Saturday - 11th May

Despite the fact the Italian and Turkish team had arrived very late the night before, at 8.30 in the morning everybody was on the bus to start touring.

The weather was cloudy and it had rained a little, but the temperature was warmer than expected. We headed to the Mukri bog. Its road there was rather soft, but our bus driver Andres managed to get us to the start point. The forest was full of birds singing, but soon our talk of different languages took over. As it has happened  before, Estonian students walked too fast, probably without paying enough attention to the surrounding nature, when the Italian group showed us how to enjoy walking in the nature without rush. We reached the viewing tower and took lots of photos there.  

 

Photo: Caroline

Our next stop was in Türi. We wanted to stretch legs and used this stop for getting water and bananas. Sten, Larsen and Johannes were helping. 

We had lunch at Adavere Windmill. We ate fried chicken and fish, fresh salads and potatoes with white sauce. Typical  food for lunch. For dessert we had a fruit pie or chocolate cake.

Photo: Spanish team

We drove through several counties - Rapla, Järva, Jõgeva, Tartu and at last arrived Põlva county. The landscape had changed - flat landscape typical to Rapla was now hillier. We realized that our project meeting had a good timing to see how early spring looks like in Estonia. A week later it would have been summerlike, but early spring here offers such unique bright green colour on trees and emerald grass, together with fields freshly being ploughed up, even Estonian team noticed its beauty. On our way we saw how the River Pedja had flooded the meadows around it, migrating birds in the sky and numerous storks in their nests on chimneys. Ditches were full of yellow cowslips, forests full of anemones and liverworts.
Forests had mostly pine   and spruce trees, but also birches were abundant.

After arriving at Taevaskoja Camping, we settled in our rooms. Some went swinging, some played ball, some did some climbing or walked around - the whole camping site was ours. Soon it was time for another short walk where we saw sand cliffs, caves and springs. The area is full of legends. At the same time teacher Evelyn and Edda went to Põlva to do shopping for our BBQ. Though the shop was one of the biggest in this region, they didn't seem to be ready for BBQ season - the choice and quantities were limited.

As the bonfire site was quite near to the building and the branches were too dry, we decided to carry half of the branches away to make fire smaller. Students played football nearby, shouting the names of good footballers. After dinner we gathered around the fire. Liisbet played a few songs on the guitar, the Spanish team sang. It was getting darker and chillier and teacher Evelyn and Sten decided to get the equipment ready for  disco. Everybody could have their favourite dance music and every nationality had to take turns. The French boys seemed to enjoy dancing a lot, too. After and hour and a half of dancing there were no signs of stopping, but we couldn't deny the fact a busy Sunday awaited us and we needed a good rest. At 12.30 the last song was played and then it was time for bed.