Living a dream

As many of you have probably learnt from my facebook posts, I have relocated from Estonia to Norway to fulfill my high school dream - to experience living in Norway and learning the language.

It was definitely not an easy decision to go, to leave my boyfriend behind but it'd been my dream for many years and I just couldn't give up on this dream.

I came to Norway to work as an au-pair for the same man as I did two summers ago. I had a blast that summer.

We spent 10 days in amusement parks in Denmark

Bergen, Legoland, Denmark

Got a car with a debit card, so I spent some days travelling up to the north.

I even got to island Runde to see the puffins! (which I have always wanted to do)

I had enough time to stroll around in Bergen

I also got a week off to have enough time to travel across the country with David, French I met on the Internet.

All in all, I spent about a month (out of two) working as a slave of the kid, the other month was dedicated to fun...

So what was the reality of coming to the same family two years after?

The kid grew up and moved with his mother to the island next to our island. The day after I came, his father had to go up to Trondheim and I was left with the kid alone for two nights. My Norwegian and his English was sufficient for both of us to survive. I had to drive him to school the next day but I got lost. Fortunately, he slept the first hour, so he had no idea how much lost we were :) When he woke up, he panicked and wasn't helpful at all. At the end, I managed to get him to school, surprisingly on time. That was because I didn't realize that my phone was still set to Estonian time.

The beginning was a bit hectic and, in fact, my whole stay has been so far. I've been working for the Estonian company (my job is more or less Internet based) and also looking after the kid from Thu-Sun or Fri-Sat.

We've been to two holidays so far, one in Gol and second in Windsor. I would  have never believed it's possible to spend the whole holiday inside the hotel (because the kid wanted to be in the swimming pool all day long). But the Gol holiday was so much better than the other one in Windsor. I couldn't wait going back to Norway. Since then I knew I cannot stay with this family any more. There was/is just too much drama...

Legoland, Windsor, England

I should move in with a new family in January, it's a widowed American with two boys, which is great because we won't have any problems with understanding each other and there won't be any crazy ex-wife, former KGB agent.

But the reason why I moved to Norway wasn't that I wanted to dedicate my days to taking after kids, I wanted to learn the language.

I started Norwegian language course twice a week in September. The courses have been a disappointment so far...it's a great topic for my next post and I'm also too tired now and the kid requires my attention...

Living in Tallinn

As some of you already know, I moved to Tallinn at the end of April and surprisingly started to work a month later. So, today, it’s been almost two month since I started to work for MarkIT and I’d like to share some Estonian experience. 

Estonia is a small country in the north of Europe with a population about 1,5 million (30% of them are Russians). It lies next to Russia and under Finland. Both Swedish and Russian rule left its remarks. If the Communist didn’t take over, you would think you’re in south Sweden, the same houses, flat countryside with lots of forrests. The Communist built huge areas of blocks for new coming Russians who were seeking a job and better life here. These people working in a (heavy) industry are now mostly unemployed and think that Estonian government is stupid because it closed most of the Communistic factories and decided to focus on IT, not to be manufacturer for the western countries (as CZ is). The future for these people is not so bright because they cannot (and don’t want to) speak Estonian and don’t have education needed for getting a job in Estonia.

I live in Tallinn in a huge block area which was built in late 80s and it’s Russian one usually hears there. When you go to a shop, both Russians and Estonians speak their own language – they understand each other but wouldn’t „lower“ themselves to speak in their partner’s language. With government institutions, it’s different, all clerks have to speak both languages, so it’s possible to communicate in Russian there even though Russian is not an official language here. The interesting thing is that at the Immigration Board, there were signs only in Estonian and Russian, no English. I felt a bit discriminated when I was there applying for a working permit. The question of Estonian – Russian relationship is extremely interesting and it would like to know more about this ethnic myth reproduction. Estonians see the Russians as the bad guys who took their freedom and made their country ugly with its statues and buildings (that’s why the downtown is totally renovated in the „glass-skyscrapers“ style). In contrast to Estonian point of view is how Russians see the history. They think that everything was much better during the Communism, people had their work, everything was high quality and today‘s Estonian loyalty to the USA is definitely a destructing thing. Also the Russians having been living here for three generations would never call themselves Estonians even though they have Estonian passports.They are Russians although the only thing they have in common with tRussians is a language.

