There was a festival in Tartu this weekend. In fact there were two festivals at the same time: Hansapäevad (Hanseatic days) and Europeade, a folk dance & music festival. Since the first one mostly consisted of a large marketplace for (mostly traditional) crafts and some fairground activities (bouncy castles for kids, some crafts and games), the singing and dancing of the latter complemented it very well. They sort of matched each other in their traditionality, and you could walk around among the market stalls while listening to folk music. And see lots of people walking around in traditional costume, which I like a lot. Nice. (We enjoyed it last year, too.)

Today we went to Ahhaa keskus, Tartu’s newly-opened science museum, together with a friend and her kids. A large section with water-related activities (pumps, spouts, water wheels etc) and a mirror labyrinth were the kids’ favourites. I liked their chicken hatchery but the chickens hatching today were very lazy and barely made any progress during the hours we were there (even though the exhibit intro text said that they can hatch in as little as 15 minutes).

Traditional entertainment

Traditional crafts, modern design

Bungee trampoline: totally modern fun

We took the overnight ferry from Stockholm to Tallinn and this morning continued our trip by driving to Tartu. In Tartu we checked into our guest apartment and then headed out for some urgent grocery shopping – the pantry was stocked with salt and pepper, cooking oil, and some flour and sugar, and not much else. Oh, right, there was some flax seed and flax seed meal, too. I didn’t even know that flax seed meal existed, but even so, it definitely didn’t get us any closer to lunch.

The kitchen this year has both a proper modern stove and a water kettle and a microwave oven – quite luxurious compared to what I got last year. On the other hand there is exactly one saucepan, about one litre in size, and no serving spoons or ladles of any sort. Tomorrow I’ll see if our host can lend us some more equipment.

We were met in Tartu by a most unpleasant heat wave. 29°C with high humidity, “feels like 35°C” according to the weather report. I had flashbacks to last summer’s trip. Luckily this time I’m not 7 months pregnant and can take the heat slightly better. Adrian on the other hand was really suffering. Tomorrow we’ll be fleeing to the countryside to escape the worst of the heat.

Bad luck: With 4 hours left until our departure for Estonia (by car and ferry), the car’s electrical system died. No power to even lock or unlock the doors. Based on the car’s behaviour just before it lost power, Eric decided that the battery was faulty. Frantic phone calls to half a dozen gas stations and garages ensued.

Good luck: After maybe half an hour we found a gas station that stocked the right make. Eric cycled to Vällingby and back, and installed the new battery. That was enough to bring the car back to life.

Bad luck: At the car queue at the ferry terminal, a car ran over my left foot.

Good luck: Barely a bruise resulted, and some slight scratch marks.

Today was Estonian playgroup day. Even though the event itself takes two hours (10 to 12) it takes up well over half of our Sunday. First we have to make sure we don’t dawdle over breakfast. Next I have to either get Adrian to sleep in the sling, or keep him awake until it’s time to leave so he can sleep in the stroller. Then it takes us about an hour to get there (walk/cycle, train, metro, walk). Afterwards, eat a snack (sandwiches from the cafe for Ingrid, packed milk-free sandwiches for me). Then about an hour to get home, usually a bit more since I cannot time it with the train schedule. Finally a late lunch when we get home. By this time it’s usually three o’clock.

Ingrid was in a bad mood on the way home, pretty much from the start. It began with the usual “my legs are tired” and then everything seemed to make things worse. By final part of the journey, walking and cycling home from the station, she was snapping at me all the time.

And then she cycled into me. I could feel her cycling right behind me, almost touching my heel. I don’t know if she wanted to hit me or if she was just seeing how much such snapping at my heels would annoy me. In any case she did cycle onto my foot, and it wasn’t an unfortunate accident. I was totally mad at her, grabbed her bike and carried it home, and declared it off limits for the rest of the day. She, not the least bit repentant, kept yelling at me about how she couldn’t possibly walk home and how she wanted her bike.

The bike curfew (or whatever I should call it) was easy to explain: if she cannot use it sensibly without hurting people around her, she is not allowed to use it.

But what I was really mad about was how she just thought I’d forget about this and be all cuddly and want to hold her hand to comfort her (because she was upset about having to walk). She more or less deliberately runs me over and then she’s the one who wants comforting?

We had a talk about it afterwards. She doesn’t like to talk about upsetting stuff but we did it anyway. I believe that she fundamentally doesn’t “get” empathy yet. She hears that I sound hurt/upset/angry but doesn’t seem to understand how I feel. It’s as if she thought I’m just putting on an act. She doesn’t understand why you should say you’re sorry when you hurt someone. We don’t hurt each other very often at home – she is not a hitter, I don’t hit her, we don’t have many painful accidents – so perhaps she doesn’t get much practice. I know the staff at preschool try to teach the kids to apologize when they’ve hurt each other, which they certainly do with reasonable frequency, but it doesn’t look like she’s gotten the point. She apologizes for ridiculous small accidents – for spilling juice on the table, for dropping a spoon – but not for the big stuff. I explained the purpose of apologies but I’m not sure how much of a difference it can make if basic empathy is lacking.

Today we visited Tartu Hansapäevad (Tartu Hanseatic Days), a summer festival in central Tartu. Lovely. I associate festivals with loud music, crowds, crappy expensive food, and sellers of cheap tat. We didn’t sample any of the food, other than ice cream, but on all other fronts, this was the opposite in all ways.

