Obrigada!

So almost two months ago already, on the 17th of June, I flew to Portugal with two other Estonian girls to take part in a youth exchange in Amarante. The experience was absolutely amazing and everyone I know have probably heard more than they want already, but I gotta talk about it on my blog as well. Although I could talk about the people, the culture, the food and all else endlessly, I'll make this a short post and link you to the video I did whilst there. I'm quite proud of the video and I think it conveys the emotion of the experience well.

Now about the project that I took part in. It took place in Amarante, a little town with about 12 000 habitants situated in the North of Portugal, about an hour drive from Porto. We stayed at the local youth center which also hosted a youth hostel and a vegetarian restaurant. The project was put together by the coordinator of the youth center and it consisted of us visiting local landmarks (like the Alvao National Park), the youth center's partners (like the local orphanage) and taking part in workshops about for example improv and team work. It lasted two weeks and had participants from Estonia, Portugal and Italy.

I can only say that I had two of the best weeks of my life there and the people I met and the experiences I had are unforgettable. I strongly encourage everyone to take part in a youth exchange or something similar at least once in their lives, it's seriously a life changing experience.

I hope you like the video and take this as an inspiration to do something similar, because it is very worth it.

Til next time,
Ingrid.

Half-way there

Now here comes a post I didn't plan on writing, but I somehow got really nostalgic today, and lo and behold, I got an idea to revisit my new year's resolutions. It's a bit more than 6 months from when I wrote them down and I haven't really been thinking about them all that much. So I though looking at them again will make me keep to them more.

My first resolution was to read 50 books and finish the 2015 reading challenge. I have done quite bad on the reading front this year. I started out strong and read 5-6 books in both January and February, but then I hit a reading slump I haven't really managed to get out of since. I'm quite sure I won't hit the 50 books mark this year, as school's starting soon and I will then have even less time and motivation to read :( but I will definitely try again next year.

The second and third resolutions were to exercise more and not to leave everything to the last moment. I have exercised more, I even did it regularly during school, but in the summer I haven't done much. I hope to start going to the gym again when school starts though! And well leaving stuff to the last minute is a vice I've always struggled with and have yet to get over.

The fourth one was to get more weird musical instruments into my possession and I have gotten one! I got a glockenspiel for my birthday from two very nice friends. I don't really know how to play much on it, but I've gotten a few melodies down, because of my talented friend who can play by ear and is patient enough to teach me stuff.

The fifth and sixth are learn Norwegian more and finish the German course on duolingo. If I'm being honest with you I have been terrible at these. As always I started the year all motivated and stuff, but now I haven't thought about either of those tasks for a couple of months I'm sure. I hope I'll continue learning Norwegian when school starts though.

The seventh is to continue my piano lessons with Liis, what again I haven't done in a long while. I'm quite shit at keeping promises right? Which brings us to the last point: keep to your promises. I think this one's self-explanatory.

Til next time,
Ingrid

"The Loft"

So I finally watched "the Loft"! I'd been planning on watching it ever since I saw the trailer, because it features my favourite actor Karl Urban as a main character. What really hooked me in the trailer were the visuals, though. The movie is shot in a beautiful way and I especially love the vibe the dark and washed-out colours give the movie.

i really love the poster it has as well

The film basically talks about five married men who own a loft where they bring their mistresses. One day they discover a dead body upon returning to the loft what happens next will blow your mind and as only the five of them own keys to the loft, they start unravelling the story of what happened through series of flashbacks and suspecting each other.You can watch it's trailer here

Writing this, I don't remember much more about the film, than that it had amazing cinematography and an interesting plot-twist-y plot, as I did watch it more than a month ago. I can say that I really liked how the viewer got to see the story unravel through little flashes that maybe didn't always show the events had truly been. It made you create these opinions of the characters that changed all through the movie with more bits of information revealed. I loved that, because I like to see characters develop in movies, but more than that I like it when the movie gives the viewer a chance to develop new opinions on the characters that haven't developed, but that you can see in different situations.

I liked the actors as well, because well, Karl Urban is my favourite actor and I think he did a magnificent job. So did all the other actors, I especially liked Isabel Lucas in addition to Karl Urban. The only thing that bothered me was that Eric Stonestreet played a straight man, because he has left such a lasting impression with his performance in Modern Family that I just can't think of him as heterosexual ever again.

Whilst writing this blog post I discovered that the movie is actually a remake of a dutch-belgian movie of the same name released in 2008. I will definitely give that a try as well, as I loved this version. I would highly recommend this to people who like mystery and slow-thriller movies.

Til next time,
Ingrid

Getaway to Roosna-Alliku

NOTE: I wrote this post like a month ago and am just getting around to posting it, I am so sorry for my inability to be a functioning human being.

I spent the time between the 11^th and the 13^th June in Roosna-Alliku (a little borough in the center of Estonia) at my friend Ingrid’s (yes, we have the same name, it’s cool and confusing) house, because she was graduating. I’m only writing about it on the 19^th, because the days after that were a whirlwind. I went to a killer birthday party (shoutout to Siret for the amazing prazdnik), then I had a friend over with whom we watched “As Above so Below” (okay movie, the prettiest character died tho and the horror wasn’t that horrifying) and "Phineas and Ferb, the movie” (10/10 is all I can say) and ate a lot of ice cream (shoutout to Ramona for the v nice evening/night), then I packed and flew to Portugal. I’m in Amarante (a very little town in the north of Portugal) on a youth exchange, but more on that when I get back! I’ve been here for three days now and for now I only have positive emotions.