Some people ask me why do I always go to the east and not west. Not only for getting unforgettable experiences but also e.g. living in Estonia is much cheaper – I earn the same money as I would in Czech but wouldn’t be able to live on it so comfortably as I can here.

Another great thing about living in Tallinn is the sea. It’s not very deep, so it’s possible to swim in it after three nice sunny days :) For mid-European it’s just so cool to go to the sea and watch boats and people passing by jogging, roller skating, etc. Besides that the days are so long here! I think winter here’s going to be hell :(

My last two months in Bulgaria

Well, nothing so interesting was happening. We (Viktor and me) settled down, got used to living together and our life was quite normal. We kind of realized that this living together was not just a fling but it got more serious :) Those three months were filled with fights with the cockroaches and with our always broken washing machine. We also locked ourselves out of the apartment one morning (the day before Viktor broke one of the keys to our double doors) and had to wait to the evening until the landlord came and broke the door – we could have done that, too. We stopped travelling around, because it was urgent to start to take my diploma thesis seriously. Even though I was freaked out when I found out that the deadline for my diploma is, I managed to finish it more than a week before (I am so good!:) We went for one memorable trip just before Viktor left  - to Basarbovo Monastery. It was a nice place definitely worth visiting but prefer spring or summer to winter (when the place is totally empty). What I remember the most from that trip is how hot it was on the train. Just perfect for getting stuck to the leather seats. After the trip, we both got sick, so our last days together weren’t as romantic as expected.

Things at school remained quite same. Kids were sometimes nice and interested and sometimes they were just driving me crazy. I really enjoyed teaching Czech because it taught me how complex my mother tongue is. I managed to teach two (out of three) students of latin letters class how to write English letters and also some vocabulary. This was really satisfying. A month before leaving Bulgaria, I just got so excited about going home, not only because of the comfort I have there, but also because I was a bit tired of fighting with the kids...

The last five days before my departure were dedicated to my dad. He came to Bulgaria to help me to move out and to do some sightseeing. When he was getting off the train, it was totally clear that he fits in considering his appearance and clothing. After he stepped into my apartment, his first comment was that the apartment has its potential (unfortunately my landlords didn’t see it). 

It was definitely challenging to spend 5 days in a row in the presence of my dad. Travelling around Bulgaria with him showed me how my brother resembles to his father. I learnt about my father’s childhood, about the time when he and my mum were young, about Communism, etc.

People sometimes wonder why I went to Bulgaria (and many look down at me), because usually the desire is to go to the West, not to the East. I think many of them think I am crazy or silly. As far as I am concerned, I am honestly glad I was offered to go to Bulgaria (and not to Spain or Norway), because I learnt a lot about not judging people, about poverty, about how lucky I am because I wasn’t born there. Thanks to Bulgaria I met a boy and thanks to him, I’m moving to Tallinn to find a job there and live my dream with him. Let’s see what will happen next :-)

sharing Czech Christmas traditions :)

 

celebrating my birthday

with my dad

Bulgarian traditions

 Russian traditions /borsh and vodka/

New year at school

It is said that a new year should bring something new into life of a man (in my case woman:). Before 2010, usually nothing had changed in the following year, but this new year is different. My lazy life at school is gone. I started to teach three 5th grade kids to write and read Latin letters (after 2,5 years of English it’s a bit sad story), two teachers Czech language a this week I will start to teach English some teachers.

I have always thought that teaching one’s mother tongue must be incredibly difficult. Well, maybe if one doesn‘t have any textbook or didn’t pay attention at their Czech lessons. What I am trying to say is that teaching Czech works incredibly well. One of the teachers I am teaching, she’s got an old Bulgarian-Czech textbook which is a good source for grammar rules and I borrowed one Czech textbook Viktor downloaded which is an awesome inspiration for speaking. Moreover, everyone is so motivated (well, Viktor doesn’t look very happy every morning he has to get up and go there :), does their homework...just like a dream in that jungle.

In contrast to well-working Czech lessons is English for teachers. It was supposed to be a team-teaching with Matt, but unfortunately neither of the teachers showed up at the first and second lesson. A bit disappointing but maybe also expected.

Teaching reading and writing Latin letter to those three kids is probably one of the biggest challenges I have ever take. The gang consists of two girls (one is really nice and trying to do something and she is probably the only one who makes any progress, the other one is always talking, touching me and I would call her Little Miss I Know Everything Better Than You Do) and one hyperactive boy who obviously has troubles with even Bulgarian letters. Each of them needs individual approach because they’re definitely not on the same level, but it’s damn difficult to pay attention to only one and make the other to work on something, because each of them wants 100% of my attention.

