Estonia

Estonia.

Our ferry got back from Finland at 10:30 pm and by the time we got to the hostel at 11pm we were greeted with a sign that says we will be back at 23:15. After trying to do math on a brain that hasn't slept in days and a body that is screaming from non stop exercise we realized that was 11:15 so we waited and waited. Finally the lady came back and we got to go to our room. The bathroom smelled like rotten sewage. Like so bad I literally gagged when I walked in. Then I took toilet paper and clogged my nostrils to the best of my ability so I could wash my face. Seriously though I don't think you understand how powerful this smell was. After that I crashed, hard. I didn't move again until I woke up at 9am. Had to go back to the bathroom from hell and shower finally after 48 hours which is killer for me. At 11:00 we got out of the hostel and into town. I wanted to sit on this duck and then I got an epic photo bomb

The first stop was the Kiek de in kök bastion for the tunnels tour. We got to go underground and clb through these tunnels.

Here are some

Notes I took:

Suomen linna

Paige paid me 20 e

Hannah owes me 10e 5e 1e

Kiel in de kök bastion tunnels 

- 300 year old steps- the tunnels were street level they built them and then put the soil on top. 10-18 meters of soil on top

- the wall is 2m thick and a tomb like structure

- old fortress of the city it was built and added to as each person took over Estonia 

- they built part of these tunnels into a bomb shelter and then a nuclear war fall out shelter which is why the floors are flattened and the walls are concrete in some places 

- they had to pump out water and take out stones to repair it 

-part of the tunnels got occupied with bats and cave spiders so they had to turn off the lights and close that part to the public bc bats are protected species the spiders are 7-9 cm long 

-at one point squatters lived down here and they would light fires and then die from the lack of ventilation

-during soviet times it was equipped with food and supplies for emergencies 

-as se electricians were installing wire they dropped everything and ran they said they saw a ghost and would never again enter 

- the punks aka run away teens who lived here also said they saw this ghost 

-during WWII in one night 1/3 of tallin was destroyed almost 700 were killed and 700 injured and 200 missing bc they went in the basement and weren't able to be dug out 

- the city was a blaze 

- this place had 1,000 people down here and it was supposed to have only 600 in it. 

I dropped my phone in the tunnels and then my camera wasn't working and it was freaking me out. It scared me so much that my camera wasn't working. I prayed like crazy, reset it, turned it off, nothing. Thirty minutes later it started to work again. Thank goodness. 

After the tunnels tour we got to climb the bastion and look at beautiful views. 

Up next: lunch. We went to a place on our map and it was good. Kebab style and it was the best falafel ever.

Our journey then took us around old town, walking along ancient city walls, gazing out and look out points and loving the fall colors.

We found the cutest alley! 

And devoured hot chocolate where the chocolate covered the sides of our glasses!

We also ate cake. Seriously I need to get this food thing under control. I came home from Fiji skinny and  coming home from here fat. One thing to work on.

But look how cute this place is! The ivy going from one building to the other and brightly colored seats and blankets. It was awesome!

Here are my roommates by the way:

Aren't they lovely?! So as we walked the town we kept seeing these England flags hanging all over which was odd. Then the town square was covered in drunk English men singing god bless the king at the top of their lungs. We finally asked what was going on and learned there is a futbol game tonight.

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Meeting the Finnish

Ever been to Helsinki? That's in Finland incase you were wondering. Well, I spent yesterday in Helsinki and had an amazing time. It may or may not have been incredible because we had a handsome Finnish man giving us a private tour of the place but I will leave that for you to decide. 

The journey began Friday night at 10pm as we got on a bus. 

It was going to be a long ride. Literally 9 hours all night long. I don't sleep on buses. Or planes. Or anything else that doesn't allow me to be in a horizontal position. So I figured a little Dramamine would help... Except if you take the non drowsy one... And your bus driver plates music all night and you forget your eye mask and your ear plugs. Worst night ever. You then spend the night trying countless positions to get somewhat comfortable in your one by one foot seat while te bus rocks and shakes with lights and music. Annoying to say the leastZ and as you can guess it was miserable. So at 7am we pull into the bus station and the journey to the hostel begins. An hour later we are walking aimlessly around a square with no idea where this hostel is. We got off turned at the Rimi went through the parking garage and turned on USS street but guess what we were far away from the hostel. So it turns out the instructions we had and followed were the right instructions just in the wrong area of town. 

Finally by 8 we found the hostel, changed, left our stuff and started the journey to the ferry. 

The ferry was huge! It was like a cruise ship. Seriously! 

We played bingo. And Mikele won! She won this huge chocolate bar. Then karaoke started.

