Wellllll it was pretty much indescribable, but I'll do my best. Being so tired during the tour (I slept about 2 hours a night) I don't even remember all that we did - even the important stuff - but even so, it was one of the most fun weekends I've ever had. I will tell what I remember.
We started our wonderful journey in the Helsinki harbor. I and 17 other exchange students boarded the Viking Line XPRS, a huge cruise ship that travels between Estonia, Finland, and Sweden. On the boat they had restaurants (and nice restaurants they were!), shops, karaoke, and a dancing hall with a live band. It was a four hour boat trip to Tallinn. Once we got off the boat, we met up with the exchange students currently in Estonia (there were 7 or 8 of them) and we headed off to our first hotel in Tallinn. It was a very nice hotel, but since we arrived in Tallinn at about midnight, we had no time to go to the pool or sauna or do whatever we would do had we had time.
The next day we looked about Tallinn a bit in the morning, then loaded up on a bus for Rakvere castle . The castle itself is in pretty bad shape, many walls are crumbling and so on, but inside we got a wonderful tour. We dressed up in midieval costumes and got to have a midieval meal, not to mention practice archery, obverse a bloodletting ceremony (naturally I was the subject), and visit the castle's torture chamber.
Later that day we went to Narva and visited another castle on the Russian border. The castle itself was really cool, but our tour didn't quite compare to that of Rakvere.
In Narva we recieved an uncirculated 5 crown bank-note from the Estonian bank. The reason they gave us the bill is becuase Estonia is switching to the Euro in January, so we were to be the very last exchange students to use the Estonian crown.
We then went to our hotel and spent the night swimming in the pool and enjoying each other's company into the wee hours.
The next day we visited the Kohtla Mining Museum (http://www.kaevanduspark.ee/eng/index.htm) and were given a tour of the place. We were allowed to go down into the mine, take a ride on the underground choo choo train, and even drill a bit into a wall (pardon the pun..."bit"...haha?). We then had lunch in Jõgeva, and continued on to Palamuse Museum , an old schoolhouse and museum containing much history from many time periods (particularly the Russian occupation), but all from that area of Estonia. The link is here: http://www.palmuseum.ee/docs/polk_eng.pdf.
In the evening we visited Maarjaküla, a village aimed towards helped metally disabled people. The project is in fact a Rotary project, and the village recieves some funding from them. But most of the village's money comes from the work of the inhabitants. When a metally disabled person moves to Maarjaküla, he must find some work or studying to do during the day. Craftmaking, woodworking, and weaving were very common. The products are then sold in nearby cities in Estonia. The eventual goal for a person living in Maarjaküla is to gain enough experience and knowledge to eventually live outside the village, hopefully also employing the skills he or she learned there. After our visit to Maarjaküla we went to our hotel in Tartu for the night.
The next day, we woke up and toured Tartu with some Rotex (young adult Rotary) students. We then visited Tartu University and recieved some general information about the school's history, courses, and international relations. We then went back to Tallinn and left soon thereafter to Helsinki (again on the Viking Line XPRS). We poked around the center of Helsinki a bit, then went to a hostel where we stayed the night.
The next day we had the Rotary District Conference (also in Helsinki). It had been going on while we were in Estonia, but we came for the last day to introduce ourselves to the members of Rotary there. We also listened to a lecture about the life and work of one of the most famous Finns, Alvar Aalto.
Then it was back to Porvoo for me. As soon as I got home I ate a meal, then slept for 16 hours straight. I would have slept more, too, but I had to get up for school. :D
MORE MORE MORE
ReplyDelete