I just wanted to share the good news that the article I wrote last December (I posted it back on Dec. 6) was published in the most recent Fulbright Newsletter. It's a little outdated in terms of what I'm up to now, but still fun to see my writing in print. You can access the article here:
27 March 2006
4 months later...
WHA....2 posts in 1 day?? I know, crazy, right!?
I just wanted to share the good news that the article I wrote last December (I posted it back on Dec. 6) was published in the most recent Fulbright Newsletter. It's a little outdated in terms of what I'm up to now, but still fun to see my writing in print. You can access the article here:
I just wanted to share the good news that the article I wrote last December (I posted it back on Dec. 6) was published in the most recent Fulbright Newsletter. It's a little outdated in terms of what I'm up to now, but still fun to see my writing in print. You can access the article here:
by John W. Heywood
The date is supposed to read December 5, 2005, but for some reason the year reads as 2000. It'd be pretty impressive if I'd written this as a senior in high school! :)
Norway!
Well folks, better late than never, eh? Let me start you off, quickly, with the photos from my tripVisiting Jon in Oslo
Jon and I had a great time, and were even graced with the presence of an old friend from Oakland/Berkeley, Sophie Linnett. Even though Oslo was cold and snowy, it still brightened all of our moods to be around familiar faces after living in very different worlds for 5-6 months. Jon's been in Oslo since last August, Sophie in Edinburgh, Scotland.
I'll try to keep this brief, since the photos (and the captions I put on them) do a lot of the explaining for me, but this commentary will help fill in the cracks. I only had 24 hours in Tallinn after returning from a whirlwind trip to Berlin and back. And I'll admit it, I didn't do a great job recapping that trip. Hopefully Trudee's post on her blog, and my photos did an OK job of conveying our fun to all you out there in Internet-land.
After barely recovering from Berlin, I took the 2.5 hour plane flight to Oslo, and was immediately faced with the task of navigating my way to Jon's house, as he was in class at the time I was scheduled to arrive. Luckily, he'd put together a packet of information/maps for me, so it was as easy as it could be. I got through customs, the duty free shop :), found an ATM, asked for some help (thank goodness everyone in Oslo speaks English!), and got pointed toward the right train. I had to get to the National Theater stop on the train, and since all the names of the stops were in Norwegian, I was afraid I'd miss it. Luckily, some locals on the train were friendly enough to answer my question and let me know where I was to be headed.
It's not easy, though, navigating your way through the public transport systems in a foreign city while hauling around a big piece of luggage. But after taking the airport train to the National Theater stop, I found ticket office, bought my 7-day, All-Oslo pass, and switched over the light rail train. I tracked down the #5 train and 3 stops later I was at Forskningsparken, Jon's stop. Now, here's where things get tricky.
Jon had "created" a map for me-- that is, he took a map off-line and edited it in Microsoft Paint, adding a path to his apartment as to show me the walking route to where I was supposed to go. For fun, I'm including the map here, but to Jon's credit (and artistic ability...), I did make it to his dorm.
Now, this is all well and good, except that by now it's 8pm, dark out, and I'm wading through a foot on snow on the ground with a decently sized piece of luggage-- one that has wheels and is supposed to roll. It ain't happening, people. But after only one wrong turn that I quickly realized I'd made, I did manage to find my way to Jon's and I gave him a call and we met up. Success!
Sophie didn't arrive from Edinburgh until the following evening, so Jon and I took it easy that night, cooked up some great tacos (I hadn't had Mexican food for ages!) and met up with Jon's friend Robert- also a Fulbrighter- for a beer. We had a relatively early night, but still enjoyed sleeping in and then cooking ourselves some (amazing) breakfast.
After this, we took a hike around Oslo's Olympic training center, which happened to next to Jon's old residence. We had a great time catching up and just joking around, which is always our M.O. when we get together. Laughing with a good buddy is something I definitely have missed here in Estonia-- even though I've made some great friends here, nothing compares to old friends. I know Jon shares this sentiment, as does anyone who has spent as much time away from family and friends as we have. Even though we didn't see anything major (by sightseeing standards) the first full day in Oslo, it was nice to see Norwegian nature and to catch up with one of my best friends.
It was great to see Sophie when she arrived. Even though she and I had been at Head-Royce at the same time, I admittedly didn't know Sophie that well-- only through Jon, with whom she had gone to high school at CPS. But we all clicked, and found ourselves laughing more often than not.
