I cracked...kinda

It's been sooooo long time ever since I wrote here that it's actually funny. Except that I'm not really laughing. It's not that funny. Meanwhile, I feel like a Duracell-bunny most of the time and I think something great is going to happen soon. Which is kind of weird because normally, nothing great happens at this time of year. It's always dark and rainy and I find myself covered in mud every effing time I get home from school. One of the perks of having school in a walking distance...not. Since nothing happens at the time (except all those fights with my school authorities concerning my final exams. Result: Bloody and torn carcass of my soul and not so happy homeroom teacher), I'll reminisce those oh-so-lovely days in Croatia back in October. The trip itself didn't begin in the most promising way, I must say. We took two flights, one to Stockholm, another to Venice. In Venice I recieved my cello case (relief!), unbroken (bigger relief!) and as I later learned, the cello was scatheless, too (the biggest relief!), just slightly out of tune. I went back with my Igor (my cello) to find the other members of my support team. It turned out that the biggest suitcase with all the clothes and food in it was gone. Great. As we got that busines sorted out (suitcase was lost for god knows how long time), we went off to get our rent car. Everthing went great except the fact that rent turned out to be invalid and we couldn't cross the border, so we had to sit on the (pardon my foul use of language) shitties floors I've ever seen in my whole life - and that's saying something if you have seen the floor of my room! - for 6 hours trying to get internet access at the airport. We weren't very successful but finally we managed to get another car, which was minute! It's kind of funny mystery how we all got packed into that miniature car with 2 suitcases, Igor and our family. We didn't see Venice that day but I decided not to complain, seeing as so many other things could have gone wrong. We reached Croatia in the midnight and I loved it immediately! Our hotel was a bit cold and humid but I was happy with it. Igor didn't love the humidity of our bedroom so I moved it to the kitchen later, but the others weren't so picky. I'll continue the story in the next post so that this one won't become so long and tedious to read ;)

Mr Weeble has done it again

Remember those random videos about badgers, snakes and owls? Well, I found a video... and I would call this the king of randomness. Enjoy!

Little note to those who are interested!

This is Estonian movie about school bullying, very realistic, though quite depressing, masterpiece. Made by Ilmar Raag and 12 young amateur actors in 12 days! I don't think the trailer tells so much about it, but it has English subs :)

Good light in the end of the tunnel...

...which probably means the pile of things I've finally understood. Ain't that great?

It's been such a loooong time since the last time I wrote here. At some point I just couldn't find any time or energy to write, but now as the summer is about to be over, I felt like letting you know I'm still alive :)
I guess it has been the best summer in my life, I met so many great people, I made a tour around Estonia in 2 weeks with some awesome musicians and I also noticed how much better person I am after not seeing my family for some time. We get along so well now!

Now I decided to work on my "music carrier" more and the final solution is: competition in Latvia with 3 rounds! It means A LOT of work, but I want to do it. I can use many old pieces, but I also have to learn some new ones - for example, one modern Latvian piece with part for improvisation. I think that's the most horrible thing about it.

Anyway, I guess I'll write again soon!
Bye!

Xi'an, part 1

Since the short trip to Xi'an included so much, I'm going to have this thing in two parts. The day before we left we visited Finnish embassy and one other company. Then we ate in McDonald's (seriously, only a complete moron would think that when I've gone to China and been there for 3 days, I'm tired of Chinese food and want something I usually eat. A) I don't usually eat any junk food and B) why would I even go to China if I don't want to eat real Chinese food? Really, we had some morons in our group: adults.)
Well, anyway, I didn't complain about McDonald's and besides it was quite of adventure, as it soon turned up: one of our group members managed to throw his passport and visa into the rubbish bin of McDonald's. He didn't notice it until we got into the next stop, the Art Zone 798.
I loved the art zone so much! It's an old gun factory area which still looks pretty poor, but nowdays there are tiny shops selling handcrafts and young artists are creating different forms of art! I bought some playing cards, two notebooks with adorable pictures and cute Chinese stuffed pig for my little cousin :)
Then we went to eat in a real Chinese restaurant (thank god!) and this time we even got to taste the famous Beijing Roast Duck! Oh my &/%%#¢‰, it was so good! No wonder it's so famous...
Now we headed to the train station, and we were supposed to spend the whole night in there! I'll continue in the next posting...

Chinaland, part 3

Now, I'll continue with my experiences in China. In spotlight there is day number 3:
This day was spent in our friedship school in Beijing. I was super excited about going to school that would be really different from ours. Local students go to school for 7.30am, so I had to wake up at 6am. It wasn't even as hard as I expected it to be because it was sunny all the time and I felt I was full of energy.
At first our group (that I saw first time ever since we arrived to Beijing) met in a conference room and we got candies, drinks, fruits, strawberries etc. as we waited for our teachers to come. We had a short meeting there and after that we saw their weekly flag-raising ceremony and welcome ceremony, which was something I never had seen before; 2000 students standing in perfect lines. It was impressing. We went to see the english lessons in the school. Actually, I was quite surprised how similar they were to ours, although, I think the subjects were little different.
After 2 classes, we had a lunch break (it's about 2 hours in that school, wow! :D). Instead of spending the time to eating, we went to the school yard. Not so long after that, local student gathered around us and asked our emails, names and all kind of other questions. I was so surprised, because that's not something you would see in Finnish schools when you come to visit them. Everyone was asking us to be their friends!
The rest of the day we just spent the day at school until we went home. My host family and I went to shop to get me snacks for the next day's sight seeing and trainride to the city of Xi'an. (It's far enough to spend the whole night in train, but that's another story!) ;)
Pictures: Flag-raising and welcoming ceremony, classes and my new friends <3

Chinaland, part 2

My second day in Beijing was great, like all of them, to be honest. It was Sunday, so we had whole day to do the sightseeing. We visited Beijing zoo, which was so big that it took the whole first part of the day. Really, Finnish zoo is nothing compared to it. I saw so many animals I've never seen before, and the absolute highlight was the giant panda. There was 4 of them, one adult of the zoo, one baby panda of zoo, one olympic house panda and one asian games panda. I like the baby panda and the olympic one, which was eating bamboo very eagerly :) It was so cute! In evening, we went to a very fine restaurant and ate there super delicious Chinese food. I think everyone at the table was having fun watching me tasting all kind of new things :D I had fun, too.