This is a (very belated) translation of my article from the 7th of April, sorry for the delay in translating and publishing!
Last Monday I once again reached an emotional melting point. The visit from Italy, consisting of Jil and Mathilde, was already back under the Ligurian sun. And I, after five days of inspiring deep conversations, relaxing sauna sessions and lots and lots of goofing around, was back in my room in Pinja and had to watch the snow pile up outside my window as it just FUCKING SNOWED for 24 HOURS. There is pretty much nothing left of my initial enchantment regarding the Finnish Winter Wonderland. Fucking snow, fucking ice, fucking cold! Enough, me and the rest of the ERASMUS people want spring, sun, warmth, and no more thinking about whether or not we're going to break our necks on the slippery way to university. On top of that, thanks to my master's thesis, I'm currently very busy with climate change, and that's not exactly a cheerful daisy-summer-sun-feel-good topic. So yes, at the beginning of last week I was feeling emotionally bad, classic nihilism, because humanity is at the end anyway and so on. So how do you get out of a hole like that? Hard to say. A cap full of sleep was quite helpful, sports (blessed be Annika, because she regularly drags me to pump workouts) even more helpful, and my solo trip to Tallinn last weekend pulled the last shred of Vronal out of the gloomy mindset. How did it happen?
Well, the Estonian capital is just a sweet treat. The last European city with a historic center I visited was Landshut sometime last summer. And Landshut, well, I know it inside out. Accordingly, it was a real treat to stroll through Tallinn's winding medieval alleys, look at green grass (!), put my face in the sun, gifting myself to a visit to the restaurant, read in the café, work a bit and generally switch to chillax mode. By the way, the geographical proximity to Russia and the Soviet past were clearly noticeable in Tallinn. Russian translations were added to many menus, signs, etc. Politically, however, support for Ukraine was fortunately abundantly visible throughout the city. There was a Ukrainian flag hanging almost everywhere, and around the corner of my hostel were signs condemning the Russian invasion. However, I also saw the one or other house with the Russian flag on the balcony....
Traveling back in time in KaruTalu, a very enchanting chocolate shop and café in Tallinn's historic center!
Traveling alone for a few days is just pure balm for me. And Tallinn was the perfect destination: beautiful to look at, not too big, not too small, historic old town, but also a hipster district in a former industrial area, many cute cafes, extremely good chocolate (an Estonian specialty) and generally very lovable and open-minded people. Definitely recommendable! And no, alone does not mean lonely. So I finally had a lot of time to talk to Germany (or in Steffi's case Australia) on the phone again. And I also made a cool new friendship with a girl from my hostel! That's what I find so nice about traveling alone: You click with people you probably wouldn't even get to talk to if you were traveling with friends or a partner.
Inside the orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral
So I had a wonderful time last weekend - and since my return, spring is finally announcing itself in Tampere. It's about time! The days here are already very, very long, meanwhile it gets dark only after 8 pm, and the sun is also slowly getting stronger. However, the snow is still stubbornly holding on, as it is still below 0 C° at night. But we are all a bit more confident now. At the same time, the semester is coming to an end. The time has gone by frantically! I still have two more deliveries in the middle of May, but I'll probably be done with them sooner. And as nice as it is in Finland with all the nature, sauna lifestyle, etc...: I'm looking forward to more southern latitudes again. That's why after the last Uni To-Dos it's time for me to go south, by train. For the first time I'll be traveling with the Interrail ticket and I'm really looking forward to it. I haven't thought about an exact return route yet, but that will come up. The anticipation is great. At the same time, it will be really difficult to say goodbye to everyone. And I can't even imagine not running into my favorite roommates (aka waste of make-up people, "wasties" in short) every day anymore (even though I definitely won't miss the kitchen situation ;) ).
Over Easter I'm getting a visit again, this time from Kristina. We will go for two days to Pori to the sea and otherwise pull through the usual Tampere-Touri program. Looking forward to it! Right now I'm a bit of a degenerate mammal. Because as it happens in ERASMUS, I was partying yesterday and came home drunk at 6 o'clock. But at least we made some interesting (ahem) Finnish acquaintances yesterday. Actually, I wanted to take it easy yesterday, but well... So in keeping with Good Friday, I'm working on my resurrection right now. It would be so great to be able to eat a pretzel with Mom's homemade potato salad and sober down with my brother and my beloved cat Pauli <3 on the couch watching trash TV... Well, you just can't have everything.
So, bis spätersilie,
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