Tallinn Highlights

This weekend, the study abroad group took a trip to Tallinn and Riga. After an overnight bus trip from Thursday to Friday morning, we woke up to a great breakfast in Tallinn, went on a walking tour of the medieval city center and then basically wandered around for the next day and a half. This included drinking chai at a coffee shop older than the U.S. of A., seeing some sweet overlooks, eating pancakes as big as our FACE and spending too much at the cutest little shop. Enjoy -some- of the highlights:

"Hey guys! I want a picture of y'all!" And instead of getting together, you know, smiling and everything they just start 'arguing'...typical.

Jonathan's sly little look...classic.

The red roofs always get me on these views. If you take a gander to the left you'll notice a little strip of sea. Across it lies Finland, which a few of us took the ferry to visit for an hour or so. I stayed in Tallinn, waiting until Mom gets here to explore Helsinki.

After that overlook, I turned around, took a left and saw this big white wall. Not sure why I liked it so much, but it jumped out.

I wandered alone for a while and loved it. There was an artist who sat and painted on this road, you can barely see him. His art was beautiful.

The streets. These streets were so fun to walk up and down and all around. The shops and apartments were such pretty colors even through the cloudy day. 

Riga tomorrow.

Just Dysfunctional

Seth Godin has been writing some phenomenal posts lately. The latest hit especially close, mostly because I have been worrying about disappointing myself (mostly) and others (to an extent). So when the title "meandering toward nowhere special" - (which is what it seems like I'm doing with this after-graduation job/general life-purpose search) popped up in my email, my clicker was on the permalink like white on rice.

He names five behaviors which, when gathered together, lead to disappointment. The five behaviors being, drumroll please, big dreams (check), poor work habits (ish), shortcut seeking (definitely), lottery thinking (define that? oh. yeah.), and lack of self-awareness (oops).

Wow, so I'm five for five on the dysfunctional list. So, then, what can I do about it?

Then how can I switch these habits to instead focus on the meaningful and impactful. Focus on the difference I make for one instead of one hundred?

How will I pursue inspiration and how can I change the daily processes to expose something new, where do I need lessons to better myself and my skills?

Where is the long route? Let's find it, let's journey on it, and let's learn a thing or two while we're fumbling and grumbling with that map.

Let's bring it back to reality: it can always be better. Negative reviews? The critics are sometimes, if not more times, right than you are brilliant. Listen and get back to work.

So that's my thought of the day.

(To round it out, I thought one more set of () and a nature pic would be good.)

Pienas, not Kefyras

Melissa and I went to the little Iki by Kepeklele today. When I began this post, the intention was to talk about how in Lithuania, they take their hot dogs and dairy seriously. Except, when I looked at this picture, a rookie mistake was realized.

Kefyras is not milk. Pienas (no jokes, people) is milk. We had been cautioned of this the beginning of the semester, because kefyras is definitely buttermilk, not milk. Big difference. I guess I'm making buttermilk pancakes and/or french toast tonight to cover my mistake.

The hot dogs are a big thing here too - I only just jumped on the bandwagon. Mix them with pasta, put them in a tortilla with cheese, eat on the side of potatoes or just plain with Ukrainian ketchup and you have a meal.

Also, toilet paper.

Morning & Night

Last night: celebrated Melissa's birthday with Chinese from up the street, cakes from Maxima, and blurry bad pictures that capture everything I love about our room.

This morning: sat in an empty - and clean, thanks to inspection - room, reading The Fault in Our Stars, drinking Starbucks (thanks, Katie), eating a Kepeklele lemon pastry and enjoying the quiet. 

A Few Good Walks

We've been having some great weather over here on the Baltic. PTL. Good enough for daily walks to the sea, shamelessly buying ice cream cones, and overall happy moods despite the "what the heck am I going to do with my life" crisis happening in my corner. 

I took that picture (^) at an intersection and got weird looks galore (because: - coat // + ice cream). Except at this point, weird looks are the norm.

Looking up, this is all I see. No clouds in sight.

Lots of people come down to the beach after school/work hours. It's a gathering place and I like it.

Sandy boardwalks.

  

On the way back, a big tractor came up behind me to clean the sidewalk. He gave me a sheepish smile, because he knew he was kicking me off the concrete for a while. I didn't mind, because I got to walk through the woods. #happyplace

Finally, his slow crawling tractor (would have been faster if it was a JD, because nothing runs like a Deere) passed by and I walked up the stairs over the bridge...

...to see a train going by. You can see the caboose wayyyy down there. If you would follow the left fork, you would find your way to downtown Klaipeda.

Finally a sunset - almost gave a Midwest sunset a run for it's money. 

Thankful for walks like these.

Lia on Abortion

She says it well.

Thank you, Lia.

From the Photo Stream

I am one of the worst bloggers - if I even qualify as one. So much to tell, and so little follow through. Like Russia? Where did that even go. Today I put "BLOG" on my list, all caps, so gosh dang it I'm going to do it. Here we go.

Even though this was way back in February, it needs to be shared. Friends threw me a "100 Days to Graduation" party all the way over here in Lithuania, just like they do for us at Taylor. After some detective work, they made my favorite foods and wrote the sweetest, most encouraging notes. This is literally the only picture I have of that day. Guys, you're great.

Danica and donuts at a fair in Old Town, Klaipeda. We looked at lots of woodcarvings, knitted socks, dried fish, and jewelry. 

You already know where this is - St. Basil's in Moscow, Russia. Surreal experience standing in so much history. Our timing was incredible - the day after we left for St. Petersburg, Red Square filled with protests about the Ukraine/Crimea/Russia situation.

Probably my favorite picture of the whole Russia trip. In St. Petersburg, Russia standing inside of St. Isaac's Cathedral.

Today, we went to Nida where we explored sandy beaches, big big dunes, and red pine tree trails, making me ache for my Northwoods. Also, so thankful for Lori. What a gem.