ESTONIA

Hello everyone sorry it has taken me so long to post... here you go!!!

After Finland we took a ferry across the Baltic Sea and arrived in Estonia. We then went to find the hostel. We found are hostel was very different from our last one! This hostel was connected to a bar and all the rooms had a different name on them! Our room was named "Igor" and inside was different countries that started with an "I". I slept in Iraq and right below me was Iran! Funny right! Then there was Italy, Iceland, and so forth! 

After that we went and wondered around old town Estonia! It was like being in the Renaissance time period. There where old tall buildings made out of brick and small doors and alleyways! It was very cool. We wandered around for a bit and looked in some shops and ate deer soup for lunch! Yummy! After that we looked around some more and finally decided to find some dinner! We went to Doner Kebab an amazing food restaurant! After eating there ones we decided to eat there every night!! and we did. Every night we went and had the same thing and never got tired of it!  

The next few days we spent in Estonia where very fun! We went on a tour and learned many cool facts. Like it’s been a little bit over a year since they were liberated and that has been the longest time before! And the shortest time period where they were a free country was 1 day! Talk about funny!

From there we went to a strip mall, that’s what I call it because it reminded me of the shops at Rocky Point Mexico!! After that we wondered and went into some churches and stuff! 

Late one night the bar (our neighbor) was having karaoke night and Sam (Our head teacher) and Jessie (roommate) met Stripes. He got up and sang 3 or 4 songs and both Jessie and Sam fell in love!! Talk about your classic romance novel plot! Except nothing happened from there. They took stocker videos and pic and tried to walk and bump into him.... but that never worked! They were funny. They went to the bar every night to see if they could find him. But nope!!!! The mysterious Stripes was gone! 

Now they play the recorded video of him every day and its only a memory!!(just kidding…they don’t play it every day). But they do play it a lot. Our trip to Estonia came to an end. It was time to leave for Sweden.  =)

Guess where I am!

The rules of the hostel!!!

Old Town

Reminds me of Rocky Point

This is for my mom!!! ...and what we think when she pulls out her essential oils!!!

On are way to Sweden!!!

FINLAND

Welcome to Finland everyone!!! Finland was the first stop on the vacation!! We took a bus from St. Petersburg to Helsinki and let me tell you… worst idea ever. The roads where the worst and so very bumpy. It was like driving over a million medium sized pot holes!! Crazy! Plus we were woken up 3 different times for passport control!! Did I mention that we were traveling over night!!! Try being asked a million questions by the passport people and still being half asleep!!! It doesn’t go over well!

We arrived at about 6 in the morning but guess what, it turns out nothing opens until 10:00. So we walked around until we could eat and find the hostel to sleep for a bit! It was a crazy first day but then the next day was so much fun! We went to see the church made out of rock and I walked on the Baltic Sea! And ate pizza for Reagan’s birthday and watched a beautiful sun set! It was very amazing! Finland was my favorite out of the places we went. I have more pictures on face book you can look at!!! =)

Church made out of rock!!! So cool!

Danger Danger!!!

So while I was gone teaching one morning, my roommate, Jessie was getting ready for the day and needed to close the door partway to change!! But let me tell you...  you cannot close the door all the way or else you will never get out. Jessie closed the door to hard and therefor she locked herself in the room! She didn't know what to do so she started pulling in the handle and trying to open it. A few minutes later the handle flew off the door and she fell back on her but!! Haha… mind you everyone is asleep and I'm out teaching! haha. (I’m laughing just writing this!!!) She pulls on the bottom of the door and then bends the door into a rounded shape! But she is still locked in! So she calls out to Megen and says "Megen, are you awake?" Megen says "no" and so Jessie didn't want to wake her. So she calls the head teacher who is in the kitchen! When she tells her she rolls on the ground laughing! Haha, after she stops laughing she runs in and tries to help. She wakes Megen up and so for 1 hour they are trying to get Jessie out of her room because she is about to pee her pants! After a lot of help from all her friends she finally gets out!!! Funniest thing ever!!!