To be honest, my trip has kind of blended together in terms of what we did and when we did it, but it doesn't mean anything about how much fun we had and all we did. One highlight was seeing the tremendous sculptures of Gustav Vigeland, one Norway's most famous artists. The park is officially called Frognersparken, but is more often referred to as Vigelandsparken-- Vigeland's Park. Lots of amazing work; I definitely recommend you check out my photos from there. The most famous statue is Sinnataggen-- or "Angry Little Boy" as it is known in English-- but the marble statues were also just great. You can take photos with them and even climb on them if you want-- it's just so fun to see people interacting with art like this. You definitely can't see anything like this place in America, and I haven't seen anything like it in Estonia either. Very fun to visit; highly recommended.
After Vigelandsparken, the three of us walked around Oslo a bit more, and I took some photos of the local architecture, which I absolutely loved. We made our way to Oslo's central square, on which Stortinget-- the Norwegian Parliament building-- is situated, along with the Grand Hotel (where Nobel Laureates stay for the ceremonies, held in Oslo) and Grand Cafe, where we met Jon's Fulbright friend Jen for coffee. All very picturesque!
That evening was a Mardi Gras Fulbright party, where Jon introduced us to a few more Fulbrighters, and we all went with masks on. In Norway, there is a kind of unspoken law called "The Law of Jante"-- or Janteloven in Norwegian. It says that no one is supposed to be better than anyone else, in terms of attitude and dress. It's definitely more of an "olden-days" thing, but it still exists. Needless to say, as we dressed up in the craziest clothes we had (I was in a pink shirt with collar up, purple tie and pink sweater with blue pants!) and adorned masks, people gave us weird looks.
To make all this even funnier, and to mess with the heads of the Norwegian people that we would later meet-- combined with the fact that I had been clamoring for Jon to teach me a phrase or two in Norwegian, I learned the phrase "Har du aldri hørt om Janteloven?!" What this means is "Haven't you EVER heard of the Law of Jante?!" When a few girls gave me a weird look in my ridiculous outfit, I kind of shockingly asked them this question, and their jaws just dropped. They asked me the same question, "Haven't YOU heard of the law of Jante??!!?!?" At this point, I had to concede that I didn't speak Norwegian, and that it was all just a joke. Everyone who confronted us and was faced with this scenario just laughed and realized we weren't the jerks they thought we were, and we became the life of the parties we went to. Great times with friends.
Later in the trip we checked out Oslo's City Hall, which is replete with gifts from dignitaries from different countries-- tokens of good will from visitors to Norway, if you will. The art in the City Hall was tremendous too...there were gigantic murals on every wall telling Norway's history, and only with Jon as our guide did we understand any of it. But hey, that's what friends are for.
After City Hall, we explored Akershus Festning-- a very cool Norwegian castle, and had great views overlooking Oslo's harbor. Very cold and occasionally windy, but the sun we had was nice. Lots of history here, and it was cool to see old cannons and towers, and they even had guards on duty, in full uniform. Unfortunately I couldn't get a picture up closer of these guards, but you can imagine. Kind of Buckingham-Palace-esque, but Norwegian.
After this, we headed back to Jon's place and relaxed for a while, and were lucky enough to be invited to dinner at the house of Jon's Aunt and Uncle. It was so nice to be in a home and be with a family, even if it wasn't our own family, and the food was great!! Caviar, a lovely roast, great desert, and a lot of good wine. We stuffed ourselves to the brim and all had a lovely time.
Sophie had to leave the next morning, which was too bad, but it was great to see her. After saying goodbye, Jon and I took the train up to Frognerseteren, a popular cross-country skiing and sledding desination. We had an amazing view over the whole of Oslo, and did some more off-road trekking, climed trees, and just laughed a whole lot. After narrowly missing hypothermia (ok, I might be exaggerating a little), we took the train back down the mountain, stopping at Holmenkollen, Oslo's massive ski jump. We hiked up the jump, but decided not to launch ourselves off of it. Again, check the photos-- it's a lot scarier to be up there than to watch it on TV, that's for sure!!
