Refresh (Värskendus).

--Wrote this in a sidewalk café on a Paris sidestreet. Mmmm.--

Noh.. Pariis.

I very much heart this city. It is alive, excited and entirely coexistent. It feels as though I have spent so much energy in other places to not feel as a foreigner, to not be looked upon instantly and with first breath as an outsider with everything that connotes. The city and its people are contemplative, expressive and seemingly enthralled to live amongst each other. There pervades that slight sense of aloofment, yes though interactions ride upon waves of genuinity. I enjoy the lack of English, in signs and surroundings as well as responses. The language is stunning; enforce it! Sidewalks are littered with cafes, always vibrant and reverberating with life and the soul of societé. People want to converse, wnat to fill the seams in pockets meshed with the other, spilling into the winding masses of the physical city itself. It is a warmth, a glow which emantes from each corner and face.

Merci.

Here is there is here (Siin on seal on siin)

Niiiiiii..

Paris is one of the most beautiful cities that I have ever wandered and indulged. Saying any more would force me to exhibit public displays of affection. I'll save reminiscing here for some quiet moments, candlelit and with soft jazz seeping through the background.

Being in the States so far is almost inexpressibly strange. I alternate between a dreamlike state wondering if living in Eesti really happened, to confusion and an awkward detachment from my surroundings. It's great being back in Minneapolis, absolutely fulfilling with the few friends I have been able to connect with so far (highly expecting some more delayed meetings!), and in all, a bit much for my head at the moment! I feel as though the excuses of jet lag over the 8-hour time gap have slipped me.. adaptation to that came somewhat quickly minus some mild insomnia and fatigue. Settling is, for now, appearing in the near-impossible. I'm here and there around couches and will be rolling around that way for the next few weeks. Upon fully moving back, I've decided that a fully rented, ready-to-move-in apartment is absolutely necessary for first stop. Hospitality abounds (even making it somewhat difficult to plan where and for how long to stay), though without a separate space and the weight of keys in my pocket.. it's difficult to process anything.

I've also reaffirmed how ridiculous and arcane mobile phone systems are in the States. To illustrate:

Europe: Go to store (produce or otherwise), find SIM card packages at counter, purchase, put in a phone, dial number to activate. The money spent on the SIM card is then on the phone (т.е. 40 kroon spent means free SIM card and 40eek credit) incoming calls logically do not cost you anything, texting is ridiculously cheap, and the entire cost for a month of calling might be $20 or $30, relatively.

U S of A: Go to store (say, Target). Try to explain to salesperson that you don't want to buy a phone with the card in it. Explain to salesperson further that, in order to use a calling card, you need a phone with ability to call. Reaffirm that you don't want to buy that phone with the card in it. Explain where Europe is. Shake head. Start explaining again. Give up. Go to second store specific to a phone company. Explain situation. Wait for idiot to ask other salesperson. Success! Other salesperson confirms. Wait for idiot to tie shoe and balance red ball on nose for small fish, while other salesperson tries to explain how to sell card, then follows up to make sure that idiot takes my money, and that idiot finally gets sent away to 'help' other wandering people. Pay $25 for charge-up card (if salesperson cares little enough about job and life to charge the recommended $10 for SIM card), struggle with phone to pick up service in metropolitan area. Once service can intermittently be attained, hope that new SIM card has not deleted all old numbers from phone and start putting local numbers in for first calls. Begin placing calls, and just as immediately halt frequency, after discovering that each minute costs 25 cents, incoming and outgoing, as well as the realization that even leaving a voicemail for someone depletes your balance by at least 50 cents. Curse uselessness of company, system, life, deities, apricots, and any other unresponsive objects in near area. Replace SIM card with European card, which continues to allow cheap text messaging. Rue the day.

More or less.

It is grand to be back though, and I do miss the atmosphere here.. the openness, the warmth. The innate 'need' of random people I hear is somewhat repulsive, as are several consumer-based things here and there (do seasonally themed interior decoration gift stores really have any justifiable purpose in any society?!). In all, though, they are the sort of things which over life I had already come to deal with (just tuned out through experience) and am now just freshly battered with once more (uuesti). The full move-back in a few months will be positive (and uncompromisingly strange)!

Already, and I'm sure over the next few weeks and then again when I move back this winter, I'm experiencing this odd sense of 'reimmigration'. Not sure if unfamiliarity of many things is the only thing behind it.. Not sure if I'm just so used to feeling like a foreigner that even here I automatically refocus on aspects of my own differences in regards to social and physical surroundings. I'm unleashed. Wondering if I'm doomed (or lucky enough) to always be somewhat removed from a stable 'here'. Being back in the Cities for the few days has made me miss Minneapolis so much more, while paradoxically causing to come to light feelings of possible comfort living in another completely different place.. Say, for my masters, somewhere else in Scandinavia or northern Europe? Another place, another (warmer) culture, another language, another city? It could be merely shaken, temporarily fresh unsettled feelings here, or just the yearn for something farther and deeper. No idea. Friends and the place once more feel as a comfort, and a reassurance that even after time they remain. The question of how long it would take and how much involvement would be required for it to become, once more, 'my' scene is intriguing and unsettling at the same time. Another turn, another road. What continues to intrigue through it all are the spaces untrod between the roads.

