We got up fairly early, because we'd arranged to go to Aivar's place and record some of the Ballet Videos of my past. We went to the theater, and got Pamela a Coffee to drink there in the sun, while I went to the mall down the street to buy blank videos. we then went and started going through the videos, looking for me dancing in Armastuse Tango.

This is a piece by Mai Murdmaa, and is the best original Choreography I've ever been part of. Its still moves me emotionally when I hear Piazolla music. But, I remembered only two recordings with me in them: one of a stage rehearsal, without costumes, and one out-of-focus performance, where one of the spotlights was broken.

There were four Tango videos there, (in the theater,) but none of them had me on them; It was the other pair, from the Estonian Operahouse in them. It still took us forty five minutes to feel sure about that though. So, it was later than we had meant it to be, when we called Aivar, and told him that, as there were two video-machines in the theater anyhow, we didn't need to come to his place.

Once we'd recorded, (And watched,) Tango, we had it start recording the modern piece Fluxus, and went to have lunch.

The theater we went out of, and which we'd been in, was not familiar to me. They had done Extensive renovations. From the concrete and wood interior that I remembered being backstage, it was now magnetic key-cards, sleek, elegant change-rooms, and thoughtfully chosen colour schemes. Not even the stairwell was yellow-painted concrete any more. I felt lost.

We decided to visit the Botanical Gardens before lunch, and spent a couple hours there. The only things that stuck in my memory of that, was just missing by a few seconds, a picture of some lady in a blue blouse, leaning over to smell the tall flowers of exactly the same blue. And also, I balanced my camera on top of a stone statue, started the automatic timer, and then went bounding over the stone wall and a flower bed, to stand beside Pamela in the picture. ( Pamela, needless to say, was a little horrified.)

It might have been here at the gardens, that I got back into the habit; the groove; the feeling of taking pictures again. At the beginning of the vacation, I carried my camera around with me all over, but hardly ever used it. Then, by the middle of the first week, I was taking nearly a roll of film a day. And the Gardens could have been the turning point.

If not, then the Jaanikirik, (St. John's Church,) would have been that point. It's been under restoration for many years, I'd guess at least ten. The feature that makes this church unique is the over 1000 terra cotta figures adorning it. I don't think they've all been restored yet though, because I only saw some hundreds of them.

By that time, we were both hungry, and went in search of food, (with short pauses, looking for amber, or taking pictures of a square.) And what we found, chanced to be Exactly what Pamela had been thinking of: Crèpes. They were well appreciated by us both.

After getting the videos from the theater, we went to Aivar's place to say Hello, exchange gossip and have a nice little chat. He is still wonderfully hospitable, and hasn't really changed at all since I danced with him two years ago. As seems always to be the situation with him, he had been renovating some aspect of his flat, and apologized for the mess and untidiness of it.

Pamela quite enjoyed his company, and found him lovely to meet. He played for us a short recording of his daughter, singing a German aria. Unfortunately, Pamela couldn't understand any of the words. This wasn't because the daughter didn't sing them well, but because the recording was made from a hand-held-tape-player, (and then played on the same.) The song was lovely, however.

At last we got everything together, and headed south towards Põlva. In the hour's drive there, I thought I'd rest my eyes, to leave me more energized and invigorated. So... I slept. At length, I regained consciousness, and Pamela asked me what turn to take, now that we were in Põlva. I replied that the turn was about three km back the way we had come, -and that I was awfully sorry, for failing the responsibility of my position of Navigator. We still got to our destination though, taking a direct path (after the turn about,) and arriving at the damned river, (and resulting lake to swim in,) between the sandstone cliffs of Taevaskoja.

It was an idyllic, tranquil swim, and the water was lovely. More than a meter deep, it was FREEZING, but every day for the past week, the air must have been thirty degrees, so if one stayed horizontal in the water, it was just fine.

We decided to continue to another part of the river, and the tourist map in the parking lot said there were more cliffs, a water mill, and some old rocks (Such things are considered interesting Touristic sights in this flat, flat country. I guess that Erratic boulders left by glaciation is just too common in western Canada for me to take great interest.)