Kindergarten!!! (The crazies)

So… Today we got a call about one of the kids we teach and they said he has chicken pox. Because of that one kid we had to put 4 other kids in quarantine. This messed up the whole teaching rotations and classes! There are normally 3 classes but today we had to combine into 2 classes and then have one of the teachers teach the 4 quarantined kids!!!!!! Nightmare!

The classes had about 10 kids each and they were all of our problem kids (the crazies)! Then there was the 3rd class with the 4 quarantined kids!!! All 4 were angels. So for us teaching the non-quarantined kids it was a crazy day!

I was teaching Volleyball to my kids and we got as far as explaining what the net was! The net in our case was a string taped on one wall across to the other!! Because there were so many kids, and volleyball obviously wasn’t going to work, I took it upon myself to have a dance lesson instead!! I had the kids dance under the string that was no longer a net!! The day was no longer about having them speak English it was all about keeping them entertained!!!!

Talk about hard work! Here are some videos Sam (Head teacher) took of us all!! I hope you like!

Celebration of Spring and Saying Goodbye to Winter

This past week was BLINI week!!! You see in the pic just below that a blini is a pancake. Nothing big happened this week until the weekend!! We all went to a small festal on Saturday and then to a very big celebration on Sunday!!! It’s called Maslenitsa, it’s a celebration of spring and saying goodbye to winter!

Blini (pancakes) stacked high.

This is the coordinator for us! she loves to dance.

The burning of winter

We are on the river that separates Peter and Paul fortress from the rest of Russia! My head teacher slipped!!

Dancing

Traditional Russian Dancing

Me and Reagan on the ice!!! scary!!!

Women’s Day!!! and Church of Spilled Blood!

Today was Women’s Day!!! It’s kind of like Mother’s Day back home but all girls get flowers!

We didn't have to teach today so we decided that we would go on an adventure! Ha ha. We picked a random metro stop and went to see what there was to look at or do! We got off and started walking and found there was nothing to do on this metro stop! ...other than the Galleria, the biggest mall I have ever seen! It has 5 floors and it goes on forever! We went shopping for a little bit! I got bright pink pants!!! SO cute!

After the mall me and Reagan decided we were going to go home (we kind of wanted to just be by ourselves) so we left and as we got back on the metro we decided we would go to the Church of Spilled Blood! We called Sam and asked if she wanted to come and so it turned out to be a group outing! Not bad but not exactly what we had in mind! But it all turned out OK after all!

We all went and it was perfect outside! The sun was out and the wind cooled down! When you walk into the church your mouth drops open! There is not a single spot on the wall that is bare! There are mosaics everywhere! My Favorite is the picture that told a story and they all testified of Christ! It’s amazing to see art from years and decades ago! After our outing on are way home it started to get really windy. Not long after that we looked out the window and there was a blizzard! My very first blizzard ever!

It was  a great Women’s day!!!

We did not know that we all matched! It was the best day ever!

My Favorite

Here are some videos of the church of spilled blood! Just so you can see the beauty!!

Blini and Vacation Planning

Hey everyone!!

This last week has been so crazy!!! Teaching takes up a lot of my time so there is not much time to write. I’ll try and be better. 

This last week Sveta taught me how to make blini which is a Russian crepe. They were so good!! There is a weeklong celebration where all you eat is blini. I can’t wait!! It’s getting so cold, snow is not falling but the wind is just so bitter! I miss my Arizona sun!!

We have been planning booking our vacations!! I think about the amount of time we have spent planning and making arrangements and it seems like three times the amount of time we will actually spend on the vacation!! Ha ha. Last night we were up till 2 in the morning trying to book the 4 day long vacation! There was a point, I think about 11 o'clock when Jessie, Sam, and I broke down into a hysterical laugh and cried at the same time!!! Talk about crazy and funny!! It’s one of those moments I will never forget it!