13.7:

I had a fairly laid back start to the morning. Registration for the language course was due to open at noon. As it turned out, a fellow participant, Frieda from Germany checked into my hostel that morning. It was funny to note that my journey to Tallinn from Adelaide took about the same time as hers from Berlin. So, we got ourselves over to jakobi 2 at noon and registered for the course, a process which took all of about two minutes. I returned home to have lunch and then it was back to start lessons at 1pm. The students are a real mixed bunch of people, with just as varied reasons for wishing to study Estonian. There are only seven participants, apparently significantly fewer than previous years, and only one of those is female, apparently also highly unusual. The predominant reason for wishing to study is that a girlfriend or spouse is Estonian. One guy, from San Paulo Bazil, population 20 million, has just got married and moved to Tartu, population 100,000. Quite the culture shock. Other reasons include wanting to learn a language from a different language group and a general love of Estonia. I’m the only one with a genealogical connection.

After the lessons we went on a guided tour of the city. This was followed by a supper to get to know one another better, as well as meeting our tutors and some others from the school.