Estonia - Tartu

I arrived in Parnu in the afternoon and headed straight for the university dorms where I would be staying. They were brand new and very nice, but I had a room to myself and knew it would be difficult to meet anyone. Luckily, fate would intervene.

Main square of the old town

I set out to do some sightseeing and almost immediately on the bridge into town I bumped into someone I had met in the hostel in Tallinn. We had hung around together quite a lot there so it was quite a surprise to meet up again, especially as he was supposed to be going to Russia, but in fact ended up coming to Tartu first.

Inside the KGB cells

He had been in Tartu the day before so knew the town already and showed me around. Later, just after we sat down in a cafe another person we knew from Tallinn walked past, again much to our surprise!

Peering into the war-damaged church

Now the first guy I had met was doing the 'couch surfing' thing where you stay with a local at their place for free. He was with a university lecturer so we decided to meet up with him and go for dinner. Being a lecturer in Political Science he of course knew a lot about the history of Estonia and we were able to ask him all the questions that had been bugging us about Estonian life and culture (this was good as he was pretty much the first local we had contact with).

Estonian graduation party

The one thing that I had been wondering about was why there were so many well-dressed people walking about carrying flowers. Well the answer was that it was graduation week for the Estonian students, and the teacher was invited to one of the graduation parties. Of course, he brought us along!

The view from the party

The party was amazing. It was held in a luxurious loft of a tall building, with lots of people there but it was pretty much 100% estonian students and me and the 2 Americans huddled in the corner feeling like impostors. Luckily we mixed in pretty quickly and ended up taking a sauna with a bunch of them, which was rather random, and then sitting out on the roof watching the sunset over the city. The best moment came when the Estonians, and us, all held hands and sang a national patriotic song. It was very moving indeed and not a moment I will ever forget.

High up on the roof, sitting on the neon sign while drunk. Probably not a good idea...

We were out pretty much the whole night, which wasn't my original intention as I had to get an early bus in the morning, but it was definitely worth it. Onwards to Latvia!