For now..

Edasi, вперёд..

..and counting (поехали, läks)..

Amongst other things, I have an explicit need to start off this post with a winding, moaning rant somewhat concerning certain local practices.

What sort of culture promotes having a fucking national (also read: inherently exclusive) holiday out of each individual's birthday?! Also, I get the 'small nation' complex. True, and well deserved. Alright, stated. Next step: get over it. So your population numbers under 1,5 million. Given. I have a sneaking suspicion, however, that in order to extend a national presence farther and to feel more populous, people celebrate their birthdays at least 30 times per calendar year. What, you may inquire somewhere deep in your Estonian-deficient consciousness, exactly do these so called 'sünnipäevad' signify? Well, mainly, making plans with others in advance.. from weeks to days.. and then canceling out with apologies after curious inquiry from one of the parties when the arranged event is overlooked from the birthday-attending side. It should also be noted that birthday parties, apparently, require full and mandatory attendance by all of the individual's close-to-peripheral friends, for the entire duration of the evening, presumably with a celebrated 'tucking in' party capping off the newly aged person's social orgy. The event also will not take place in any public area, reliably spurn invitation of more than the mysterious number of 'close friends' for attendance, and, if possible, should likely be held in the middle of a mysterious and inaccessible bog kilometres away from any urban locale.

Would be less of an annoyance if the observation wasn't anthropologically sound, made over an extended period of time and many, many occurrences.

Birthdays here are bullshit.

So enough of that, for now. And onto..

Less than a week!! Невероятно, просто.. To clarify though, under 7 days from now I will be nudged somewhere in Pariis with a friend who I met in Tallinn a few years ago (see the L'Envers du Regard site for breathtaking reference, or revisit my 2006 posts). Should be really great! Wine and Sicilian card games that I can't comprehend are on their way.. Followed by Chunneling my way to London, meeting up with a Minneapolis friend for a pint, then off to Heathrow and from there hopping the ocean for the first time in around 10 months. Ridiculous! I am incredibly stoked.. Yes, living situation is somewhat fuzzy for the first while, and for the longer while if nothing pans out with work or residence and I need to postpone a 'full' return. I've come to know and appreciate the differences between 'realizing' something and 'preparation' for it, however. Right now, I have a grasp on neither. The nearness of the event and the whirlwind of days.. weeks.. that it will bring with it require time to sit and contemplate on it, or just the events themselves to smack me in the face to slide my fingers over comprehension of the trip, and possible move, itself. Preparation for all of this goes somewhat in hand with the realization, meaning that I'm expecting most ends to come together sometime järgmisel laupäeva õhtul. Probably between double fists of some Palmse Viru õlu. I've informed my landlord (who is also on vacation for the next month or so) that I'm going to rent for the full september and oktoober months in any case, I've sold my hard-transported futon to a good man from the café (and probably most of my dishes, leaving a skeleton 'in-case' stock), packed up a box to ship some heavier items (and at the same time wild about the fact that I'll still pay more than my airfare to get both bags through the first flight), basically.. set in the first stones for the bridge. What remains are the difficult parts. Näiteks.. finding a way to sustain myself if I do reroot, while also explaining to my employer in that situation why I didn't return as of yet and how to sort things out in an effort to sustain my residency permit as well as what I can do for the firm from abroad.. näiteks.. gearing myself up and making decisions for further education or employment. Locked myself into a GRE test date a week after I return, which should fit well with lingering jet lag and reverse-cultural awkwardness. Not to mention that mathematics and I are the tire-slashing sort of enemies. Makes a possible architecture masters programme and myself seem from a distance as the best of possible chums.

Basically, I'm so flushed with excitement for all of this that it almost turns into doubt that it is happening at all. Seems so odd.. so familiar, and so real. It's the same feeling when you're dreaming and you start to realize it, though you accept the realization of unconsciousness and don't see it as so much a stark alternative to waking up and starting that tea. What feels and appears as procrastination is actually disbelief and that good fear that makes your gut numb and your spine tingle (Kim read: bacon).

It's 'the same kind you feel before another beginning of beginnings.. or before expected meeting up with a fiercely cute and provoking Estonian girl.

Just holding out hope that the journey home won't have any sünnipäevad to attend..

More on the ground situation here in short time..

Edasi, вперёд..