Independence day

26th February, Saturday, 2 days after the independence day. Alarm goes off quite early and i think "Can I move?" Fortnately P had told me the day before that she has no time in the morning and M had not replied about his morning plans, so I texted his, saying tha I will not take the early train and will come by later one instead. A few exercises helped to know that my knee is OK. Why? Because it is March next week and we decided with E to go running from March, but because I do not really want to run, I decided to jump against the ice with my knee on Friday when we went skating with many people from the office. (It was an accident and for the first time I had to ask an ice rink worker to take me to the side, because I could not put weigt on my knee -- they had seen me falling before too and probably thought I am fine).

I had to wear a dress because black trousers would have needed me to wear heels, something that would be quite stupid to do!

Bus to the city centre and train to London, I was ready to find the place where I had to go. With the help of my phone and doing several rounds on one street, I found it, knew I was close because somebody said "Tere". Later, waiting for M and P in front of the hall, we said "Tere" to everybody going past, discussing how we know they are Estonians. Why not say "Tere", if they are not Estonians, they would not understand anyway and not react.

There were soooo many children, speaking Estonian! Estonian School in London sang two songs and also the Estonian mixed choir of London.

The London Estonia  mixed choir sang two songs, Laul põhjamaast (song about northern Land) ja Ärkamise aeg (Time of awakening).

Just confirming my friends' comments that all Estonian songs are sad. When I came to the UK, I did not have any sheet music, so everything I played was in my head and in my head, there were only sad songs and still are, not that I am sad.

Tunne Kelam, an Estonian member of the European Parliament and his wife, Mariann Kelam, member of Estonian Parliament were invited to the event. Mariann gave a nice speach, especially because it was so similar to Paul's letter to Tessalonians:) I think Tunne Kelam reinforced the point of loving our brothers by saying that when they moved to Estonia, the main party was the party of starers (Põrnitsejate partei). Of course, we still say that our national food is other Estonian. He talked about how he tried to fit into the parliament, about smiling and being trustworthy.

Some nice Estonians had prepared 600 sandwiches with small special fish, kilu! Sandwiches of course made of black bread. We had a non-Estonian with us and he said he likes the fish and bread!

After the formal part, two Estonian and our friend decided to go to the Estonian pub. Two Estonians, two quite clever phones told me that it is about 1.5 km. Of course the Estonians wnated to walk, no matter what our friend thought. He said "Oh well, you are Estonins". So we walked and found it, after missing some turns.

I ordered my drink and the Estonian behind the bar said: "You are not Estonian, are you?" Did he think that my sentence was well rehearsed? I said in clear Estonian that I am! P wanted to order a glass of water, but he did not understand why would anybody drink water on an independence day, so he convinced her to have wine instead. No seats, because it was full of Estonians. Finally we went upstairs and M, our non-Estonian found a friend, an Estonian. P has colourfully described the contrast of these two personalities, one Estonian, one not.

M asked how I know P, the Estonian. I said we have just met, the weekend before she came to Birmingham to visit me. He seemed puzzled. We had never met because I have been away for quite long time. I met her through another Estonian biologist, who wrote a blog with her. There was another writer (but her I met once before going to visit her far away), she gave me bread starter mix! And I wrote a blog, in Estonian, a more personal and detailed one.