Back from Europe

This Thursday night, I returned from my Europe holiday. I spent 4 days in Berlin, and continued on to Tallinn (Estonia), finishing with a day in Helsinki (Finland). It was good time, a sort of reminder of things from not-so-distant past that I have lost touch with, like being able to understand German and Finnish, being able to see old school friends on an almost daily basis, and the feeling of one's feet getting cold in boots during a five minute wait for a morning bus (I am grateful that the really cold weather had the courtesy to wait until I am already on the other side of the Globe).

I got my hefty dose of Second World War/Cold War history in Berlin (thanks to the efforts of the authorities to preserve that as a lesson for the generations to come), had a blast in Tallinn with friends and family, visited Haanja in Southern Estonia that features great snow and ice (ice skating on a lake! Fantastic!) and the highest peak in the Baltic States, Suur-Munamägi (318 meters from the sea level, with only 62 meters of relative height, so summiting it won't really go on my mountaineering resume). It was also the first time that my sauna experience included dipping myself into the water of the lake the sauna was on through a hole cut into the ice for that purpose. (Estonian tradition has it as the fastest way to health, not pneumonia. If nothing else, I lived to tell the tale.) Thank you, Vaibhav, for so appropriately taking me to learn ice skating a bare week before I was unexpectedly ice skating in Haanja, and thank you, Kristiina, for inviting me and Mom along to wonderful Kurgjärve at Haanja! And lastly, on my last day in Europe, January 2nd, I had fun with Mom in Helsinki, where we galloped around the city despite my unreasonably weighty day pack and adamant biting cold winds from the sea (why did it not occur to me while planning the day trip that January is perhaps not the most ideal time to simply promenade around Helsinki for 8-9 hours in a row? We were saved by frequent stops in warm coffee shops).

I had originally planned on blogging frequently about my trip, but nothing came of it since I did not have internet connection for most of the time. (This - going through my inbox only every few days - also led me to the discovery that in general, I really don't get any urgent email that would justify my obsession with checking my mailbox.)

More observations from the trip: life in Estonia (Tallinn) has become very expensive, especially as the dollar I earn keeps sinking and sinking in its value. (I love coffee, but four dollars for a tiny cup makes me weep.) My life in Seattle on my graduate student stipend now seems rather lavish.