Üks, kaks, kolm, neli, viis, kuus, seitse, kaheksa, üheksa, kümme!

It is on!
Purchasing air tickets is so exhilarating and exhausting. So many combinations, so many possible days, possible destinations, connections, transfers, one way, round trip, seat choices, number of pillows that you would prefer allocated to you. I have probably spent more time digging around through possible configurations for flights than I have spent for some of the classes which I have taken, and absolutely more time than I should have available to me with the ominous final exams shooting glares from a few days away. Конце концов, they are purchased and the Atlantic will be traversed in the approaching months!
To fill in the background on all of this, the precursory information if you will, I undertook an extensive research project for one of my classes this semester (and one of the only ones I really enjoyed at that). Through this research project, I started delving into ethnic segregation (state or self-imposed) and marginalization within post-Soviet Tallinn, Eesti. Light reading, right? It really drew me in, and I ended up foregoing work for other sub-par classes in favour of more research for this. There (suprisingly?) lacks an overwhelmingly large array of information from academic journals and such, most of the information I found came from Helsinki or Tallinn itself (which was really solid information and written really well into English), so possibly in the futureish I will try for a grant to fill in the gaps. Digressing, I stumbled onto this site of the Estonian Institute (www.einst.org) and, in some procrastinative dabbling, checked out the various 'activities' sponsored. The institute turns out to sponsor two international students to study for part of the summer in Tallinn (and two in Tartu), covers everything with the exception of airfare! So I dropped in an application, the hardest part of which was the 'Letter of Motivation', which in itself was not so much hard as just describing my time spent in Tallinn.
Results came around a few days past, and I am accepted for a spot!
So, back to Eesti! Back to Saku Tume! Back to -not- drinking copious amounts of unexpected 2-for-1 Tequila with French and Dutch this time and thus retaining 6 more hours of memory of personal life events than I would have (vodka or Saku could substitute)!
I will be stopping around Cophenhagen on my way towards the Baltics for a few days to visit a friend (Abby) there in architecture school (Simon or Pam, trip to the north?!). Another really great part of ordering plane tickets, it is complicated in English, just try it in Dutch. I couldn't find the translated page and figured that prices would probably be higher (airline sites are tricky like that I believe), so after guessing my Dutch moniker (I took the first one with the M in it, figuring that gender issues on airline sites probably had not yet switched the female prefix to before the male) and unticking boxes in hopes of not being inadvertently signed up for hordes of crap emails coming my direction, I locked down the ticket from Gatwick to Copenhagen. I'll be hubbing out of picturesque LGW with my flights over the Atlantic, and I have all flights booked up to Tallinn. Assuming that Russia does not invade during this time, I might make my way West following the programme (first few days of August) through Helsinki, or through the other Baltic states, or, however it plays out. So stoked!
The time spent between these travels will be intense, and exhilarating as well. I'll be 'studying' Estonian language and culture. This is also the focus that I am holding myself back from now to attempt to put some sort of formidable effort into finals, and which will dominate my open time for the next few months. If I can somehow attain a decent proficiency at Eesti, patch up my Russian proficiency a bit, and retain native English, I could search around for some sort of position with those cards following graduation (December, oi). No idea what, though hopefully it would be a bit more involved than an attendant on an Estonian ferry, avoiding projectile fluids from drunken Finns.
Tak hästi! On and on and on and on, terviseks!