The last few days have seen me filled with some sort of relentless, unchanneled and restless energy. Feels as though I could run, bike, kayak, travel, Maro Kart, fucking - whatever - my way somewhere or at doing something. My eyes rove the horizon, the sea, the clouds and whatever other sort of receding distance that appears. And I haven't even had my coffee yet this morning.
Summer reached its full-horned crescendo over the last month. We (Tuuliki and I, as always) took a trip for a week to Germany; out to Köln in the West. Apart from some slight stress during travel (Tuuliki is utterly afraid of flying and all notions of it, thus we made it out there using this mode of travel and came back by 2-day bus. No problems at all, and aside of my knees aching I was ready for a bus ride straight back to Köln if it would have been without cost!), the trip itself was fantastic. She has some friends who study there and have a comfortable, extremely space efficient apartment in the downtown gay district (near Rudolfplatz). They left on holiday after a few days and gave us the keys to the place for the rest of the week, which was fantastic. €1 boxes of iced coffee and smoked cheese: delightful. We plan on actually moving there next year for the period of about a year so Tuuliki can study architecture somewhere there. I can do the translating bit anywhere and, seeing as Germany is actually somewhat cheaper than Estonia in some respects, the salary should see me by. It'll be good to have another switch-up for some time and still be able to speak Estonian all day long (I will start learning some German though, just to make myself bearable in conversation without making up words and repeating 'leiderhosen' multiple times!).
T spent the next week after we were back in Russia on a compulsary visiting of relatives, which gave me a bit of insight whilst sitting in the apartment drinking wine and watching shows most of the evenings.
I realized that, aside of her, I really don't have any really close friends here. Not for anyone who might be from Estonia and a friend of mine reading this to take any offense - I do have some friends, and decent ones at that. Though it's nothing on the same level as back in the Cities or those people who have scattered a bit around the States. If I switched my phone to a plan that gave me free calls to Tuuliki, my monthly mobile bill would be at 0. Excluding the single call to my landlord or work-related minute-long conversations. This isn't the fault of anyone, just an unfortunate component of the wider, very fortunate situation. I can call people up to go get a beer, sit and have a decent time talking with them. We can talk about deep things, share personal exchanges - yes. Though I know they won't call me, and it's not anywhere near the sort of time that is a beer between me and Jon, me and Tori, Scott, Mel, Heather, Spencer, Monica, Ian, Berko, Erinn, Kim, Katie, Sarah, Shannon, Sam, Cade, Marta and Ben, Becca, Molly, Nick, Luc, Mike, Megan, Rick, Pete and Ernie, Andy, Lindsey, Nikki, Annie.. you know, I could sit and write names of more of you who deserve to be here and who are reading this in the north and those not in the north for hours. And then rewrite them. A drink for all of you would almost be too much for the liver - though that's something I'd be ready to try for!
This is probably the main source of my shifting energies and urges to crank up Benny Benassi right now. I don't deny that's what I'm doing right now.
Tuuliki is who and what I've been looking for a long time in life (yeah yeah, mushy gag and barf, and yes I just used that word) and that's as much of a notion of committment that I can muster now. I've also realized why I came back, though. How I see and translate Estonia (and any other place for that matter) is now through the eyes of 'us', and it's incredible. It's enough and then some to make plans to buy an apartment here sometime real, to move together to another country for some time, to do everything that comes around. Along with this, I do deeply miss my English-language friends and brothers (or should I say frére). I don't want to and won't be moving back to the States anytime in the near or even distant future, however the friendships and bonds I have there, which I know will continue and even mature in the meantime, are hardcore important and a deep part of me.
I'm still listening to Benassi. And now I'm going to go 'downtown' (had to start putting that in quotes once I reaquainted myself with a city the size of a .. city) and donate some blood. The two go hand in hand, really.
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