Merry Christmas!! Joyeux Noël!!

Merry Christmas and all the best for my readers, their family and friends and everyone in between for who health, joy, good fortune and work will bless them in the coming new year.

Experience from Estonia by Hanka

Hanka, the new volunteer in Nooruse Maja my organisation, has made a new blog about her experience in Pärnu. She just arrived so for now there is not much. It is up to your people, especially from Estonia to make it lively, suggest places she can visit in Estonia or other Baltic countries, etc.

Don't Hesitate to visit her blog and comment.

Experience from Estonia

They will be sad when I will leave.

    Last week we launched the exhition about our pictures and art in our organisation. We had the surprise to have some TV reporter from Estonia national channel coming to shoot something to make a short news report about our event. so if you want to watch it, just click on the link below. It should open in another window. Tell me it is not playing in your country. 

News Report on ETV1, Wednesday Sept 12th, 2012.

all right reserved.

Porcelain paiting - Tinga-tinga technique

Here is some of my artwork I did, I started during our Porcelain Days in late July. I was helped by the other participans as it was my big painting and I woul like to thanks in particular Mai Kolossova, our porcelain painting teacher who came earlier on saturday last week to help me.

Minu Eestimaa - L'estonie et moi

    Now, I'm in the final month of my European Voluntary Service in Nooruse Maja. So I have to think about how to arrange things to go back to France and how I can leave a footprint here. The latter being of course exceptional because I will do it. XD

   When I arrived here in Estonia, my tutor Uudo told about an exhibition we should do by the end of our EVS with Katerina. He told us to think about this when we are travelling around the country to take some very good quality pictures to be used for this exhibition.

   And now have come the time to do it. We agreed on the dates (Sept 8th-19th), the preview (Sept 8th, same day as our open door afternoon). I selected about 19 pictures from which I should only take half since I have to share the frames with Katerina. I also asked for some help from Hana, the new volunteer from Czech Republic who will take our place. She did a really great job for the photo montage I kindly request her to do for the exhibition. You can see it on the poster i made today. It is a montage made of pictures I took, except one I must say (thanks Daire ;) to recreate a map of Estonia and its provinces. 

   I'm trully happy with this work. The montage also shows the effort of dissemination and collaboration between EVS, the handover of our work here to the new person volunteering in our organisation. During my EVS, I had to help Uudo about reports for projects he took part in and lots of times we had the question how we could do follow-up and dissemination. Having Hana preparing this with my pictures can be also a good presention of her skills. 

    So if you want to join us for this exhibition, please come in Nooruse Maja, roheline 1b, Pärnu 80036 from Saturday Sept 8th to 19th and enjoy our pictures and arts about how we see Estonia, the places we visited. I haven't thought much about it, but if there are some pictures you like, it might be possible to make a reproduction so you can get it back home for a fair price.

Just a little bit more...

Hello dear readers,

    Just a reminder about our Linedance Festival. I've juct checked and we should have a normal weather, not so hot but not rainy. So please come and join us. 

    Not only we will have this record attemps but also a nice concert on sunday in Vaalikaar. Our visitors will be able to buy food and drinks from Kaia and her kitchen. I've been here 6 months and not a single time she disappointed me with the food she made for us in the organisation. 

    So please come, better if you register before but not necessary. Check our facebook page to know the latest updates.

Open-Air music concerts are for summer!!

     In my home town in France, I love summer time, who doesn't??? I'm especially wiating for the "Café de l'Eté" or Summer Café which is a music festival spread over end of june until early august. Music groups or singers come and entertain us in the townhall garden, just behind the main square.  I always go to one or two concerts at least. This year i won't be able to enjoy it as I'm in Estonia. but not anywhere in Estonia, in the summer capital, Pärnu. 

    That means lots of activities, festivals to attend after work. As I'm missing those open-air concerts in France, I was very happy to see they organised the same thing here. This one is every week on wednesday at 7pm, close to the beach. They decided to focus this year on swing and jazz music and they asked groups from around Pärnu or close to the city. That's really cool they opted for that. This way, groups will have at least a few dates to promote and will be enjoy a wonderful public. 

