To Estonia and Back Again

Five of us from Wallace Hall Academy, Scotland, travelled to Estonia, Tartu (‘city of good thoughts’) at the end of September. After a brief flight we arrived on the Sunday, spending a couple of hours with our host families before coming together and socialising with the whole group. We had the chance to enjoy a sauna, a very common Estonian tradition, and we enjoyed getting to know everyone as a group.

On Monday we started school at 9.30am and the Estonians took us on a tour of their school, which included a sauna, Petanque courts and a school museum. After that we took part in a ‘warm up’ run by a member of the school’s Pupil Council. We were then put into groups for our project work about food waste, and the groups consisted of one Scot, one Belgian, and two Estonians. Our task was to create a digital story which we would then present later in the week.

A delicious, healthy lunch was next on the agenda which was followed by a presentation about Estonia. We heard about their lack of hills (their highest peak is 318m), their small population of 1.3 million and learned some Estonian phrases. At about four o clock we started to prepare and set up the food court which showcased traditional food from Belgium, Scotland and Estonia. The Scottish food was gone quite quickly!

On the second day, joined by the Estonian pupils, we had a presentation about Belgium in the school’s Auditorium. We then went to an organic farm where we tried some tea that was made on the farm and sampled some Pirozhki (delicious baked or fried yeast-leavened boat-shaped buns). At the farm they grew many different herbs and dried them organically using eco-friendly methods. They also used dog hair to make wool which they knitted into socks and gloves. We then also had a 45-minute walk around Meenikunno bog, where we saw a big lake and picked wild cranberries.

On Wednesday we took a tour of Tartu and played a city game where we had to find different monuments from some clues and take pictures with them. We explor