Tallinn Tales: the arrival of Mr. Bruce !!!!!!

View from Toompea

Yes, Bruce arrived....after a long, long flight with some unexpected, but not dangerous surprises. Once in Tallinn it was a short and quick taxi ride home, and the past few days have been filled with exploring and (for Bruce) getting adjusted to local sleep and eating times. This has worked well with my schedule, since I am working on my classes and challenging myself to create powerpoints for each class. (I am slowly being dragged into the 21st century....first a local cell phone and then using powerpoint...what is next????? )

There have been several highlights....some fun and some a bit scary:

Ice Sculptures for Chinese New Year

First the fun. This weekend, as part of the year-long celebration of Tallinn as one of two Cultural Capitols of Europe, we celebrated Chinese New Year!!! Complete with ice sculptures in Vabandage Valjak, a Dragon Dance (the performers included one of my students) and performances by the Beijing Opera (called Peking Opera here...) Saturday evening, families crowded into the square and up to the performance stage (I was surrounded, sardine-like, by short, wide Russian speaking seniors on all sides of me.) The dance was brilliantly colorful and the acrobats were quite skilled. However, they seemed to have moments in their routines for applause (which in China would DEFINITELY happen), but in Tallinn, between clapping that was muffled by gloved hands and a general tendency to under respond, the crowd was appreciative but somewhat silent. (see photo below). At the end of the evening there was a grand display of fireworks...which we heard and saw reflected in nearby building windows from our warm cozy apartment.

Dragon Dances

The next day, I had been offered free tickets to a 'clown show' in Toompea..."Piip and Tuut". We entered an house in the Old Town to find the entry filled with coffee, apple cider, kringle and many small blond- haired, long-legged Estonia kids. We might have been the only adults in the audience not related to at least one little one. What fun !!!! The show was great..the two actors/clowns were quite skilled and enacted a story about a man in a kitchen who is preparing for a female guest. She arrives and they have many misunderstandings about food and dancing that involved much juggling of plates, chairs and glasses which had the kids in the audience howling.

Audience members

At the end the performers passed out pieces of sausage, lettuce, cucumber slices and cherry tomatoes (which the female clown had been wearing as a necklace throughout the skit.) It was fun and afterwards, we talked with the young woman clown. She told us that she and her partner lived in the performance space (we had been using their kitchen tables as benches to sit on) and hosted other types of performers as well as weekend birthday parties for the children. We were smiling the rest of the day and our mood was reflected by the bright sunlight as we continued to explore the upper old city.

View from Toompea

more views

The next adventure was less fun. Monday, Bruce and I went to the immigration office to apply for temporary residency visas, so we could stay here for 5 months (technically, we can only stay for 90 days without a permit). It was a somewhat nerve wracking process, although at this point it has hopefully ended (we hope). We entered, had our photos taken (they didn't accept the photos Bruce had brought from home). Waited our turn all the while hoping that we would not end up with one of the staff who had a reputation for being more grumpy and arbitrary. We sat down With separate officials, and submitted our forms. We were asked for lots of documents including proof that we were renting an apartment in Tallinn (I brought the contract from our landlord), proof that we were married (we had brought an apostilled document from home) proof of my graduate degree (similarly apostilled), proof that Bruce is actually employed and being paid by St. Olaf (so he would not be a burden on the Estonian state), proof that he is covered by US health insurance, contact information for family members, signatures and finger prints of our index fingers (both right and left hand). At the end of the process we were told to go pay..but surprise -surprise..we had to pay cash (and alot of it). I had assumed we could pay with our bank credit card (credit cards here are easy to use and extremely safe. Everyone uses them. In part because it is probably much better for everyone considering that one of the problems with Estonia's recent switch to the Euro is that there is alot of counterfeit money around. Most places have scanning machines to make sure the paper cash they get is the real thing.) OOPS !!!! The line behind me got longer and longer as the cashier looked sternly at me and asked how could I possibly have a bank account if I didn't have a residence card. (Funny, the bank seemed fine with me opening an account based on my passport....) Luckily, between both Bruce and my 'cash on hand' and borrowing from the other Fulbright family who were applying for visa at the same time, we paid and left the building. Hopefully we will receive our visas in the next 10 days to 2 months. Whew.

more views...same location...

So, thats all for now, we are settling in, Bruce will hopefully write some of his impressions once he finishes grading papers from his students. Meanwhile, more photos......(notice the stretch hummer next to the wedding party building- they do weddings in 'style' here.)