3.8 → 7.8:

This was the last week of the language course. In all it was a fairly eventful week. We continued trying out different café’s around the town for lunch. Towards the end of the week it seemed that summer had finally arrived in Tartu, with the temperature climbing into the mid 20’s – all the locals are complaining about the heat! All week a film event, Tartuff, was held on the Raekoja plats, with two films screened each evening from 10pm. As my accommodation overlooks the square, I was able to stick my head out the window and see what was going on.

Tartuff setup as viewed from my window

The crowd on the first night

On Monday afternoon we watched the film Elavad pildid or Living Images. This tells the story of the people who live in a house in Tallinn throughout the twentieth century. Each era was presented in its own movie style, from silent film to present day. This was quite a unique way of portraying the events of this time and overall it was a good film. However, at 2 hours 15 minutes, it was a bit on the long side.

On Tuesday afternoon I met up with Gustavo, from the previous course, for a drink on the Raekoja plats. Gustavo has recently moved to Tartu from Brazil to be with his recently married wife and raise a family. He’s currently finding his feet in this new country. We had a most pleasant evening and will no doubt meet up in Tartu again.

On Wednesday we went on a tour of the A. Le Coq brewery. This brewery was founded by a bloke called Albert Le Coq (of Belgian origin) in London in 1807. In order to improve its trade with Prussia, the brewery moved to its present site in Tartu. This brewery is the oldest to be continually running in Estonia and its A. Le Coq Premium is the most popular beer in Estonia. Most of the beer is produced for the domestic market with only ~15% exported. Most of this goes to the various expat communities around the world, including Australia. I was pleased to say that I had seen and sampled A. Le Coq at the Adelaide Eesti Maja! The tour took us through some of the old brew house buildings as well as the current factory, where they were packaging soft drinks. The highlight of the tour was visiting the bar at the end where we were able to sample the plethora of different beverages they produce, some good and some not so good.

A. Le Coq 

Bottling

Atop A. Le Coq

The view from atop A. Le Coq

On Thursday we had our final test, which was again for self-assessment. The reason for doing the test on Tuesday was to enable Sälly, our teacher, to mark the work and provide feedback. This meant that, come Thursday evening, some celebration was in order. So, Martin, a fellow student from Latvia, and I decided to check out some of the local pubs. Martin has been to Tartu on multiple occasions so he had a good idea of which places to visit. We started at a bar called Kellar which stocks an impressive selection of beers and ciders from around Estonia and the world. I was pleased to see that the one and only Australian beer on the menu was Coopers Pale Ale. After sampling some very nice Estonian and Latvian beers we moved onto another joint which was filled with people lounging around outside, some playing table tennis and some taking it very seriously. Hipster came to mind. It was very pleasant. For dinner we went to a Georgian restaurant. I must admit that Georgian cuisine is not something that I had previously considered. Apparently there are actually two Georgian restaurants in Tartu, so I’ll have to check out the other one when I’m back there. I had some rather nice lamb shashliks.

A nice Latvian beer

Kellar

In the class on Friday we finished off the remaining sections in the textbook and found out how we fared in the test. I did about as well as I expected to and can see that I have a looong way to go. However, I think the last four weeks have set a good foundation for further study and I certainly plan to continue on.

To finish we watched a kids film called Lotte ja Kuukivi Saladus/Lotte and the Moonshine Secret. Apparently, this film was so popular in Estonia that a theme park, Lottemaa, was opened as a result.

The certificate presentation was somewhat bigger than the last. We had a little celebration with coffee and cake to conclude the course and farewell out tutors and teachers. A group of us then went for a celebratory drink on the Raekoja plats and had a most relaxing afternoon.

We all met again that evening at the Püssirohukelder for dinner and had a most pleasant evening. Lots of people had to be off early the next morning so it wasn’t a particularly late night. I managed to find a free space on the Raekoja plats to watch that nights screening, X+Y. Quite a good film as it turned out.