Tulehoidjate Jutt

Wow! What a day. I am SO tired, and this is the short day of practice. We only had it from 11:45AM-8PM. Tomorrow is still longer. The sun was relentless, but it could have been worse: rain, so I'm counting my blessings. It takes a lot of concentration to make sense of Estonian for so many hours in a row, but it is rewarding as you learn more words and feel your comprehension improve.

We didn't get a whole lot done this morning, but we did get a chance to wander a bit more around Old Town before practice. Then, we met Liina and company at the Rannavarav field for our bracelets and meal tickets. I remember playing soccer at that same field sometimes during the mish. (Matti said that during the Noukogude aeg, he went to the same field for gas mask training when he was in the army.) It is sort of unreal to be dancing at the foot of such old bastions of history, it is just at the foot of Paks Margareta and ancient towers line one of the walls.

Erika Polendrik was there giving directions over a micropone. She was very complimentary to the 4 teams from America (LA, Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver). She gave each of us flags for doing such a good job during auditions.

We started with Kalamees, and it was good to have a dance we could have some early wins with. It really is a fun dance, and it is even more fun with you look around and see 900 other people crisscrossing the field in formations. Kalamehe Jutt was harder in that a lot of it is different than we learned. Well, the steps are almost all the same, but everything else is different. And even the steps have been changed in some places. I had a moment of panic tonight when I twisted my ankle because I had forgotten that we had changed that part, and I stepped using the old steps. Luckily, I think it is okay. I might just have to step gingerly on it for a day. But the good thing about today is that the dances are placed now, which means my part in them will stay consistent throughout the show, which is a very good thing!

The ending of our part is going to be pretty cool. We get into the shape of a huge fish bone. Liina said that it was actually Erik's idea. She said that when Erika Polendrik was at their house last November, they were sitting around the dinner table and Erika said that she didn't know how to end the dance, and jokingly Erik suggested making the outline of a fishbone, and here we are now.

We ended the night with another party. The Salajakesed invited us and the Danes to a party. It was really nice and the food was wonderful: hapukapsas, friitkartulid, ja liha, with the best bread and honey. And, a party of dancers wouldn't be complete without some dancing. It was cool to see a really good Estonian group perform, not that we aren't wonderful, but they were very, very good.

Well, there is only a little pink left in the sky, which means it is 1 AM and time for sleep or else tomorrow will be a disaster. Head ood!