The girls sang baby baby something justin bieber and dedicated it to me. Right before they went up this cutie came and sat by us. Trust me I had noticed him  sitting behind us. Then the karaoke started which was beautiful. After we had fun talking with Juho (u-ho) and for awhile I though it was uhaul because I couldn't understand him or hear him lol.  Then we docked in Helsinki. He took us to the bus station and helped the girls buy tickets to the Helsinki temple and got them to the bus station. Turns out their bus was on the corner and they had to high tail it waving their arms and barely made it on.  I stayed with Hannah to party. Hannah is catholic so going to the temple is not really her scene lol. Then our personal tour began. Seriously how nice is he!? He took us through the town and someone was handing out cheese. Cheese! They were handing out tubs of cheese so I pocketed one of those and then came the juice box samples of almond milk and ladies dressed as clouds. It was weird. 

We learned about crazy day which is a huge sale that happens. Everyone was carrying around yellow bags of items. I would compare it to Black Friday here. It was a little crazy. Our journey then took us to the harbor where there were traditional foods and a market set up. Juho showed us how to buy tickets to get on the boat to get to this island fortress and then he came with us! 

Let's not judge my looks here okay. Cold. Windy. 48 hours of no sleep and no shower. Ew but those two look cute so it's going up. Ps the person taking the selfie always has a huge head and why does that have to be me, I already have a big head to start with! 

This island fortress was beautiful! We touched the Baltic Sea, walked along the fortress walls and fall colored tree lines paths. 

We went in the tunnels of the old fort and explored. I wish the pictures could do justice. 

It was one of the most beautiful places I have seen in Europe.

After our island adventure we took the boat back and Juho showed us a beautiful lake.

Then he had to head back to his home. So we said goodbye and then took some selfies in the park. 

We had to meet up the the other girls at 5:00 and decided we needed some bread to go with our cheese we had been carrying around. After twenty minutes of failed bread finding Hannah asked a lady and she took us all the way there. The Finnish are so nice. We headed to the church

And devoured our cheese and bread on those steps. 

The girls arrived and we were reunited. 

More walking. We spend so much time walking. Walking. Walking. And it's cold!  Worried about our ten day vacation. 

Helsinki rocked and like I said, you can decide why. ;) 

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The Only Thought I Have is... Random

random

ˈrandəm/

adjective

1. 1.

   made, done, or happening without method or conscious decision.

   "apparently random violence"
2. 2.

   informal

   odd, unusual, or unexpected.

   "the class was hard but he was so random that it was always fun"

Random. That's what's up. <---- Is that legit? I don't know it just looks funny. Anyway, guess it goes with my awesome random post. Seriously though, look at this carrot. 

That is my entire forearm. My ENTIRE forearm. Look at your forearm and now imagine my carrot there. Also please compare the girth of the carrot. Most people would not get so excited about something as simple as a HUGE carrot. Right now I wish I had Shipow here to give me a much better word that huge. Since she is not here I will Google it. Hold on.  

enormous, vast, immense, very large, very big, great, massive, cosmic,colossal, prodigious, gigantic, gargantuan, mammoth, monumental,tremendous, stupendous; 

informaljumbo, mega, monster, whopping,whopping great, thumping, thumping great, humongous, hulking, bumper,almighty, astronomical,

My whopping, thumping, astronomically bumper carrot rocks! 

Really though. I needed carrots so that I could roast them with some other veggies in a dire attempt to get some veggies into my body. So there I am walking through the grocery store (usually the market but today we needed things for school) and I happen upon the carrots. They are misshapen and funny to begin with so naturally I look for the oddest ones. Who wouldn't. And then it happened. I saw it. The colossal, cosmic, mega, monster. Of course I picked it and couldn't wait to get it home. This was going to be awesome. Not only will I need just 1 carrot for the full recipe but if a burglar happens to come into our home I can use my club to knock him senseless. Really, this could happen. The other day we were sitting in our apartment and no joke the door opened. Mikele is sitting in the living room and looking straight into the hall doorway. I am in the kitchen. No one is supposed to be coming over and then I hear Mikele say hello? Of course I stay silent in case I need to karate kick the hell outta the stranger. Silently I ninja my way to the knife drawer, pull out the biggest knife which truly is puny and stand behind the door in my half crouch waiting to strike. Anyway turns out that was a confused old man who after walking in stared, turned around and left. 

My carrot would have knocked him out. 

This happen today:

Why? Well, you were warned with the title of the post. Random. I even gave you a definition. I could blame it on living with a bunch of 18 year olds, but really, not only is that false but it was my idea. Young at heart? Sure, let's go with that. 

