Estonian Elation
“[...] the plot of every book ever can be boiled down to ‘someone is looking for something.’” Matt Haig
The first week of holiday went by in the blink of an eye. On Monday I took a train from Lille Europe to Brussels. It was fun to travel again. This time when arriving in Brussels I had somewhat of a nostalgic feeling about the place. Avenue Tervuren which connects the Africa Museum to the park Cinquantenaire had a special vibe to it. I used to ride up and down that avenue every Wednesday and Friday with my bike last year. I have a peculiar connection with Brussels. I do not love the city that much but I enjoy it every once in a while.
On Tuesday I went over to one of my old classmate’s place and we played a game called spike ball. The game is simple – there’s a small trampoline and the point is to bounce the ball off of it. There are two teams of two players who can do up to three touches before having to spike it back onto the trampoline. Very fun volleyball alternative that is quite affordable. We played it on grass but I am certain it must be amazing on sand where throwing yourself is even easier.
After having played in the grass we washed our feet with a garden hose and went to get some fries. We then came back to the house, watched the Chelsea - Real Madrid game and played ping pong. Around midnight I was preparing myself to leave. I went to get my stuff and then noticed some water in the corridor. At first I thought it was just a weird reflection, but then I realised that it was water and it was moving. Turns out we had not closed the tap after rinsing our feet. The hose had built up pressure and ended up popping off the tap. The garage was covered with 3 to 4 centimetres of water and that water had also dripped through the garage floor into the basement. Fortunately no big damage was done to the house. We got to clean up till 4 in the morning while blasting songs like Rihanna's S&M. It was an adventure.
My last year's English teacher has been following my blogging journey. Not long ago he reached out to me with the opportunity to write a piece for a new school-magazine. The piece was called "Life after EEB2". My task was to give a quick overview of my life in university so far and give a few pointers to the next year's graduates. This ended up being a great experience – I had to put myself back in the shoes of a student who is about to finish high school. I got to reflect on the fears that I had at that time. I argued against the belief that the choice of higher education is a final decision. I did this because last year I genuinely believed that I was deciding my whole life's trajectory in just a few days. If I get to relieve even a fraction of the stress for anyone else then I am happy.
On Friday I travelled to Estonia. At noon I arrived at Lennart Meri Airport. The very first moments back on Estonian soil felt great. I felt some kind of an overflow of happiness and gratefulness. I very much romanticise Estonia for myself. It is as if I had rose-colored glasses on – simply hearing people speak Estonian fills me up with warmth.
The weekend was spent very socially. On Friday we had a poker night that went on until 5 A.M. The following day we went to a trampoline park with the same group of people. We jumped around and played tag for 2 hours. For some reason most of us did not think this would be very much of a workout. Oh boy how we were wrong. About ten minutes in most of us were profusely sweating and had to take a break to catch our breath. The two hours were very fun. We got a full workout out of it and no one broke any body parts.
After the trampoline park we headed to an apartment and played board games. Since our sleeping schedules were quite messed up we ate lunch at about 10 P.M and ended up playing mostly Codenames until 4 A.M. I would argue that these two days in a row were the most fun I have had in a long time. It is not that I do not have fun in Lille, it is just a very different type of fun. I romanticise Estonia so much that every little event can spark loads of joy.
This week's Suggestions:
Watched it this week. In some bits they were overplaying stereotypes but there was still a very well built up story. As the viewer I was invested in the character's development and got even emotionally attached to them. This is a sign of great storytelling.
Very entertaining yet simple game. We played it for about 5 hours in a row. The game is played in teams. Each team has an explainer and one or multiple guessers. At every round there are 20 pictures laid on the table. The point of the game is to guess all the cards that are arbitrarily given to each team. The explainers, knowing where the cards are located have to give hint for the guessers. These hints can only be composed of one word and one number so for example "feather 3". This makes the game very fun because there are many ways to interpret such little information.
I wish you a great post-Easter week!
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