May 2nd, 2011- The Day Reality Set In

I was planning on putting off writing for a couple days, but today just seemed like the appropriate time.  The last few days have been wild to say the least.  People started showing up from Toronto on Tuesday, so it's been one big party since.  Miku arrived on Tuesday afternoon when I went and met him and Valjo at the Tallinn C!Q! for a couple drinks.  Tuesday wasn't necessarily an early night, but much earlier than the next few.

Wednesday, Mikk and Heili flew in from Sweden, Nick K, Kalle and Kristiina arrived from Toronto.  So true to form, we meet up at Raekoja plats for a couple of beers in the sunshine.  From there we moved onto a restaurant for dinner, and Nimeta afterwards for the soccer game.  Met up with a bunch of the Tallinn Vironia guys and moved about town until the wee hours of the morning.  Thursday was much of the same, but I actually ended up taking it a little easy as I had to go into work on Friday.

Friday was a beautiful sunny day, and my boss had asked me if I'd like to play in the Sea Course opening tournament...And when the boss asks you if you want to golf, the answer is always yes, and you better let him win.  It was a Florida scramble format, which I'm not too keen on, but had a great afternoon and got to meet some pretty awesome people.  Unfortunately I couldn't stay around for the dinner as I had to get back to the apartment and get some stuff done in preparation for the weekend.  Got home, had a shower and packed for the weekend down in Tartu.  I met up with a couple of guys at the C!Q!, grabbed a few cases of beer hit the road.  A bus had been arranged for us to pick the 14 guys arriving that night, so we grabbed them at the airport and made our way down to Tartu.  We arrived shortly before mid-night, and sat around the C!Q! having a few beers.  I decided to go to bed early (2am) as volber was going to be a pretty long day.

The forecast for Tartu was supposed to be pretty crappy for the weekend, but we lucked out pretty huge with the weather.  Little on the chilly side, but the sun was out, so why complain?  As is par for the course, myself, Mikk, Heili, Miku, Juri, Kalle, Nick and a few others had a few pints in Tartu raekoda plats.  At this point I'll mention the sweet accommodations Heili and Kristiina found.  We had a nice little apartment between 4 of us right on Raekoja plats.  Cheap, clean and couldn't ask for a better location.

Volber was an absolute riot.  Walking through the streets of Tartu with a couple hundred frat members is something that every Estonian needs to experience atleast once.  After the parade we went back to the C!Q! where we gave our rebased their colours making them full members.  After a couple of beers we decided that a meal was in order because it was going to be a VERY long night.  A quality pizza, and we were set to go back to the C!Q! for, you guessed it!  Beers!  We sat around singing and drinking until mid-night, at which point we piled ourselves into cabs and headed out to visit the other frat houses.  During the course of the evening we swung by the Rotalia, Sakala, Ugala, and EUS houses.  Great parties, great music, great people.  The intention finish the evening by going by Allan Liik's apartment for a late evening/early morning saun.  Unfortunately we couldn't get the saun to work, so Eerik and I headed out towards the Vironia C!Q!  I ended up getting back to the apartment sometime around 8 or 9am.  Helluva party!

Sunday was a bit of a write-off as I had to get on the bus to head back to Tallinn.  People tried convincing me to stay, but as Monday was my first work day, that wasn't much of an option.  I said good-bye to my Toronto friends, and poured myself onto the bus.  Slept most of the way back, got to the apartment and slept like a baby.

Monday morning still not feeling 100%, I woke up early to head in to work.  I'm used to 6am starts at the golf course, but here I'm spoiled with 7am starts.  Still entertaining the thought of starting at 6am just so I can get out a little earlier.  Things are increadibly relax at this course.  It's a tiny staff, but it seems like everyone knows what they have to do, and they go about their business.  To me, it seems a little bit unorganized, however it might just be that I need to get familiarized with how they operate.  I've already noticed some things in my first day that I think could be improved or changed, but those are things I can deal with in the coming weeks.

So today getting home from work, the reality of being in Eesti hit me.  Until now, I've still felt like I'm going home in a couple of days.  But having done the first day of work, and coming home it struck me that I'm here for a long haul.  I've surrounded myself here with great family and friends, but it's still a little unsettling that I won't be seeing my family for quite a while.  I'm sure over the next couple days and weeks I'll get into some kind of routine and get used to the day to day life here.

I think these coming weeks will really help me figure out how long I feel I want to live in Eesti.  It was the best time for me to take the plunge and move over here when I left, but there are always a lot of unknowns.  Once I start figuring out some answers, I'll start to feel more relaxed.

Hope you enjoyed the read.