The city centre was way more crowded than usual, of course, but not so bad that it would get annoying (and my threshold for crowd tolerance is low, believe me). The stalls were all spacious and spread out, which made the festival area easy to get around. It wasn’t even hard to get around with a buggy.

The music (where present) was provided mostly by wind orchestras and brass bands, since this year’s Hansapäevad coincided with a wind music festival.

Instead of cheap tat, there was a huge market for traditional Estonian handicrafts: wood working and wood carving, pottery, knitted wool, felted wool, embroidery and sewing, smithery, traditional food and so on. A lot of lovely stuff to look at! In some senses I may not be strongly Estonian any more, but I do feel a strong affinity to Estonian crafts. The feel of the Estonian woollen yarns (hand spun, slightly rough, unbleached), the smell of juniper wood, the look of the traditional striped fabrics – it all says “home” to me. I love Estonian traditional textiles in particular, and wish I could fit them into my wardrobe without clashing with everything else I wear.

They had even thought of families with children. Not just the usual bouncy castles (although there was an area with such junk as well) but also meet-a-policeman, pony rides, and a lot of craftsy activities for kids of all ages: stamp your own shopping bag, draw and paint, make a paper doll with real fabric clothes. Even better, the activities were not all in one corner of the festival area. We could alternate between window shopping (stall shopping?) for me and activities for Ingrid, so no one got bored.

Add ice cream, and a fountain to splash in, and great weather (below 30°C!) and it was a roaring success for us.

The weather forecast for the next 7 days in Tartu: more of the awful heat. I thought today was disgustingly hot, and it’s not going to get better any time soon. Gaah!

And Tartu doesn’t even have a lake, a public pool or any other kind of outdoor swimming. (That’s puzzled me for years now. A simple wading pool would make a huge difference.)

Ingrid and I are on vacation in Estonia (leaving Eric at home to work, mow the lawn, water the kitchen garden and eat all the nice strawberries that were just ripening when we left).

We flew to Tallinn yesterday and spent the first day and night with an old friend of mine in Tallinn. This afternoon we took the bus onwards to Tartu, where we’ll be staying the majority of our time here, almost two weeks. We were met by proper high summer weather: 30°C heat alternating with thunderstorms. (It’s pouring down outside now, and finally cooling a bit, after several very unpleasant hours of sticky, sweaty heat.)

In Tartu we’re renting a guest apartment. Somewhat to my surprise, there were a number of such apartments on offer in Tartu. I picked the cheapest one, not so much because it was cheap (although that also mattered) but mostly for its convenient location.

Given the price and the apartment’s non-commercial landlord (the Estonian Society of Naturalists) I wasn’t expecting a high standard. And that’s fine – I don’t need fashionable furnishings or cable TV. I wanted a kitchen, a bathroom, and an internet connection. This apartment promised all three, and technically delivers all three. I have no complaints about the internet connection, and the bathroom looks reasonable. (Although I’ve yet to investigate the quality of the hot water supply). But the kitchen really surprised me on the downside. I mean, if someone rents an apartment rather than staying at a hotel, it’s probably because they want a kitchen, right?

I can understand that someone of the older generation might consider a microwave oven to be a non-essential item. I can live with that. But this kitchen has a stove from the 1970s, with those black iron hotplates, dreadfully slow – and no kettle to compensate. Dinner tonight took forever; I’d lost the habit of turning on the stove as soon as I’ve decided that dinner will be needed.

Tomorrow we will go shopping for essential kitchen equipment:

• A kettle, so that we can cook pasta in under half an hour
• A pair of scissors
• A potholder or two
• Salt (of which there was some, but there was so much rice in the salt shaker that I barely managed to get any of it out)

Still, I’m not unhappy, given the price of this place. The next cheapest place cost double, and several other guest apartments cost triple the price of this one. Even the kitchen investments will cost me no more than two nights’ price difference to the next apartment on my list.

You know you are an Estonian when (in addition to the 148 other things that mark an Estonian) your breakfast consists of rye bread and freshly pickled cucumbers.

(I found an English-language version of the “slow pickle” recipe, but nothing for the “quick pickle” that is ready after a day or two, which is what Eric and my mum made.)

First I was happy to be here in Tartu, and had lots to do – people to meet, books to buy, etc.

After a week I was getting restless. I’m not used to doing nothing but hanging around at playgrounds, and occasionally shopping for groceries. I miss cycling, or some other kind of physical activity. I miss doing something productive.

Since then we’ve been slightly more active (longer walks, some visits to a beach) and had slightly more different people around us, and the restlessness has abated somewhat. And now that I have one more day left in Tartu, and two half-days in Tallinn, I’m already slightly sad about leaving.

But I’m thinking that next year I might rent a car (or perhaps a bike), so we can get out more.

It used to be that, among the first things I would do when visiting Estonia, I would buy bread and kohuke (a quark-based chocolate-glazed dessert). Now I’ve gotten used to foreign bread and also found better bread than I used to in Sweden, so the bread is not as important any more. And the kohukesed have degraded; most feel slightly gluey (pumped full of hydrogenated fat) and too sweet for my taste.

During this summer’s trip we have instead eaten our fill of strawberries (cultivated as well as wild) and peas, straight from the pod, although not straight from the bush. Next summer we will definitely have to plant some peas.