Unfortunately, this was the last full day in Oslo, but Jon, Sophie and I had a great time. After Holmenkollen, Jon and I grabbed a beer with his Norwegian-American friend Anders, but kept it a relatively early evening, as I had to be up at 5:30am next morning to catch my 8:15am flight. I said goodbye to half-asleep Jon and caught the same series of trains I had taken to Jon's in the first place, but this time in reverse. At 8:16am, I off the ground on the plane back to Tallinn, sound asleep.
A great trip.
Jon and I had a great time, and were even graced with the presence of an old friend from Oakland/Berkeley, Sophie Linnett. Even though Oslo was cold and snowy, it still brightened all of our moods to be around familiar faces after living in very different worlds for 5-6 months. Jon's been in Oslo since last August, Sophie in Edinburgh, Scotland.
I'll try to keep this brief, since the photos (and the captions I put on them) do a lot of the explaining for me, but this commentary will help fill in the cracks. I only had 24 hours in Tallinn after returning from a whirlwind trip to Berlin and back. And I'll admit it, I didn't do a great job recapping that trip. Hopefully Trudee's post on her blog, and my photos did an OK job of conveying our fun to all you out there in Internet-land.
After barely recovering from Berlin, I took the 2.5 hour plane flight to Oslo, and was immediately faced with the task of navigating my way to Jon's house, as he was in class at the time I was scheduled to arrive. Luckily, he'd put together a packet of information/maps for me, so it was as easy as it could be. I got through customs, the duty free shop :), found an ATM, asked for some help (thank goodness everyone in Oslo speaks English!), and got pointed toward the right train. I had to get to the National Theater stop on the train, and since all the names of the stops were in Norwegian, I was afraid I'd miss it. Luckily, some locals on the train were friendly enough to answer my question and let me know where I was to be headed.
It's not easy, though, navigating your way through the public transport systems in a foreign city while hauling around a big piece of luggage. But after taking the airport train to the National Theater stop, I found ticket office, bought my 7-day, All-Oslo pass, and switched over the light rail train. I tracked down the #5 train and 3 stops later I was at Forskningsparken, Jon's stop. Now, here's where things get tricky.
Jon had "created" a map for me-- that is, he took a map off-line and edited it in Microsoft Paint, adding a path to his apartment as to show me the walking route to where I was supposed to go. For fun, I'm including the map here, but to Jon's credit (and artistic ability...), I did make it to his dorm.
Now, this is all well and good, except that by now it's 8pm, dark out, and I'm wading through a foot on snow on the ground with a decently sized piece of luggage-- one that has wheels and is supposed to roll. It ain't happening, people. But after only one wrong turn that I quickly realized I'd made, I did manage to find my way to Jon's and I gave him a call and we met up. Success!Sophie didn't arrive from Edinburgh until the following evening, so Jon and I took it easy that night, cooked up some great tacos (I hadn't had Mexican food for ages!) and met up with Jon's friend Robert- also a Fulbrighter- for a beer. We had a relatively early night, but still enjoyed sleeping in and then cooking ourselves some (amazing) breakfast.
After this, we took a hike around Oslo's Olympic training center, which happened to next to Jon's old residence. We had a great time catching up and just joking around, which is always our M.O. when we get together. Laughing with a good buddy is something I definitely have missed here in Estonia-- even though I've made some great friends here, nothing compares to old friends. I know Jon shares this sentiment, as does anyone who has spent as much time away from family and friends as we have. Even though we didn't see anything major (by sightseeing standards) the first full day in Oslo, it was nice to see Norwegian nature and to catch up with one of my best friends.
It was great to see Sophie when she arrived. Even though she and I had been at Head-Royce at the same time, I admittedly didn't know Sophie that well-- only through Jon, with whom she had gone to high school at CPS. But we all clicked, and found ourselves laughing more often than not.
To be honest, my trip has kind of blended together in terms of what we did and when we did it, but it doesn't mean anything about how much fun we had and all we did. One highlight was seeing the tremendous sculptures of Gustav Vigeland, one Norway's most famous artists. The park is officially called Frognersparken, but is more often referred to as Vigelandsparken-- Vigeland's Park. Lots of amazing work; I definitely recommend you check out my photos from there. The most famous statue is Sinnataggen-- or "Angry Little Boy" as it is known in English-- but the marble statues were also just great. You can take photos with them and even climb on them if you want-- it's just so fun to see people interacting with art like this. You definitely can't see anything like this place in America, and I haven't seen anything like it in Estonia either. Very fun to visit; highly recommended.
