Gingerbread, blood sausage & gnomes :My Estonian Christmas

Merry Christmas and a happy new year! Häid jõule ja head uut aastat!

I hope you are having a great time with your families and friends! :)

Although I haven't been quite in a christmas mood this year, I enjoyed it. I was really afraid of it, because I thought i would be really homesick, but as it turned out this was not the case.

Christmas is quite similar to Germany here I guess, but there are a few differences. Although the Estonians have also the 'adventskalender' (but it's not that common) they have additional the 'päkapikkud',little gnomes who visit the children every night in December and put some sweets in their 'sussid' slippers. 

The biggest difference was probably that many Estonian families visit the graveyard on Christmas Eve and light candles instead of going to church. After we came back from the graveyard we ate the Christmas meal. Pork, chicken,fish and eggs, potatoes and sauerkraut, peet salad and 'kringel', a sweet yummy bread with rosins.
The traditional Christmas food though is blood sausage and pumpkin salad with potatoes, I ate this on the last school day. Every stude also got a chocolate box from my school as a christmas present! To get it we had had to prepare something: a dance, a movie clip, a song...

However, the santa claus 'jõuluvana' came to our house and brought not one but two huge bags of presents to our house. The whole family was surrounded, the children were running excited through the house, with big eyes and rosy cheeks.
 To get a present everyone had to say a little rhyme, dance or sing.
I decided for this rhyme (because it's so short :D)
                           vahuveini vanniga 

                          piparkooke panniga

                          verivorste krõbedaid

                          palju päevi toredaid

I really missed the various German christmas cookies, because the Estonians only seem to know gingerbread :D

These were our creations :))

The slightly different Christmas tree in Rakvere

The days after Christmas Eve I just spent at home and made Kaiserschmarrn, an Austrian dish, it's basically pancakes ripped in little pieces. 

I also drove to Tallinn to visit the Curly Strings concert(a very famous Estonian band). It was so great. I had goosebumps several times and I even understood much of what the band was talking about between the songs. 

This is their most famous song, if you want to hear some of their music! :)

https://youtu.be/vFlUhVyp0cA 

The next day we went to the cinema to see an Estonian movie, which was also really good and with English subtitles, so that I was able to understand it, before we drove back.

Over Christmas Eve and my birthday we are staying again at the aunt's house. 

I remember exactly the moment one year ago, when the last moments of 2014 passed, I was wondering where the new year would take me. 

And now I am here, the last ours of the new year are running. This year was the most exciting, the hardest, the year I travelled the most, the year I met amazing people from all over the world, the year left my home behind, the year I found a new one.

And I am looking forward to what the next year will bring.

Helsinkitrip

Tšau!
How you already know we travelled to Helsinki last weekend. Johanna from Germany, a girl from Thailand and me stayed over at an incredible nice family in Tallinn, because we live too far away to get the ferry in time the next morning. The family showed us the old-town, and we had the cance to visit the famous Christmas market in Tallinn. I expected it to be bigger-honestly it was quite small and a bit boring for me, because in my German area are lots of beautiful Christmas markets too. But it was quite nice :). And after that Johanna and me went to the cinema to watch (of course) Mockingjay 2. I can't express my love for the series. The movie was soooo good. *o* Maybe even a bit too gripping for Johanna and me :D(you know what I talk about)
After that we spent a wonderful evening with the family, we talked a lot and had great food :)
The next morning they dropped us off at the harbour and our adventure in Finland started *---*
Here you can read more about the trip!
http://yfueesti.blogspot.com.ee/2015/12/discovering-helsinki.html
The only things I can add to this is that we really had to walk a lot (my group didn't ride the tram :D). Like really really a lot. Honestly, I think that I have never ever walked that much at one weekend.
We were lucky and had two exclusive guides through the city, two exchange students, who are spending their year in Finnland. We had much fun and I enjoyed the weekend so much. Helsinki is such a charming city with a special flair, especially during christmas time ♥
On Saturday evening we had nothing to do and just walked through the city. Because we got a recommendation by a woman, we asked in a big and expensive hotel, if we could go to the top to see Helsinki at night.Although we were a bit sceptical if it would work out,we were guided to the top floor by the security man- and it was just such an wonderful and breathtaking view.

The first seven pictures you can see are taken by my friend Clara

The reason why you should have always washi tape with you! :)

They are just so scary,right?