Life is a cabaret.

I recently took a trip back to Berlin, and I wanted to share some of the highlights with all of you.

Uli and I went for a long weekend to Berlin (thanks to cheap flights on Easyjet!) to visit his aunt and uncle, and we had a fabulous time exploring and enjoying the city.

It's great fun to travel with someone else once in a while.

We enjoyed some really lovely meals and nice wine with his very generous aunt and uncle in their beautiful home.

Some nice walks, including one to the Botanical Garden, made the gloomy weather a bit brighter.

We also visited the Turkish market and had some fantastic food!

Apple cake at the KaDeWe is really delightful -- trust me on this one -- and makes the afternoon cozy and sweet, even when it is raining/hailing outside!

The city at night is breath-taking and colorful. We enjoyed taking it in on our way to enjoy a showing of the musical Cabaret, which was a fabulous performance, seemingly appropriate in the city in which the Kit Cat Club is supposed to sit, and a good reminder of the complexity and vibrancy of life."Life is a cabaret, old chum..."

Finally, who can resist a genuine Berlin sausage while visiting? This one is dedicated to Dad, one of the greatest hot-dog/sausage aficionados out there!

Meditations on being 30

On a cold, wintry Estonian day the beginning of February, I entered a new decade of being me. This month being filled with happenings -- travel, a new semester, cold -- has prevented me from mulling over this rather big change of traveling out of my twenties and into my thirties.

Jenn's Birthday 2007

(You can view the festive moment of becoming thirty in the album, above, when I was treated to the funny tradition of being tossed up and down in birthday celebration)

Now, a few weeks later, I take the time to share my thoughts and broodings on being thirty (30!) in these thirty (30!) meditations. To be taken lightly, these thoughts are not at all very profound and some of them may not have any application to the readers of this blog (please, have mercy!). You can safely characterize them somewhere amongst what you might have overheard in Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts, David Lettermanan's Top 10, or an episode of Punky Brewster.

(Woah, that last sentence really did date me, didn't it? For those of you who are also facing your thirties, you know exactly what I mean... For those of you confused by the context because you are too young to remember or the cultural references are too American, keep on reading...)

1. No matter how far away you go and how old you are, there is no place like home.
2. You are never too old to eat a sausage for your father while visiting another country.
3. There is nothing comparable to a really peaceful night's sleep.
4. Silence really is golden.
   
5. Chocolate is a powerful substance capable of brightening a day, giving incredible energy, and bringing together friends.
   
6. As I learned in a song while I was a Girl Scout, it is important to "make new friends but keep the old... One is silver and the other's gold."
7. Nothing makes your day better than a personal note or email from someone who loves you.
8. Hugs are one of the most necessary ingredients in a recipe for a great day.
9. Crying is sometimes really satisfying and letting it out beats holding it in.
   
10. If you fall, you must simply "cowboy up" and face your horse with some more pluck and determination.
11. There are some things you want desperately to share with the world, but no one but God will ever really understand so you best send a prayer.
12. Laughing a lot is a great form of keeping your stomach (at least that is what Kami and I thought while traveling Europe the first time) and your heart in shape.
13. Life is a box of chocolates -- you never know what you are going to get... and sometimes the chewy centers can be quite surprising.
    
14. Liver and onions is the worst meal on earth and should be only served in prisons as a punishment for serious criminals.
15. A good education is something precious that should never be taken for granted.
16. Adventures are never over... they only lead to new ones.
17. I have received many gifts in my life, and I realize more and more how blessed I have been by the people and opportunities in my life. As a result, I take great pleasure in spending my time attempting to return those gifts to those around me.
18. The freest feeling on the planet is riding a motorcycle across Wyoming prairie and rugged mountains.
19. A brisk walk (the best ones are without destination) can cure almost anything.
20. Winter can be really beautiful, even in Estonia and even when it's really cold (-25 Celsius this morning).
21. It doesn't matter which clothes I wear, how much I weigh, or the style of my hair... a confident smile makes me and those around me feel good.
22. A simple thank you goes a really long way.
23. It always matters what my mother thinks... no matter how much I want to believe that it doesn't.
24. People are usually more patient with you and forgiving of your faults than you are.
    