After Vigelandsparken, the three of us walked around Oslo a bit more, and I took some photos of the local architecture, which I absolutely loved. We made our way to Oslo's central square, on which Stortinget-- the Norwegian Parliament building-- is situated, along with the Grand Hotel (where Nobel Laureates stay for the ceremonies, held in Oslo) and Grand Cafe, where we met Jon's Fulbright friend Jen for coffee. All very picturesque!
That evening was a Mardi Gras Fulbright party, where Jon introduced us to a few more Fulbrighters, and we all went with masks on. In Norway, there is a kind of unspoken law called "The Law of Jante"-- or Janteloven in Norwegian. It says that no one is supposed to be better than anyone else, in terms of attitude and dress. It's definitely more of an "olden-days" thing, but it still exists. Needless to say, as we dressed up in the craziest clothes we had (I was in a pink shirt with collar up, purple tie and pink sweater with blue pants!) and adorned masks, people gave us weird looks.
To make all this even funnier, and to mess with the heads of the Norwegian people that we would later meet-- combined with the fact that I had been clamoring for Jon to teach me a phrase or two in Norwegian, I learned the phrase "Har du aldri hørt om Janteloven?!" What this means is "Haven't you EVER heard of the Law of Jante?!" When a few girls gave me a weird look in my ridiculous outfit, I kind of shockingly asked them this question, and their jaws just dropped. They asked me the same question, "Haven't YOU heard of the law of Jante??!!?!?" At this point, I had to concede that I didn't speak Norwegian, and that it was all just a joke. Everyone who confronted us and was faced with this scenario just laughed and realized we weren't the jerks they thought we were, and we became the life of the parties we went to. Great times with friends.
Later in the trip we checked out Oslo's City Hall, which is replete with gifts from dignitaries from different countries-- tokens of good will from visitors to Norway, if you will. The art in the City Hall was tremendous too...there were gigantic murals on every wall telling Norway's history, and only with Jon as our guide did we understand any of it. But hey, that's what friends are for.
After City Hall, we explored Akershus Festning-- a very cool Norwegian castle, and had great views overlooking Oslo's harbor. Very cold and occasionally windy, but the sun we had was nice. Lots of history here, and it was cool to see old cannons and towers, and they even had guards on duty, in full uniform. Unfortunately I couldn't get a picture up closer of these guards, but you can imagine. Kind of Buckingham-Palace-esque, but Norwegian.
After this, we headed back to Jon's place and relaxed for a while, and were lucky enough to be invited to dinner at the house of Jon's Aunt and Uncle. It was so nice to be in a home and be with a family, even if it wasn't our own family, and the food was great!! Caviar, a lovely roast, great desert, and a lot of good wine. We stuffed ourselves to the brim and all had a lovely time.
Sophie had to leave the next morning, which was too bad, but it was great to see her. After saying goodbye, Jon and I took the train up to Frognerseteren, a popular cross-country skiing and sledding desination. We had an amazing view over the whole of Oslo, and did some more off-road trekking, climed trees, and just laughed a whole lot. After narrowly missing hypothermia (ok, I might be exaggerating a little), we took the train back down the mountain, stopping at Holmenkollen, Oslo's massive ski jump. We hiked up the jump, but decided not to launch ourselves off of it. Again, check the photos-- it's a lot scarier to be up there than to watch it on TV, that's for sure!!
Unfortunately, this was the last full day in Oslo, but Jon, Sophie and I had a great time. After Holmenkollen, Jon and I grabbed a beer with his Norwegian-American friend Anders, but kept it a relatively early evening, as I had to be up at 5:30am next morning to catch my 8:15am flight. I said goodbye to half-asleep Jon and caught the same series of trains I had taken to Jon's in the first place, but this time in reverse. At 8:16am, I off the ground on the plane back to Tallinn, sound asleep.
A great trip.
26 March 2006
Spring Forward!
Let me just tell you how much I love daylight savings time.
THISSSSS MUCH!!
Seriously though, we're getting a preview of how great the summer's going to be here. The sun didn't set tonight until 8:00pm now that we have this extra hour, thanks to Daylight Savings. It's always annoying to lose an hour of sleep on this day, but it's totally worth it, in my book.