Estonian Linedance Festival (Aug. 4th & 5th, 2012): record broken!!!

Dear Readers,

We received a thrilling news a few days ago. A group of people in the USA broke our record by around 200 people, the official number being 2569 beating our record of 2354 people. So now we definitely need our 3000 people to come!!!!

Please register now in our website (linefest.com) for the chance to get a  discount for registration before July 1st!!! You can contact us through our website, or write us directly at kaie@estonianlinedance.com or info@noorusemaja.ee or simply drop me a email.

Come one, join the fun!!!!

Share the news with your friends, colleagues, families.

We can accomodate people in wheelchairs if needed!! 

Parnu International Choir Festival and the Wingate University Choir

     When I was asked by Uudo to take care of a group of American students coming to Pärnu for this Festival, I decline coz I already planned to do some activities with two groups of pupils learning French. With those two classes, I just played « Drawing is winning ». I show them cards with words or expressions on it they had to draw. Of course they couldn’t speak or use any letter on the chalk board. It was really fun with the second group since they were really looking for the clock (each person had one minute to draw and make his/her team mates guess), they were really into the game. The team made only of boys were a bit disappointed not to win, especially since they lost to a group of girls !

     So when I had to go back home I decided to go the gelato shop who happened to be open for the first time just that day. So I decided to go there and check out the new flavour they had. I couldn’t resist the Belgian Chocolate, Kiwi and Vanilia flavour. It was awsome to eat it. When I had to leave, I met some of the students who were chaperonned by Katerina in the end. They were really friendly. So we decided to go meet again after their performance of the night somewhere to grab a drink or two or three or…… We ended up on one of the playground on the beach. We basically talked until 3 or 4 am, when the sun was coming up.

    The next morning they had to be on the beach to take some group pictures before their performance on Ruutli square. Let say some needed more time to freshen up before taking the pic. ;-) At some point I had to leave them for lunch and after eating just before going back home, I stumble upon a small group of them. They were looking for the donuts place famous in Pärnu. So I took them there. They couldn’t get away from the counter and kept on ordering again. Of course, they had to share the information to the rest of the group. After their performance in a Tori Church, a few kms away from Pärnu, some of them came to the little bar where we were enjoying our evening. To get some music, some people decided to put on the tv to watch the eurovision song contest. Those American students who came were surprised some of our group were so much into this show !! 

video of Walking the Light by the Wingate University Choir and Finland's Phonik Choir

    (sorry can't post the vids directly for now)

     The next morning, they had their final perfomance at the City Hall with a group from Finland. They managed to get their hands on some estonian choir music while in Tallinn, song they practice while on the bus to Pärnu or to the diffrence places they performed. It was very nice of them to do it even they were not obliged. It was a great gift to the Estonian people who great them. They made another surprise. While they were in Tori Church, they decided with that fininsh group to do a song in common (video above). Their last performance of Sholosa (video below) was just before the reward ceremony where they finished first place !! congrats to them, they deserved it.

video of Shosholoza by the Wingate University Choir

(sorry can't post the vids directly for now)

Just a few picture from places in Estonia

Tallinn - view of the old town on the right

Tallinn - view by (almost) night

 Tallinn - Kadriorg Park

When in Pärnu?

    I took this picture recently just outside my house, my new house next to the river. I've been told about this before I arrive here in Estonia but I didn't belive it. So when I had the opportunity to take this pic, I seize it. 

    The most surprising feature about this is the time when it was taken. Make a guess about it, I'd love to know your idea about it. Please give me a good laugh. 

My first official Italian ice-cream

     Ah it was a great day for my stomach on Friday.  After participating in some activities with some French learning pupils in a local school, I went shopping and bring the food back home. I had to check my emails and i saw this very good news: Mama Toni's gelato is officially open!! I just send my friend a message and set off for the shop. I drive my bicycle pretty fast for once since I really wanted to get my hands on the new flavours they had to offer. 

     So when I arrived there, I checked directly what's on offer and decided for Belgian Chocolate, Pistaccio and Vanilia. What a treat!! The nice and warm weather invited me to have it on their terrasse while talking to Paul, Toni's husband who help setting the shop, Bas, deputy gelato maker and when I was inside, talking with Toni, my delicious American friend who decided to set this up in Little Pärnu. 