But back to what I wanted to talk about – the getaway to Roosna-Alliku. I was really excited for visiting Ingrid, because I hadn’t been to her place before (as she lives an hour away by car) and I really like discovering new places in Estonia. The day I got there we first went to Paide, a city near Roosna-Alliku, and walked around there. I really liked the ruins Paide had, because we found a way to climb into/onto them and I am a fan of all ruins I can climb on.  I was also surprised by how many stone statues Paide had! I didn’t count them, but man, you could see one on every corner of the town. 

 After having a little Paide tour, we drove to Ingrid’s place at Roosna-Alliku and cooked some pasta, tried to watch “22 Jump Street”, failed because the internet sucks, watched an other movie on dvd, went to the store to get some popcorn and generally chilled. When the sun was already starting to set we walked to the artificial lake near Roosna-Alliku to watch the sunrise there. It was a really beautiful evening.

The next day was a lot more physical for sure. After waking up and having breakfast, we took bikes and rode 6 km to another little place called Esna, where we went to see the manor and the forest chapel. Now, I thought I was almost in a good shape, but obviously half way to Esna it turned out I’d been very wrong. When we finally arrived in Esna I was tired as heck and had serious pains all over my body. It was worth it, though. The place was absolutely magical, especially the forest chapel and the way there. It was a narrow little path in the middle of a forest and the way the sun shone and there was this really slight wind, gave it such a fairytale forest vibe. And after walking along the path for a longer while, the white chapel just appeared seemingly out of nowhere. It had very magical vibes. The way back to Roosna-Alliku was a pain in the ass though, literally.

And the last day it was Ingrid’s graduation. As she goes to a little school, there were only 9 people graduating with her. The whole ceremony was so cute and had such a cosy vibe, because it seemed like everyone knew everyone, everyone thanked everyone and everyone liked everyone. Seriously nice and home-y.

After the graduation ceremony I had to hurry on a bus to make it to Siret’s birthday party. But I really enjoyed my little getaway to Roosna-Alliku. I think the greatest difference between my home and Ingrid’s was that Ingrid’s was so quiet and calm. I have two little brothers, so there’s always some kind of ruckus. At Ingrid’s there was no such thing, so I really enjoyed getting out of the noisy city for a few days.

Til next time,

Ingrid.

Recapping

So, a lot of things have happened since I last sat down and published a post on this blog. Let's have a little recap of those things.

• I finally saw "the Loft" - post coming soon
• I went on a mini getaway to Roosna-Alliku - post coming tonight!
• I went to Portugal for two weeks - post coming some time soon when I get more time to write
• I went on a mini getaway to Kangasniemi
• I had a fun little getaway in a tent with friends
• I watched "Ex Machina" and "Chappie" in the same night and had many emotions about robots - post coming definitely
• I camped for a night in Taevaskoja and had a fun day in Tartu with Siret - post coming with a lot of plant photos
• I went to the Viljandi Folk Music Festival and had a hoot - post coming some time in the future

That's a whole lot of stuff in my opinion, and it will definitely take me a lot of stuff to get all those posts written and published, but it's a task I'm going to take!

Til next time,
Ingrid

Лето – уже скоро

So I was taking the bus home yesterday after Zumba (I am so healthy and work out so much wow (notice the sarcasm), but I do love Zumba) and an advertisement came on the public tv thing. It was basically an advertisement for a hotel and showed clips of a happy family in the spa and in a restaurant and in their hotel room and then it said "Лето – уже скоро". Let's be honest I was on the verge of laughing because summer, soon? Tell that to the tons of homework and the impending exams.

Still, when I was walking home from the bus stop, I kinda got the first summer-y vibes of this spring. I don't know if it was the advertisement that had corrupted my brain or was it really there, but I truly felt summer to be just nearby, around the corner, ready to jump at me and wake me from this winter-ish slumber I've been in this whole spring. Spring's supposed to be my favourite time of the year, but this year I've had so much on my plate that I haven't really gotten the time to enjoy spring as much as I usually do. For example this one day I discovered that the grass was green and the threes had leaves all of a sudden. Now, I'm sure this didn't happen overnight and has been slowly happening for a while, but I just haven't noticed. What in my opinion is really sad.

Nevertheless, I'm in quite an optimistic mood now. I wanted to write this post yesterday, but I got home, ate, spent three and a half hours doing homework and then fell asleep right away. Today was also kind of a shitty day, so I was actually thinking of not writing this. But again, today walking home from the bus stop, even though it was a bit more cloudy than yesterday, I could smell this slight smell of mowed lawn and it wasn't dark yet and the threes had leaves and all I could think was "Лето – уже скоро".

This post was brought to you by almost optimistic feelings and procrastinating studying for a literature test. A mix that goes great with this song in my opinion.

Til next time,
Ingrid

Writer's block?

Fun fact: I wanted to update this blog at least once a week. It's currently been 15 days since my last post. For those of you that struggle with basic maths (myself included) that's two weeks and one day - two posts should have been up by yesterday. I have three posts as drafts at the moment. One that contains some ideas I want to make posts about, one that's topic needs some background info search that I have no motivation for and one that I started writing a week ago and just couldn't finish. I knew what I wanted to say with the post, but getting the words out was so hard. So I tried writing something creative instead. As some of you may know I write poems and short stories (and have been trying to write a novel and a screenplay for a short film recently (over-achiever much?)) from time to time. And though I had an idea for a short story I couldn't put it in words and that frustrated me a lot. I guess you could call this feeling writer's block. I'll try to get my creative juices flowing again soon, but in the mean time do yourself a favour and watch the Big Fat Quiz of the Year 2006 it is the most amazing thing ever.

Til next time,
Ingrid