25. Dancing should be done everywhere, very often, and without self-consciousness.
    
26. Don't follow recipes exactly. The result may be more predictable if you do, but it's also boring!
27. Work is over-rated.
    
28. Things are better when you march to the beat of your own drum (Thoreau) or perhaps your horn (J. Uhler).
    
29. Saying "I can do it myself" does not really get you much of anywhere at all in the end or make you any friends along the way.
    
30. An inquisitive kid, I remember telling a good family friend that I wanted to be a vetran (I meant vegetarian) and a chameleon (I meant comedian) when I grew up. I am neither but I am still listening for that vocation... I have a feeling thirty is only the beginning. Watch out, world, here I come!

To finish on an appropriate note, here are the lyrics from "Every Time I Turn Around," the theme song by Gary Portnoy from Punky Brewster. (Feel free to dance around while you read this, as if you are in that opening scene of the sitcom... I'll consider it an honorable tribute to my 30th birthday!)

Maybe the world is blind,
Or just a little unkind.
Don't know.

Seems you can't be sure
Of anything anymore.
Although,

You maybe lonely and then,
One day you're smiling again.
Every time I turn around,
I see the girl that turns my world around.
Standing there...

Every time I turn around,
Her spirit's lifting me right off the ground.
What's gonna be?
Guess we'll just wait and see.

Sunday morning decadence

Can't you just almost smell them?!?
Cinnamon rolls hot out of the oven ...

... fresh, warm buns tucked with gooey pockets of cinnamon, raisins, and almonds ...

... dripping with scrumptious cream cheese frosting ...

Mmmm... Pure decadence!

It only takes a spark

The weather over the last couple of months has been rather want of sun, a bit dreary and lifeless. A minimum requirement for my own survival has always been related to light. Coming from the sunny, blue, endless skies of Wyoming, I have deeply rooted in me a need to revel in the sun of all seasons: the hot, bright tireless sun of the summer, the warm glow of autumn, the frigid, crispy waning light of winter, and the new, green flickering of spring's promises. Estonia has been a rather harsh place to land from this perspective. A Nordic country that still boasts more light than its neighbors to the north, Estonia, nonetheless, has some rather brief winter days and gloomy, sunless moments. This year, due to warmer temperatures (global warming?), the weather remained overcast and even the precious daylight hours were at best marking a movement from black to gray rather than night to day.

Without realizing it, I, too, lost a bit of my own light this winter. Recovering from busy holidays and a full semester, I have had the energy level of a hibernating bear, wanting to "wake to sleep and take my waking slow" as Roethke says. Listless, unmotivated, blah, blue, exhausted, brooding, and perhaps a bit lukewarm, I found it easy to let go of the fire usually pushing me forward and sending me into the world with a bit of glowing enthusiasm and wonder.

It only takes a spark...

My lukewarm reverie was thankfully broken during an energizing visit to Budapest. Two colleagues and I left Eestimaa behind for southernly Hungary for a regional mid-year conference for English Language Fellows and their colleagues. Meeting with other Fellows working in incredibly complex and challenging environments, sharing experiences and perspectives, having conversations with other language teaching professionals -- most of whom are tireless advocates of their students and fearless innovators working in difficult political and educational environments -- was inspiring. Spending time with other Americans and their multinational colleagues who value traveling and understand the intriguing and troubling aspects of language teaching fanned a bit of my remaining flame. (It didn't hurt, of course, that the days in Hungary are far longer than in Tartu!)

I returned with an incredible amount of respect for the energy and dynamism that I was surrounded by while I visited and also a new store of my own fire for living abroad, exploring new places, engaging new people, tackling another obscure foreign language, delighting in my friends, and digging into my projects here in Tartu (check them out on my new homepage at jennu.net)

Hats off and thank you to all plucky adventurers, travelers, and language teachers out there!


A few other associations that come to mind with these sorts of sunning and waking wanings, reappearances, and transformations:

It only takes a spark, to get a fire going and soon all those around, can warm up it it's glowing. ~ Camp song

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
Revelation 3:14-19