Estonian LineDance Festival (Aug 4th & 5th, 2012)

Hello everybody,

     As Summer is coming very fast, you have to decide what to do for your holidays. Here is an excellent idea. You can come and enjoy a few days in the Estonian summer capital dancing with lots of people. We need your participation as we want to beat a guiness world record, the longest single line dance. So please visit our webpage to register or send me an email,  we will do you best to answer you as fast as possible. Do not hesitate to share the poster or any information about our festival to anyone who might be interested.

Media review: in the press (english version)

    Finally thanks to a estonian friend, I managed to translate the article a journalist wrote about me and Katerina the other wolunteers in Nooruse Maja. Now for all my fanbase, here is the article published in Pärnu Postimees by Karin Klaus on March 10th for the week-end edition. The original article in Estonian with a photo of the newspaper article is here.

Volunteer are bringing fresh air to Rääma

    In Nooruse Maja there has been already volunteers from EVS already for 3 years. During the past, the volunteers have been from France and this year they are from France and Macedonia.

    Pierre-Marie Brianceau and Katarina Petreska arrived in Pärnu on a freezing cold february day and so far they are quite pleased.

    Katerina states that she could’ve choosen between Greece, Romania and Estonia and comparing to other Eastern European countries, it seemed exotic enough. Katerina did volunteer work already back home while being a mentor in an ecology project. In the future she likes to work with young people or create her own organisation because she has always liked helping people.

    Pierre-Marie who studied international business management at home said that he joined EVS because he was looking for a new challenge, wanted to find and meet new interesting people. In the future he would like to work with European international projects and EVS experience will definitely become useful. In summer he would like to organise something with the current volunteers in Estonia because that would help to increase the co-operating and it would help solve problems.

    During the month the volunteers have lived in Pärnu they have already participated in the Ice Festival, helped to organise the Theatre festival and also have gotten to travel around Estonia and participate in a volunteer seminar in Viljandi.

Pierre is helping to the students who are learning french and he has plans to start organising theme nights to introduce chinese language and culture. Both of the volunteers have just started the Estonian classes.

    On the free time Katerina loves walking, reading and shopping. Pierre is looking for a place to play volleyball and currently he’s also keeping the blog fromparnuwithlove.blogspot.com in where he writes stories about Pärnu, including funny moments such as eating vastlakukkel (traditional estonian brioches made on Shrove day), sledging, walking across the Pärnu river on first time and so on. All that illustrating it with plenty of photos.

    To get more acquainted with Pierre, people can join the French day on 24th of March and the macedonian day will be on the 14th of April.

„Hard working and educated people“ stated the manager of Nooruse Maja Uudo Laane who said that Pierre and Katerina are assisting Nooruse Maja with current European projects, helping to organise events and do some advertising. The main purpose is to use the young people’s ideas as much as possible to get some extra value to Nooruse Maja.

During those couple of weeks they have lived here, they have already both found lots of new friends, learned how to walk on ice and etc. They also stated that though they are coming from warmer climate, with open-minded society, even though people on the street don’t kiss or hug and seems rather distant, they are very nice and kind people once you get to know them.

    Katerina was touched by the movie about the Estonian Singing revolution and she said that it was so touching that people just come together and sing. She also thinks that Estonia is much calmer and nicer than Macedonia because there is less cars and people are not rushing everywhere.

    The volunteers are gonna be in Pärnu until September and already Uudo Laane is looking for other volunteers. He says that he gets multiple applications every day and so he has plenty of people to choose from. He also states that it’s irrelevant which country the person is from but rather the ideas, initiative, creativity that are what are important for him.

And the winner is…..

    Early last week, we were told by our tutor Nooruse Maja will the place where a children and youth theater competition will be held the Friday after this conversation. I was curious about it and already wanted to check this. Uudo asked us if we wanted to be part of the jury who will give away some awards for best group and best actor or actress. We were a bit afraid at first but the challenge was appealling. The only downsize I saw from this was the time of start for this contest. At 9am, it’s a bit early for me. As I work mainly in the afternoon,    I can go to bed late and sleep through the morning.

