The Ice Festival (3): the concert given by the mayor of Pärnu

                When I was looking for some information about Estonia, I discovered this little country has two independence days. Or better said, one independence day and one re-independence day. The first one that happened this week on Feb 24^th was for the first independence time Estonia had back in 1918 when they liberated themselves from the Russian Empire of the fallen Romanov. The 2^nd I.D. was for their pacific liberation after the explosion of the USSR in 1991. That 2^nd I.D. is called by some people the re-independence day as they got it back after more than sixty years of foreign domination (German during WWII and Russian after WWII). The latter will be talked later as Estonians organize every year huge singing festival to commemorate those events.

 The Pärnu City Orchestra

                My tutor thought about us as he was the one to give us his invitation for two to go see this concert. Since he can go every year, he offered us the two tickets. I already had the necessary clothes for this event as I planned to go on some interviews if I had passé the first stage of my entrance exams. But Katerina, the other volunteer, just had one dress but no shoes or stockings. She was a bit panicked about it but in the end, she went shopping and found something useful for this night. The difficulties began when we had to go the concert hall. Since she was wearing high heels, it took us about 20 min when it takes us only 5 in the morning to walk on the same road. We managed to arrive just on time, just before the national anthem. 

 The two soloists

                This was followed by 1h15 of speeches and songs by children. For one moment, when they gave the city and county medals, it would drag on forever as some people couldn’t stop talking. When the music finally started, it was nice to listen to some nice music even though I couldn’t understand a single word of it. They only sung in Estonian. In a future I hope that won’t be too far away, I would be able to understand part if not all of what they said. At the end of the 45 musical minutes, we had a cocktail in the lobby. Depending on what you prefer (the finger food or the free champagne) it was better to stay in the main lobby or in the 2^nd floor. In the end, they offered us some nice chocolates truffles with tea or coffee. I had a nice red tea and to avoid having two plates (one for the drink, one for the chocolates), I put them next to my cup. I just forgot chocolate melted next to sources of heat!!