March Forth! Marssige Edasi!

hey!! it's chris again!! yay!! ok i'm gonna tell you guys about this camp i went to that was like really cool. the salvation army has a camp in loksa estonia, thats north of tartu, and they let this really awesome youth group from tartu use the camp. what makes this youth group awesome is that it's the youth group i go to and of course if i go there it must be cool (hahahaha). well anyway this youth group from the kolgata (calvary) baptist church was gonna have a youth camp and they invited me. at first i was all like cool, i can hang out with estonians! but then it dawned on me...i would would be the only native english speaker there! i just sorta had this little idea that the whole time i'd be sitting in a corner having nothing to do, having no idea what was going on around me, and just being so sad and depressed. but then on the other hand i knew these were cool people who would be willing to translate, and i also knew that this camp was gonna rock. so i sorta weighed the pros and cons and decided to go. first they come to the house and pick me up, we get in the car, we drive and pick up 2 more people, and then we leave. i think this car we rode in was never designed to carry 3 big estonian guys (by big i dont mean fat i mean just plain big) 1 estonian girl and me. we were squished for the whole 2 and a half hour trip and that seat was the most uncomfortable seat i've ever sat in. but we survived! yay! then we get there and it turns out i went with the people who were going 3 hours early to make sure everything was ready. so we got there and everythings ok (except the place was freezing cold, but we coudn't really help that much) so we sat there for 3 hours. now heres something cool i wanna tell you abuot, so we get there and one of the estonians named tõnis (don't even try to pronounce it) asks me if i have any slippers (slippers are a very big estonian thing) and i say no, not with me. so his parents live in loksa, where we were, and they are the baptist pastors there and so he goes and gets me from nice new slippers from the church, along with some wonderfully warm nice thick estonian socks. this just goes to show how cool estonians are, without me even asking for slippers or complaining i was cold he just went out and got me some. so then that night we ate and that was cool and then everyone else got there and we had a snack. little did i know that this innocent looking pastry contained the most potent and deadly of poisons, sült (jellied meat)!! i'm sorry but i will never understand how anyone can eat that stuff, it makes me sick! now i didnt noticed what these were and i was hungry so i do the american thing, i take the biggest bite i can...bad move! i had to leave the room for a minute and spit it out in the trash. blagh! nasty! so after that i was much more careful about what i ate. so then we did some stuff, sang songs, watched skits and joked around. like i said, this is a cool group. and the whole time i have my team of three translaters trying to translate for me. i think i should have paid them or something they were really great. so then we go to bed and i'm happy to hear that we're alowed to sleep in 'til 9:00!! thats the estonian way. late to bed and late to rise. thats my way too so i was happy. so next day we wake up at 9:30 (thats right, no one woke up on time) and did all sorts of cool stuff. the freakyest thing though was breakfast. estonians like porridge for breakfast, i had expected this, but there where cans of sardines on the table! the smell of fish was overpowering, i was so sure i was gonna pass out. then the guy next to me grabs a can of sardines and starts covering some bread in sardines! i was just sickened, thats all i gotta say. and i don't really like porridge at the best of times. ugh! i didn't eat much, but i had i meat pastry in my room so i ate that to supplement the breakfast. then in the middle of a lecture thing (which i was having huge amounts of trouble understanding becuase my translaters were having trouble) we split up in groups! and guess what, none of my translaters were in my group and i didn't wanna complain so i gave them a break and tried to let other people translate. after this group time i made up a joke:how many estonians does it take to translate for chris? 6, 3 to say they dont speak english, 2 to look up words in the dictionary, and one wonderful girl to translate. this is what was cool, i was put in a group with my friend (well, not really friend. more like person who doesn't speak much english and i don't speak much estonian so we both try to talk occasionally but always do a crappy job. but her english is WAY better than my estonian.) marilise (i don't know if thats how you spell it). well she turned out to be the best english speaker/translater in the group. so well 3 guys sat in a corner saying they don't speak English, and 2 other guys looked up words in the dictionary, she translated wonderfully. even though i never understood what was going on the whole time i still think she did a very admirable job translating. then we went sledding and the whole time i had no idea what was gonig on, we'd be sledding one place and then hopping in the car and going somewhere else. and it was so cold! and no one ever told me what to do, or what was going on. so i was feeling kind of stupid one time and this girl kristie (who is like marilise's best friend, they act like sisters and are always together) just says "chris come here with me". now i was feeling completely forgotten until she said this, so this just made my day. someone actually knew i existed! and the fact that she was a teenage girl might, just maybe, have something to do with why this made me so happy. so then we go back and have lunch which was some chicken thing that was awesome, it was nice and spicy after being in the cold. then we went back outside until like 8:00 pm. then we come home and all the guys are gonna go to the sauna. let me explain about the sauna and estonians. the sauna is a necesity rather than a luxury, almost every house has one. it's like having a bathroom, you just need one. so all these estonian guys are just like all excited that where going to a sauna, and i'm like i dont think i'm gonna go. becuase maybe i'm just wierd but the thought of being in this steaming hot room with a bunch of naked and sweaty men while i get all sweaty myself has never really thrilled me. and i usually go wearing a bathing suit, when you're an american people will make exceptions for you. but i didn't have anything to wear so, its so sad, i had to go in like an estonian, completely naked. i swear these guys were testing me they kept makiing it so hot and i'm just like about to scream IT'S SO HOT, WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO DO, KILL ME? but i was able to survive the sauna, i think i did a good job since they had to talk me into going and sauna is something i usually avoid. so now i can proudly lift my head up and say "I SURVIVED THE SAUNA!!" i should get that printed on a t-shirt. so after the sauna i just crash, they were downstairs watching some movie (russian with estonian subtitles, so no good for me) and i just knocked myself out and woke the next day at 9:30 (no one ever woke up on time). so the next day we went to the baptist church and that was cool because they don't have many youth so they were glad to have us all there. then halfway through the meeting me 3 estonian guys and an estonian girl left early and piled into the car. after another 2 and a half hours of torture in the car i was finally home. yay! but i forgot my coat in the guys car and still haven't got it back yet, so sad. wow, that took me a while to write. oh, and by the way, i'm thinking of starting my own blog becuase it seems thats cool. i think it should have a cool name like...THE CHRONICLES OF CHRIS!!!! well anyway i'll put something on my parents blog to tell u if i start my own blog. and i'm gonna put my email again becuase you guys all sent me such cool emails last time. so my email is:chrisjohnclark@juno.com. well, Cya.

Chris Clark