s expected that the flag would be a bit more visible than other times, but seemingly every building had a flag on it.  I was walking through one residential area and took a photo of each of the seven or so flags visible from where I was standing.

I’ve mentioned this before, but there are a lot of V40s!  I stopped mentioning them, because I figured nobody else cared, but then I realized that if I care, then that’s enough.  So I took a picture of , and then not five seconds later yet another drove by.  And we drove by one on the highway AND I saw one in downtown Tartu this afternoon.  People know their cars.

Also: kite surfers.

Anyhow, I’m in Tartu now, so I’m going to see what there is to see around here.  The hostel I’m staying at seems nice- the first was a bit too hippie, and the last two were rather boring and asocial, but this one is promising.  I understand that holiday-wise, last night was the night everyone goes out and stays up all night partying, and today is the relaxed, hungover day.  That’s a shame, because I’m finally feeling like myself as of this morning, and I wouldn’t have minded had tonight been the all night party.

Photos.

Actually, I kinda like one of the photos.

I took a billion photos today.  Close to it, anyhow.  I’m just gonna post them without too much commentary, cause I’m kinda sleepy.  I think they’re all pretty self explanatory.  I took a few pictures during the bus ride from Tallinn, just to give a sense of what Estonian countryside looks like.  They’re not interesting photos, just kinda FYI.  Here in Haapsalu, there’s an old castle/church which is awesome, though it does include some basementy/dungeony areas that were a little too scary for me, not to mention weird mannequins everywhere.  Also, there were a fair amount of spiral staircases that I was sure wouldn’t support my weight.  Surprisingly, hundreds of years and thousands of people later, they’re still going strong.

Um..  Yeah, I guess that’s it. I’m kinda sleepy!  I guess it *is* 9, so I could reasonably do flashcards for awhile and then go to bed, but I’m really tempted by the midnight lazzzzer bowling.

Oh!  I should mention that Estonia celebrates the solstice over the next few days.  As I was coming in, I noticed a lot of people had set up pyre-like things which I assumed were for burning trash, but it’s for the holiday.  All of Haapsalu there are similar pyres, though I’m not sure whether they get lit tonight or tomorrow.

Also, because of the upcoming holiday, a lot of the places I went were closed, though I did get into the local art gallery, which had a really cool building and a cool exhibit called “Pop/Rock” which I think involved asking a bunch of local artists to respond to the title.  My favorite was a painting whose top half was filled with bubbles and bottom half was filled with pebbles, though there were  a lot of good ones.  Exhibit continues until 3 July, so get here quick!

No videos today, cause I’m kinda sick of playing on the computer right now, but when I have more time and a better connection, I will upload several.