Why am I dressed like that? Why are we in leaves? Well the leaves part is easy to clarify. Leaves. Come on now. Fall. I love fall. I love leaves and we don't have a lot of leaves at my house so of course I want to play in them. The outfit. There is no excuse. I was in my leggingins and sweater because it is cold in this concrete box in which I live when Mikele said let's go to the market. I couldn't decide if I should put on my school clothes yet but I also didn't want to wear the high heel black boots that match. This is how the rain boots started. So I get the community rain boots and now I am in rain boots, leggings and a sweater. I need some kind of pants. My skirt is wrinkled. My other skirt is white and blue and black stripes which totally doesn't go with the rest of this outfit. Therefore I choose shorts. Really? Not only are they terrible shorts but who does that. It was my only option, I plead. At that point you mind as well, mine as well, what words am I supposed to use here? Well I added the oh so lovely head warmer to keep my ears warm and a brown purse because of course that matches too. What to do at this point? Convince another girl to look equally as special. Hence Hannah.

P.S. I haven't shaved in 2 weeks. That's a whole nother story. I'm going to go with added warmth needed.

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My Life... Is Incredible

Seriously.
Do you ever just realize how privileged and blessed you are? I have lived an amazing life and I'm only 28. I have done things that most people only dream of. My parents have provided me with opportunities that people add to their pin board. Now that I am older and can make my own opportunities in life I snatch them up!
I am lucky.
Really though.
I think about all the things I have been able to do in my life and the neat experiences I have had and I am so grateful.
I started a list awhile back like a reverse bucket list and I want to keep adding to it. Here we go.
My life rocks and the following experiences are forever memorable:

- Seeing the Eiffel tower and more importantly eating vanilla bean macaroons from La Duree, seriously though, I am obsessed with Macaroons
-Walking down Time Square in NYC and finding my ancestors on Ellis Island.
- Touring Washington DC and walking Gettysburg
- Shopping in the Mall of America seriously who get to do their back to school shopping there?!

-Flying first class to Paris nonetheless
- eating canolis in Sicily
- Swimming with dolphins in Hawaii, Although the new animals rights, environmental freak would not have done this again so thank goodness it happen a long time ago.
- Climbing glaciers in Alaska

- Swimming with sting rays on the Caman Islands
- Snorkeling with manta rays
- Going on 6 cruises- Mediterranean, Caribbean, Alaska, and Mexico x3

- zip lining in Belize and landing on platforms so small I cried
-Jumping into a waterfall in the Andes Mountains
- Being cleansed by a tribal medicine doctor in the Amazon Rain-forest

- Standing on the equator
- Walking the Inga ruins and ruins of Tulum
- Scuba Diving in Honduras and Fiji

- Being in awe every time I set foot in the crystal clear blue waters of Fiji
- Scuba diving a wreck in Fiji
- Walking the Pompeii ruins
- Shopping in local produce markets in Spain, Latvia, Lithuania, Fiji, Ecuador, etc
- Para-sailing in Mexico
- Pretending to hold up the leaning tower of Pisa

- Hopping on a plane, first time first class,  for a 24 hour experience in Harry Potter Land and man the butter beer is good
 -Zip lining through the Alaskan forest
- Walking the walls of Dubrovnik Croatia
- Graduating from college at 19
- Walking the city streets in Sweden

- Having wild monkeys jump on me at the base of the Amazon river
- Canal tours in Copenhagen
- Exploring the catacombs under Paris
- Attempting to surf at nanau-i-ra island
- swimming in the French Riviera
- horse back riding on the beaches of Mexico

- Walking through an ice castle and swimming in a crater in Midway
- Swimming through under water caves to pop up in more caves on the Yasawa islands
- snorkeling the famous Blue Lagoon
- Seeing viking ships in Norway
- Sumo wrestling in Latvia
- stacking rocks in Canada and being mesmerized by the pure beauty

- Taking a mud bath and soaking in natural hot springs in Fiji
- Flying on over 40 planes in one year

- exploring underground tunnels in Estonia - walking through an island fortress with a Finnish man in Finland
- walking through a graveyard in Poland lit with tens of thousands of candles on All Souls Day 

- walking on both sides of the Berlin Wall

- the views in Budapest

-Visiting Auschwitz

-Going 100 meters underground through old salt mines in Poland
-Fake snow and double fisting butter beer at Harry potter studio tour in London 

- cheese tasting in Amsterdam




- Walking on The Great Wall of China. Taking a ski lift up and then sliding down on a toboggan.
- Incense burning ceremony at the Lama Temple in Beijing.
- Bamboo rafting down the Li River
- Hiking and feeding wild monkeys in the Avatar mountains in Zhangjiajie
- Kung Fu and calligraphy classes in China


- Eating Baklava at every corner in Turkey
- Walking through the Hill of Crosses in Lithuania

-  African Safari
- Hiking waterfalls in Uganda
- White water rafting the Nile river


- Walking the suspension bridges in Costa Rica
- Sitting in a natural hot spring in the middle of the night in Costa Rica with candles in the roots of trees
- Seeing Sloths in their natural habitat Manuel Antonio