Every lesson they got wilder, noisier and less obedient pretending they don’t understand my (almost) perfect Bulgarian. I started to be a bit desperate, because it’s me and I don’t give up on any challenge, but it started to be unbearable. The night before Thursday I couldn’t sleep and had to think what to do with those three monkeys, because it was not possible to keep on like that.

On Thursday morning, I asked one of my Czech students for some phrases in Bulgarian and wrote them down next to my lesson plan. I also goggled some activities I could do with the alphabet. The game could begin. I asked the students for their Бележник (student’s book) and because they had no idea what was going on, they gave it to me. After that I told them, if they misbehaved I would give them 2 (the worst grade here) and if they were about to be good, I would give them stickers. (I couldn’t say that before because they would tell me they don’t have their Бележник) This was followed by one girl stealing the Бележници from my table (which is kind of a public place for the kids, but I really don’t like them being around it). I use here lots techniques learnt at uni about assertiveness, so she was forced to give them back to me. Well, all in all, the lesson went really well. Each kid got two stickers, it seemed they never get anything good from their teachers, because they were showing me their stickers repeating: „Look, I have two stickers.“ Maybe what’s even more important, I managed to keep them busy and interested. :)  The question is how long the trick with Бележник will work, because I am not allowed to write in it and probably there are not so many activities for keeping the gang busy.

Christmas holidays

I would expect this time of the year to be lazier than it actually was. Some trips were made, cultural events visited, part of my Diploma Thesis written..just a perfect holiday without waking up „early“ in the morning to get to school on time. All in all it was one of the best Christmas ever.  

The Christmas atmosphere started in Shivachevo (definitely must-to-see in Bulgaria), where local school gave performance of Christmas Carol by Dickens in Bulgarian. Who has never lived in a town, where cultural events are rare, can never understand how exciting it was to go to the theatre to see a play, even though it was in Bulgarian. Although I picked up only some words, the play was so well done – Matt and Pavlina – good job!!!

After that, we went to visit ICT teacher thanks to which I got to know that Bulgarians have a special TV channel only with Bulgarian traditional/folk music. Pretty crazy! It was a really nice visit and it was pity we had to leave so early to get a train back home. Sliven welcomed us with its famous winds. Cold and windy, what one could wish more? :-D So we ran back home. 

The last weekend of my Christmas holidays (honestly I am sure that teachers love the holidays more than the kids) we took a trip to Plovdiv, second biggest town in Bulgaria. It is also said that it’s one of the most beautiful ones in this country. I think Viktor and me together must increase somehow the possibility of getting lost (see Istanbul trip;). Being saved from not-very-safe looking part of the town by an Armenian woman who could speak Russian, we checked in in our family-sized hostel and went to see the Old town. The houses in the old parts of Bulgarian towns start to look all the same, so the most interesting part was getting over the thorny fence to the antique theatre where we took some unique pictures. To get from the theatre, we needed to use different way out (another thorny fence, narrow path on the edge of the roof and some jumping down) because a suspious man with a label of security seemed to be watching us from behind the fence.

In the evening, we went to the Mall Plovdiv (who has never lived in a big town without a shopping centre or cinema cannot, again, understand how exciting it was) to the cinema to see Avatar. Unfortunately it was sold out. Well, ten minutes before its beginning, there were some free seats, but obviously we were in the wrong queue, so somebody from another one bought all available tickets. Interesting was one man who was totally angry and arguing because, as he said, it was not fair. Maybe it was not, but very probably he was from Plovdiv and could see it any other time whereas WE were there only for two days and it was a unique possibility to see it.

Anyway, we managed to see Avatar the next day. It was a great experience, not only because I haven’t been to the cinema for several months. For example, the scenes were breathtaking, but on the other hand the storyline was predictable and it was a bit too long. Once I’d like to write about Americanism in this movie, let’s see if I have time to do it.

Being too cold for waiting for the right bus, we took a wrong one. It can sound stupid or ridiculous, but after some minutes on a windy place where a bus stop was supposed to be, one would do anything to get out of there. Getting off the bus somewhere out of the map wasn’t very encouraging, but we managed to get to the railway station on time! Well, but we had almost missed our train because our train departed from
a „hidden“ track.

We arrived safely home and I went to sleep with the thought that I didn’t want to go to school the next day...