I can already feel myself regaining a lot of the energy and happiness that was missing during the cold, dark days of winter. Maybe this sounds foolish to you guys reading this less extreme locations, but I have this feeling like "I made it." The hardest parts of this experience are over (I hope!), and I'm still alive and kicking. Alright!!
Stay tuned for (hopefully) more frequent updates.
-J
THISSSSS MUCH!!
Seriously though, we're getting a preview of how great the summer's going to be here. The sun didn't set tonight until 8:00pm now that we have this extra hour, thanks to Daylight Savings. It's always annoying to lose an hour of sleep on this day, but it's totally worth it, in my book.
I can already feel myself regaining a lot of the energy and happiness that was missing during the cold, dark days of winter. Maybe this sounds foolish to you guys reading this less extreme locations, but I have this feeling like "I made it." The hardest parts of this experience are over (I hope!), and I'm still alive and kicking. Alright!!
Stay tuned for (hopefully) more frequent updates.
-J
20 March 2006
Tere, Kevad!!
...which means "Welcome, Spring!" in Estonian.
Yes folks, March 20th is here, the first day of Spring. But don't get too excited, though, because it's not Spring in Estonia. In fact, all this week, overnight, I'm told that it's supposed to get back down to -20 Centrigrade (-4 Fahrenheit, for all of the Americans reading this)...not exactly time to break out my khaki shorts and Rainbow sandals (though I did wear my sandals out to the donut shop on my street this morning in honor of Spring, and everyone gave really weird looks! Oh well, it put me in a good mood).
The sun now sets at 6:30ish PM, which gives us just about as much daylight as darkness. They call it the Equinox for a reason, don't they? In any case, even though the weather is cold, the added daylight is helping make up for it.
As for the rest of my life, it's mostly been work that's been consuming me. The conference I've been organizing is coming together really well (check out the webpage I created about the event at WirelessEstonia.com-- it details the whole shebang). It will take place on Monday, April 24, so I still have just about a month til "launch." We've assembled a great lineup and we just need to attract the participants. My fear is that we'll have this great agenda and everything and then like 4 people will attend. That's obviously unrealistic, but it's just hard to have done 90% the leg-work and have only 10% certainty that what you're doing will be a success...but that's risk taking and that's business, I guess. I have confidence that it will be very good though, as we're getting our presenters to invite the fellow experts in the field and other people they know and spread the word about the conference. Anyways the next month should be a busy one, but an interesting one nonetheless.
That's all I got for now, but I will write more soon. I've been procrastinating it on top of being extremely busy, but I will write about my trip to Norway and put photos up in my next entry.
Miss you all,
John
Yes folks, March 20th is here, the first day of Spring. But don't get too excited, though, because it's not Spring in Estonia. In fact, all this week, overnight, I'm told that it's supposed to get back down to -20 Centrigrade (-4 Fahrenheit, for all of the Americans reading this)...not exactly time to break out my khaki shorts and Rainbow sandals (though I did wear my sandals out to the donut shop on my street this morning in honor of Spring, and everyone gave really weird looks! Oh well, it put me in a good mood).
The sun now sets at 6:30ish PM, which gives us just about as much daylight as darkness. They call it the Equinox for a reason, don't they? In any case, even though the weather is cold, the added daylight is helping make up for it.
As for the rest of my life, it's mostly been work that's been consuming me. The conference I've been organizing is coming together really well (check out the webpage I created about the event at WirelessEstonia.com-- it details the whole shebang). It will take place on Monday, April 24, so I still have just about a month til "launch." We've assembled a great lineup and we just need to attract the participants. My fear is that we'll have this great agenda and everything and then like 4 people will attend. That's obviously unrealistic, but it's just hard to have done 90% the leg-work and have only 10% certainty that what you're doing will be a success...but that's risk taking and that's business, I guess. I have confidence that it will be very good though, as we're getting our presenters to invite the fellow experts in the field and other people they know and spread the word about the conference. Anyways the next month should be a busy one, but an interesting one nonetheless.
That's all I got for now, but I will write more soon. I've been procrastinating it on top of being extremely busy, but I will write about my trip to Norway and put photos up in my next entry.
Miss you all,
John
10 March 2006
Globalization + Estonia
Estonia, which has been one of the last places in the "First World" to remain relatively untouched by globalization, is being further globalizated.
Drumroll, please...........
