Monday 16.4.2007

We arrived at school in the morning with our new friends. At first we listened to our headmaster and the leader of the municipality who gave us a speech. After the meeting we had lunch and soon it was time to cook national food. We had about 3 hours to do that. The kitchen was full of students and the teachers. The Estonian team made egg pancakes, the Italians made pasta, the Finns made cake with quark, the Polish prepared dumplings, the Slovenians prepared cheese rolls. It was very exciting to taste the food of the other countries. It took much time to prepare the food, later we sat down and ate together. There was a barbecue at Kertu`s place in the evening. Some of them tried the sauna as well. Students ate snacks, salad, sausages aso. About 11 p.m. everybody went to their hostfamilies. Everybody had fun and some of them started to like sauna very much. That was the end of the first day.

Tuesday 17.4.2007

On Tuesday we got up full of energy and enthusiasm, because it was the day of the trip to Tallinn. Tallinn is the capital city and the most beautiful place in Estonia. First we visited the Television Tower. That tower is 314 meters high and on its 21th floor there is a viewing platform from which we could have a bird’s eye view of the whole city. Unfortunately, we couldn’t see the shores of Finland because of light fog. Next, we went to an open – air museum which is called Rocca al Mare where we had lunch.. It’s an amazing place. After lunch we had an hour walk around the museum and the museum guide told us about old Estonian customs and tradidions, and what life looked like in the past. We were surprised to hear that when the hosts left their house they used to lean the broom against the front doors so that visitors knew they were out. Later we went to visit the old city. One of the teachers from school in Abja who is also a tourist guide showed us the most famous sights that are important to every Estonian. We saw many interesting places like the Estonian Parliament, Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and the Lutheran Cathedral. Finally, we had some free time to buy souvenirs. The girls spent all their free time in clothes shops J We came back to Abja about 10 pm. too tired to think of anything else but sleep.

Wednesday 18.4.2007

Expeditions in Tartu
On 18th of April we boarded the bus for Tartu, where a lot of useful information about Tallinn, Abja-Paluoja, Tartu and Estonia was given to us.
We arrived to Tartu at 10AM and soon we saw a very interesting thing, the statue of Oscar Wilde and Edward Wilde. One is an Irish writer and the other is an Estonian writer and they share the same surname. We had a lot of fun around that statue.
Next we went to the beautiful main town square with the city hall and the fountain of the two lovers. We also saw the zero point of the town Tartu. The most memorable thing was an art gallery that is leaning to the left.
A while later we went to the Dome hill, where we saw important buildings, such as the Supreme Court, the first observatory in the Russian Empire, the Euro faculty and the most important, the National museum, the former castle and monastery. Nearby was a wooden bridge connecting the hilly surroundings, called the Angel’s bridge. Nearby was also the Devil’s bridge, from the time of the Russian Empire.
There is the park used for relaxing by students and teachers of the University of Tartu in between the two bridges. The guide told us everything about the university, the statues of important people for Estonian history, paths and houses on the Dome Hill. The most interesting path was Slow death.
We also saw the statue of the founder of the university of Tartu, which was our next stop. The University has a Great Hall for concerts and important meetings for the university academics. There was also the university’s most interesting students detention room, where students who misbehaved were held for a period of time, determined by the Honourable Student’s Court. We spent our lunchtime in one of the most interesting pubs, the Gunpowder Pub located under the Dome Hill. With full stomachs we went to the Toy Museum.
The next stop was the Lutheran church, which belonged to the German congregation and was bombarded by their compatriots during the Second World War.
We also had some free time for souvenir hunting. Inside a shopping centre we had a great time on the ice rink. It was the first time for some of us. After the interesting day in Tartu we returned home to our host families in Abja.

Thursday 19.4.2007

We went to school at nine o´clock. When we arrived there was lots of movement because it was the Foreign Languages´Day (an annual event in Abja school to promote learning foreign languages). When we arrived we were inthe main hall where Estonian students performed poems and songs to celebrate the event. At the end we went to the computer room and each group of students presented their work to the other groups; the topics were about: geography of each country , description of each school, the eating habits survey results and holocaust in other countries. Later we had the lunch at the school canteen. After lunch only students wentto Karksi-Nuia to visit Art Studio: in this place we looked at some picturesthen they let us made some works about our country. That was really amusing! At three o´clock while we were waiting for the bus we took photos of us inthe cultural centre. After that we took the bus and we went back to school where the final dinner between teachers and students of all the countries involved in the project had been organised. At the end of the dinner we exchanged presents then we attended a fashionshow prepared by the Estonians girls followed by a disco night and a concert by the school band. What a lovely day!!!!!!!! We´ll never forget it!!!!!!!!!

Friday 20.4.2007

On Friday morning we all students worked with this blog and presented some videos and presentations. After them we had lunch at school and from there, Abja, the bus ride to Viljandi where we students and our teachers visited in the local museum. After our visit in the museum we all went excursion in Viljandi where we saw the water tower and its really beautiful sight to Viljandi. Then we had some free time for example we went to bowling together.