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Country Count

1 United States of America
2 Canada
3 Mexico x 6
4 Ecuador
5 Spain x2
6 France x 2
7 Croatia
8 Italy x2
9 Honduras
10 Belize
11Grand Caymans ?
12 Fiji
13 Denmark
14 Lithuania x2
15 Latvia
16 Norway
17 Sweden
18 Finland
19 Estonia
20 Germany
21 Czech Republic
22 Austria
23 Hungary
24 Poland
25 England
26 Netherlands
27 China
28 Turkey
29 Switzerland x2
30 Costa Rica
31 Uganda
32 Thailand
33 United Arab Emirates
34 Nepal

35 Portugal

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Volunteer Companies

Want to know who I have served with? See below for who, when, were, cost, and length. Reviews coming soon.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Orphanage Support Services Organization

OSSO

When: 2007

Where; Ecuador

Length: 3 months

Cost: $3,000

http://www.orphanagesupport.org/

HELP International

When: 2014

Where: Fiji

Length: 8 weeks

Cost: $3k-4k + airfare 

http://help-international.org/

International Language Program 

ILP

When: 2014

Where: Lithuania

Length: 5 months 

Cost: $2,500

http://www.ilp.org/

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Fort Ninth

Devinitas Fortas

Well the littles went to Poland so we decided to make a trip into Kaunas, a town about 90km away. We heard about Fort Ninth and after reading the short description above we knew we wanted I visit. I am glad to have Paige because like me she is studying WWII and she gets it. Anyway decision made. Now how to get there. Take local bus to stotis: central station. Go in and pray the woman understands some English. She hands is a piece of paper that says platform 6 and 11:45. On arriving at Platform 6 which would have been way cooler if it had been platform 6 3/4. We saw.... Dun dun dun a dreaded Fiji mini bus! Okay it wasn't from Fiji and it wasn't as bad but it was still a van bus. So we climb in and the man just looks at us. We are holding money but he does nothing. So we sit down and think maybe he collects money later. Then another man starts  going off about not having tickets. Well we end up paying and it's 20 litas which sheesh we didn't expect. An hour and a half later with the old man who can't stay in the road lines later we arrive at a station. Somewhere in Kaunas. Back inside with hopes that we can find how to get from here to the fort. She hands is another paper with time and platform. 

Meanwhile bathroom break. 1 lita later I am staring at this 

Why.

Why. I literally turned around and walked out. I checked another "stall" same hole in the ground. I'm not in China for another three months so why am I staring at a squatter!?

That was not fun. Which is the front? Which is the back? How do you even do this? So glad I paid for this experience.

That one time at the bus station with the hole in the ground...

Yah. 

So get on minibus #2 but we have no idea where to get off. Luckily some girl helped us out. Between her, the driver and another man we got off... On the side of the freeway. No joke. So there we are standing on the side of the freeway. Hmmmm. Looking around there is a tunnel. Sure why not walk through the dark tunnel under the freeway. We survived. And guess what there it was!

Woohoo!

The next problem was trying to buy tickets. It literally took like five minutes which is a long time when people are in line. We couldn't he he credit card to work then we couldn't figure out how to get a guide. Finally we got tickets and got started. 

The first part was artifacts and part two was the fort with a guide. Except in our case we will call her an exercise instructor with some knowledge of a fort. Literally this lady had us running up and down underground tunnels and passages and every few minutes she would stop spit some info at us and then take us back up to heart pounding heavy breathing. Fastest "tour" of my life. Here are some facts I managed to write down on that journey. 

Built forts to protect Kaunas 

9th fort is made from concrete and the other 8 are made from brick this was the most modern one 

World war 1 nothing happen with this fort

Then it becAme a prison 

Hard labor camp- they had to work in fields or keeping the animals 

During WWII jail was a point to decide where to put political to prisoners 

Monument was just a field  -50k people killed on that spot 30k were Jews 

Then soviets came back and used as prison again

Metal doors in prison are 100 years old 

1943 on Christmas 64 people escaped they put 400 holes Into the door with a drill and then pushed a hole through it and escaped 

The nazi needed to catch and kill them. 11 survived the last survivor wrote a book called escape note to self order that book 

After getting a serious cardio in we went outside to the monument. The monument stands where 30,000 Jews were murdered. They use that word and I think it has so much more power than killed. 30,000 that is such a huge number. And at that spot in total 50,000 people were killed. That's bigger than an entire town. The monument was huge!

The sky was gorgeous today. The monument has faces and people on it. You can kind of see it in the first picture. 

When we were done at the fort we needed to figure out how to get back into town so we went to the freeway and sat on a bench until a bus came. But literally we used every penny we had and came up with exactly the amount we needed. I got on and handed the man the huge handful of pennies and he looked at me, pulled out the lita and handed me back all the crap coins. He didn't even want those coins I've been carrying around for weeks. Just get rid of them already. 

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