MTV....Eesti?? That's right, MTV is extending into the Baltic market, bringing MTV Eesti to Estonia, MTV Latvijas to Latvia and MTV Lietuva to Lithuania. I don't know why this is particularly interesting to me, except that the little TV I watch here is trashy MTV-- shows like Pimp My Ride and Making the Video on a Norwegian feed. I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but it makes sense in the fact that in this foreign land I'll take any infusion of Western culture that I can get, even if it is MTV.
What's significant about this and motivated me to post about this story is that Estonians-- particularly the young, malleable Estonian youth-- will be more influenced by the US and the Western world than ever before with MTV. I almost typed "for better or for worse" at the end the preceding sentence, but it's hard for me to imagine how watching an episode of Newlyweds or My Super Sweet 16 is going to make the life of any Estonian, Latvian or Lithuanian better. In fact, it will likely give them more of a distorted image of who Americans are and what they stand for.
In an age where perception matters far more than reality, this is slightly worrisome. At this juncture, we should all take a mental snapshot of the Baltic states, so that we may compare today's Baltic world with the increasingly-globalized Baltic of tomorrow.
Drumroll, please...........
MTV....Eesti?? That's right, MTV is extending into the Baltic market, bringing MTV Eesti to Estonia, MTV Latvijas to Latvia and MTV Lietuva to Lithuania. I don't know why this is particularly interesting to me, except that the little TV I watch here is trashy MTV-- shows like Pimp My Ride and Making the Video on a Norwegian feed. I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but it makes sense in the fact that in this foreign land I'll take any infusion of Western culture that I can get, even if it is MTV.
What's significant about this and motivated me to post about this story is that Estonians-- particularly the young, malleable Estonian youth-- will be more influenced by the US and the Western world than ever before with MTV. I almost typed "for better or for worse" at the end the preceding sentence, but it's hard for me to imagine how watching an episode of Newlyweds or My Super Sweet 16 is going to make the life of any Estonian, Latvian or Lithuanian better. In fact, it will likely give them more of a distorted image of who Americans are and what they stand for.
In an age where perception matters far more than reality, this is slightly worrisome. At this juncture, we should all take a mental snapshot of the Baltic states, so that we may compare today's Baltic world with the increasingly-globalized Baltic of tomorrow.
09 March 2006
berlin = rad
It's gotten too far removed from my Berlin trip to do a meaningful write-up, not to mention the fact that the lovely Trudee of TrudeeHill.blogspot.com already did a tremendous write-up of the trip herself.
berlin = rad by Trudee Hill, 21 February 2006
On top of what she has written, I took some photos, which are now online (!), and can be viewed HERE. Intermingled with the photos on KodakGallery are some of my comments, which reveal a bit more about my personal sentiments from the trip. We had a great time and I just want to thank Anna for hosting us, Laura for hooking us up with tickets/backstage/afterparty tickets the Bloodhound Gang, and of course Evil Jared Hasslehoff and the rest of the 'Gang (minus Jimmy Pop) for being such gracious hosts and welcoming us into the party. We just had a blast.
Hope you like Trudee's post, and if you have questions, post them in a comment and I'll respond!! -John
berlin = rad by Trudee Hill, 21 February 2006
On top of what she has written, I took some photos, which are now online (!), and can be viewed HERE. Intermingled with the photos on KodakGallery are some of my comments, which reveal a bit more about my personal sentiments from the trip. We had a great time and I just want to thank Anna for hosting us, Laura for hooking us up with tickets/backstage/afterparty tickets the Bloodhound Gang, and of course Evil Jared Hasslehoff and the rest of the 'Gang (minus Jimmy Pop) for being such gracious hosts and welcoming us into the party. We just had a blast.
Hope you like Trudee's post, and if you have questions, post them in a comment and I'll respond!! -John
06 March 2006
Cross-Country..........Skiing!
Yesterday I tried, for the first time, cross-country skiing.
Inspired by Estonia's triple-gold showing in Torino, a few friends of mine and I decided to give XC-skiing a go ourselves.
So, Sunday afternoon, my friends Antoine, Guillaume (both French), Frank (Danish) and Kadri-Ann (Estonian) met up in Nõmme for a few hours of the sport. Nõmme is a wooded suburb of Tallinn about 15 minutes outside of the city center that is extraordinarily beautiful in the snow, and is home to a few of Estonia's only few hills. As I've mentioned before in my blog, Estonia is one of the flattest places in the world--particularly among countries with colder climates--which likely explains their dominance in cross-country skiing.