    So when the day finally came, I went to my organisation for 9am to meet with the last of the jury member. This old lady was very friendly and at the nice age of 73 years old, she was still pretty active in the drama are. The day was divided into two parts. The 1st one was dedicated to after-school clubs when we had 3 groups to judge. This was more easy than I think since we agree on all the awards we had to give away. The 2^nd part of the contest was for school drama clubs. As we already had some experience before we all thought it woulld be very similar but on the contrary, it was harder. Even with the list of actors, some times we couldn’t get who was who in the play. Even the last memver of the jury who was Estonian couldn’t make the difference between all the actors and actresses. We managed to overcome this difficulty but i’m pretty sure if it was not that hard we would have made other choices.

    I was pleased with our choices. We were there to judge for drama acts not musicals as some of them turned out to be. It was a shame as two classes were very good and made a huge effort on the decoration. We went for those with the less songs, and we elected the first group who played something about the twelve months. Apparently it was some kind of fairy tale know in Eastern and South-East Europe. We give them the Mask for the 2012 best school drama club. I really like the idea of the trophy being a Mask. Instead of having a ugly cup with which you cannot do a thing, on this mask, they could write all the winners from the first year of this contest. I also appreciate the white chocolate with strawberries we had as part of the thank you gift for being in the jury.

Mr Spring is here, will he stay?

Everything is possible, even "hot temperatures" in Estonia. Let's hope it ill stay that way.
edit: no he didn't stay. someone must have scared him away.

6 things you should know before doing an EVS in Estonia

Hilarious video I found on the Internet about what you should know before doing an EVS in Estonia.

Enjoy!!

The Ice Festival (2): ice hockey games.

        It may sound not as interesting for my north-american readers, both Canadians and from the USA, but I wanted to see some hockey games during this festival. I didn’t know anything about it and never went to one game in my life. The closest thing I’ve done was watching the Olympic final between USA and Canada during the Salt Lake City games in 2004 with some of the Canadian students who lived in my student hall. So I was looking forward to it.

       So on Saturday, I managed to waked up not too late to go and see some of the games in Vallikäär where they had the opening ceremony. The players took it seriously but it wasn’t as violent as a game in the NHL. Moreover, they had some women playing with them. One of the goal keepers was one the woman from Tallinn. They had small matches of two periods of about 10 min each not to make it too long for people to watch. When we had the teams from Pärnu or the women team playing, more people were encouraging them. I didn’t understand a word of what my fellow supporter said but I guessed it. I don’t understand the rules of the game but it’s always fun to cheer up for one of the teams, especially if they’re playing well and fair.

The international French speaking days (1): first thoughts.

One of the projects I will be working during those months here will be the organisation of a day dedicated to my country or to be more precise to the French speaking countries. I thought at first I would do something around my national day which is on July 14^th but summer is a very busy season in Pärnu. So we decided to focus on the International French language day which is on March 20^th. My tutor wants me to organise this to make people discover my country and the regions that shared/are sharing common history with us.

As the previous volunteer were also from France, it make easier for me to think and organise that day. I can use some of the materials they created for the event, use the feedback to change some of my ideas. Something that has always success is the cooking classes or lunch. Even though we’re not from the same culture, sharing food make contact easier and better. So far I thought about an exhibition on the different French speaking countries, a small presentation about France and its tradition or some cooking classes to prepare our lunch, meal we will share like a buffet. In the afternoon, I think to do some activities when people can participate, when they can be pro-active and not just watchers.

Along with this day, I will help the French teachers with their French cultural week. I have plenty of games to do like tongue twisters but very difficult ones are more fun, games around vocabulary (hangman is always a winner), maybe some cooking classes when we will do pancakes. My only limit is the participation of pupils and their will to make those events a success.

Welcome to my blog !

In this tiny piece of Internet, you will find texts and news about my experience as a European Volunteer in Parnu on the west coast of Estonia.

I will share my thoughts, what I like or hate, my visits, my photos and all those little things that make an experience unforgetable.

Whether you like or hate, want to make comments, do not hesitate to write a message in this blog. I will try to answer to all and update as often as possible. 

Enjoy!