Poor Pamela had another gravel road to drive on, but I got some pictures of a stork, in it's meter high nest, on a charming old farm building. Then, I motioned Pamela to bring the car, which was some 150 meters away, hoping this would startle the stork so I could get a picture of it taking off, with it's wings stretched out. (We were going to have to drive by it anyhow, so I didn't feel guilty about pestering the noble bird.)

However, Pamela didn't understand my gestures, and I beckoned her again, and then swiveled the camera back to the bird. No result: Pamela and the stork sat there watching me. "Perhaps Pamela can't see well enough" I thought, so I turned back to her, and made in the largest movements I could, as clear as I could, that she was to drive up to me. In the middle of this pantomime, she did exactly as I wished -and the sound of the engine starting scared the stork away, just as I had hoped. Unfortunately, it all worked too well, and when I'd looked back, and got the camera up, the bird was already gone. I surely had to laugh though, at all the antics I went through for nothing.

We went on, parked at the river, and took pictures of the water mill, and the pond it had made on the river. We ambled along a small country track, that sort of looked like it went onto personal property, but also had a wide-open road-gate. We were soon walking more or less through the front yard of a farm house, with the youngest child of the family, naked, playing around an inflated inner-tube in the dust. It looked like the perfect, ideally peaceful country place to me.

We were out of place though, so we headed in the direction that looked like off their property, but, well, I just had to stop, and photograph a multi-purpose tractor standing there. I first asked though, in my grammatic-less Estonian, "One Photo?" which they kindly granted, (well, at least didn't object to.) Then I asked "One Again?", which they also accepted. By this time, the father-type-figure was near, and asked if I liked photography, (or something, which I took to mean that.) I was, at the time, having two Practicas with me, and one telephoto lens. He went on, asking what I liked taking pictures of. I replied that there were many things I found good for photographic subjects. (Again, it's what I think he said, and what I think I replied.) Then he said something about boats and canoes, and beckoned me to follow him, with a kindly air.

I told Pamela that it seemed we were invited to photograph his old wooden boat. "So lets go!" I got up my courage then, and mustered my words, and tried to ask if he might have a boat we could rent, but he just went on something like "come and see!I have a boat." At last I resigned myself to having pictures only OF the boat, and not from it.

Naturally, it was exactly at that point that he said "thirty Kroone per hour." -and I understood at last, that he had meant from the beginning I could rent his boat and make pictures from the water. Besides having a very nice small guest house, with a sleeping loft, sitting room and sauna, all right on the river, he kept boats there especially for renting to people. Pamela and I were ever so happy to go out onto the river, especially as it was something we'd both hoped to do, but thought we were then much too late for. The man there suggested that we take the row-boat, as it has greater stability, but I preferred one of his Canoes, because I knew that I'd be able to handle it.

Pamela says "Really Nice, apart from the swarms of mosquito." Then adds "The calm serenity around the little camping fires in the glades bordering the river... Das war das Tüpfelchen auf dem i" -Which is something like the Icing on the Cake. Her description is much shorter than mine would be, but expresses exactly the same concept; Such Tranquility. Astounding. There were some black and grey ducks which didn't fly away, but paddled away furiously form our oncoming canoe, and hid amid the water plants. There were also a colony of starlings, (or other similar small birds,) living in small burrows in the sandstone, which at places, towered three meters above the edge of the river. We didn't know when to turn back though, so eventually, we thought, "Ah, it's rather dark now, perhaps it's time to go back." It was so, So nice and relaxing.

We had lost all track of time though, so our plan of staying at my old friend Ave's place over night had to be forgotten. Instead, we were alone again at the flat of the Kliemann-Pertersoos. It was so late though, when we were back in Tartu, it was a little worrying thinking about where we would find food. I remembered "Pizza Pood" being a food shop open until late though, so we went there, and we had luck: for it was open until 2:00 am. We cooked a bit of pasta with cheese sauce, and some peperoni went beside it, (Sausage. In my country, that's what you call this thin, slightly spicy sausage.)