Neither Frank nor I had cross-country skiied before, so we were glad to have each other. Kadri-Ann was by far the best skiier (being a native Estonian, no doubt), and as the day progressed, it was clear that Antoine and Guillaume both were a little further along the learning curve than I was. But everyone had a great time, and we all sort of were learning on the go.
Even though Frank and I had spent ample time on alpine skiis, when we donned the freestyle cross country skiis and attempted to move forward, we fell down immediately. Maybe this is old news to all of you reading this, but these skiis were nothing like alpine skiis-- not only in appearance, but in function. Not only is the ski blad extremely narrow which decreases stability, but but the boot is attached to the ski in a completely different way, in which your heel raises off the ground and isn't very well secured at all. This was going to take some getting used to.
Watching the form of Kadri-Ann, Antoine and Guillaume, as well as the numerous people that were flying past me, was very helpful. And as we skiied for a little while, starting and stopping every now and then, I began picking it up. You won't see me in the Olympics any time soon, but I began to learn how to "skate" on the skiis and keep up my momentum, which was really hard to do at first. I hope I can go again soon, it was fun, but tiring!!
All in all, we ended up going about 20 kilometers(!) in just a little over 2 hours, which is proof that Frank and I weren't horrible at the sport, but were no means professionals. We did make significant improvement though, which is always fun.
I think that we will try to go again soon, even though I'm soooo tired and sore today. Here Antoine, Guillaume and I are at about the 15km mark, with the sun setting behind us. We look tired, and we were!!
Good times.
Inspired by Estonia's triple-gold showing in Torino, a few friends of mine and I decided to give XC-skiing a go ourselves.
So, Sunday afternoon, my friends Antoine, Guillaume (both French), Frank (Danish) and Kadri-Ann (Estonian) met up in Nõmme for a few hours of the sport. Nõmme is a wooded suburb of Tallinn about 15 minutes outside of the city center that is extraordinarily beautiful in the snow, and is home to a few of Estonia's only few hills. As I've mentioned before in my blog, Estonia is one of the flattest places in the world--particularly among countries with colder climates--which likely explains their dominance in cross-country skiing.
Neither Frank nor I had cross-country skiied before, so we were glad to have each other. Kadri-Ann was by far the best skiier (being a native Estonian, no doubt), and as the day progressed, it was clear that Antoine and Guillaume both were a little further along the learning curve than I was. But everyone had a great time, and we all sort of were learning on the go.
Even though Frank and I had spent ample time on alpine skiis, when we donned the freestyle cross country skiis and attempted to move forward, we fell down immediately. Maybe this is old news to all of you reading this, but these skiis were nothing like alpine skiis-- not only in appearance, but in function. Not only is the ski blad extremely narrow which decreases stability, but but the boot is attached to the ski in a completely different way, in which your heel raises off the ground and isn't very well secured at all. This was going to take some getting used to.
Watching the form of Kadri-Ann, Antoine and Guillaume, as well as the numerous people that were flying past me, was very helpful. And as we skiied for a little while, starting and stopping every now and then, I began picking it up. You won't see me in the Olympics any time soon, but I began to learn how to "skate" on the skiis and keep up my momentum, which was really hard to do at first. I hope I can go again soon, it was fun, but tiring!!
All in all, we ended up going about 20 kilometers(!) in just a little over 2 hours, which is proof that Frank and I weren't horrible at the sport, but were no means professionals. We did make significant improvement though, which is always fun.
I think that we will try to go again soon, even though I'm soooo tired and sore today. Here Antoine, Guillaume and I are at about the 15km mark, with the sun setting behind us. We look tired, and we were!!
Good times.
05 March 2006
UGH.
Always remember to save.
That's all I have the energy to say right now. I had a few pages done for this post and my freakin computer decided to just turn off, eliminating what I'd done!! ARGH!
I'll try to muster up the energy to post something about my trips to Berlin and Norway a bit later, but for now I am too frustrated to re-write what I just lost.
-J
That's all I have the energy to say right now. I had a few pages done for this post and my freakin computer decided to just turn off, eliminating what I'd done!! ARGH!
I'll try to muster up the energy to post something about my trips to Berlin and Norway a bit later, but for now I am too frustrated to re-write what I just lost.
-J
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