We got up... eventually, and headed towards Ave's place in the country, after I had eaten the leftover pasta, and we'd tidied up the flat. (And as I write this, I'm very sleepy, so this is, for once, likely to be short.) We didn't get too lost at all, and ended up finding the place just before we would have started to get discouraged. We had been told the house was behind a small wind mill, so the whole time, I was peering around, seeking one. This meant that I was rather taken by surprise, when confronted with the reality: a meter high decorative orange and yellow one, beside Ave's driveway.

Hmm.. it was good, very nice, to see this old friend again, especially as she was so happy and content with her life, the way it is now. Well, I guess it wasn't exactly that, as there had been certain problems too, (garage burning down and her grandmother passing away, both when she was eight or nine months pregnant.) But she has this... inner strength, of a kind, which I pride myself on having at times; She has been able to accept it all, and then focus on the present, and say "I'm with friends, the sun is shining, my child and baby are healthy, I'm surrounded by beauty... and life goes on."

So, we looked around the country place, and it's the small, small farm-type place which I so enjoy, and grew up in. They've got an old barn, a large, varied vegetable garden, a big plot of potatoes, a handful of fruit trees, and plans to keep a pig next year, (And I musn't forget the swallows in the eaves, or the chickens scratching in the back yard.)

It was such a... such a... SITUATION. (That Ought to be the right word.) The three-year old daughter riding with the father in the tractor, as he watered some fields, the six week old son on the lawn, in the shade of an apple tree with his teenaged cousin. A proper family dog, barking at us, smelling us, accepting us, and lying down in the dust of the driveway. the raw lumber lying about for the half constructed new garage. And later, some relatives from the husband's side coming over, chatting across the gate, and grinding some corn in Ave's machine to feed to their livestock, while their children played with Ave's daughter in the yard.

This is a beautiful life, which maintains it's appeal to me. Breathing that air did me good., and I was pleased, ever so pleased, when we filled up our water bottle from her well, just before leaving. It was lovely, fresh water, to drink on our long road west.

We stopped in Viljandi, and got some information from the Tourist-Info-Place. the lady there was very helpful, to the extent that she called places in Saramaa for us, asking if there were smoke-saunas we could use. We then had lunch outside in the sun, where the service was lethargic, but the food was alright. After lunch, we looked at the castle, or the ruins of it, where I introduced Pamela to the Giant Estonian Swing. (Which is made for eight or so adults.)

Hmmmm... It's out of context, but... a lot of Estonian pop music I've heard on radios in Cafés and restaurants sounds like Japanese. It's exactly the... tone and quality of the sung syllables that I associate with Anime films. (Sorry, but that's about the only thing in my head at the moment. -And I still have nothing to say about Viljandi.)

The Castle... The castle... the Castle... Pamela says... nothing either. Oh Waier! -make that "Au Weia" ... Pamela guesses. (It's an inside joke of a German family; Never mind about what it means.)

I did my best to get a somewhat original picture of the famous suspension bridge to this castle, and was lying on the grass at a strange angle to do so. Then Pamela and I went across the bridge, (with me bouncing a little in the middle of it, to see how much effect it had.) When we were nearly off, someone started on the bridge at the other end... making huge bounces, (You need to have been on a suspension bridge to understand what I mean.) We soon found that this person was running along it, so we squashed to one side, to let the silly lunatic by. -and the footsteps slowed down, and stopped just short of us.

"well!" I thought, "Just what could this mean?" Turning to face this adolescent girl, she said something like "is this yours?" and put out her hand... with my lens in it. Needless to say, I was rightly embarrassed, after the unkind thoughts I'd just been having, and could find no proper words for my gratitude. All that came to me, was "Good. very Good. Many thanks." (in Estonian of course.) Oh dear, she was making the extra effort, and being "silly" in my eyes, for my own benefit!

Now then... in the Tourist Info center, Pamela had gotten some pamphlets about the Viljandi region, and suggested we go and see an interesting tree. Well, the Tree it's self didn't sound interesting, but the story which went with it was: that a couple hundred years ago, a funeral train of a certain small village was proceeding from the village to the cemetery. But at one point in the road, the horse drawing the cart stopped, and could not be persuaded to take another step. Then, for whatever reason, (Which I can't fathom,) someone decided to carve a crucifix into a pine tree there at the roadside, after which, the horse carried on. This was then reported to happen a number of times, so it became a tradition and ceremony for that village. So, the tree has had hundreds of crosses carved into it over the past century or two. How interesting does that sound then? Well worth a seven kilometer detour, wouldn't you say?

So, off we went, leaving the highway and turning onto a country road. Then we turned onto a gravel road, (Which Pamela doesn't like, as she's continually worried about damaging the borrowed car.) Then, we turned onto a dirt track. You can imagine how Pamela felt about that. This was in the middle of Nowhere. No cars had passed us for ten of fifteen minutes. We hadn't seen any sign of habitation either... other than the worn dirt road we were on. At length, just where I expected the village to be, (the village told of in the brochure,) we saw one solitary farm-stead, and a man working on a car by the house. So... I told Pamela to go on... to the next turn off. Turn off though? What we came to, was a four-way intersection... of sorts; Only the left path wasn't an over-grown logging road, which needed a chain-saw to get through. So... we went left. And braved some deep, and then deeper ruts, listening all the time for parts of the car to fall off. I think though, that Pamela would have turned back when we got to the biggest rut of all, which was filled with water, so we couldn't see it's depth... BUT, there wasn't room to turn around. So, (carefully,) on we went.

After four tense minutes, we saw a turn off, and it led to buildings. We were impressed, and hopeful, and at the very least, ever so glad to have found a place to turn around.

It turned out to be only another farm. But no one was home at this one: only four hyper active dogs. We weren't sure if they were exceedingly vicious, or just shocked out of their minds at seeing a different car than "theirs." All of their barking and running about didn't bring anyone from the house, barns, or fields though. -Or from the forests. (The few smallish fields were surrounded by the woods.) So... it seems we were alone there, surrounded by forest, and four dogs of uncertain disposition.

Well, we turned around, carefully, so as not to run over any of the dogs, and left that hintermost corner of nowhere, (Taking only two pictures of the L-shaped barn.) Then I managed, (somehow,) to convince Pamela to turn into this other, (populated,) farm which we'd passed just before hand. She accepted a small look there, but swore that she would NEVER drive back towards that dirt track again.

In very broken Estonian, I communicated to the farmer repairing his car what we were looking for. He pointed across the field, and to the road. It seemed that it wasn't at the village at all, (if there even is a village anywhere near.) The tree was just three, five meters from the road side. But... it was back in the direction we'd come from. And Pamela stuck to her words, and we walked the 200 meters back along the dirt track.

What had I been expecting? Well, a gnarly old tree, with hundreds of crosses carved on it... perhaps with some stone pathway to it and around it. However, it was a nearly unidentifiable big old pine tree, with one little forestry sign near it, saying "so and so forest, in such and such region." and "ristipuu."

When we were near enough to see this sign, we spotted one cross on this tree. On looking closer, there were a few more. But walking all around it, I doubt as many as twelve were visible. The bark of this tree grows every year, and covers all but the deepest marks. And even those will get covered over with time.

We got the best pictures we could of the thing, looked at each other, and laughed about the whole situation. On our drive back to civilization, meaning paved roads, I glanced by the side of the road, half covered in dust, a strange little flower: It was purple... and yellow. I mean that there were purple and yellow flowers on the same stalk. I asked Pamela to stop, but by the time I explained what I wanted, we were pretty far past it. (And she didn't feel like turning around, even if the narrow road permitted it.) I was a bit disappointed, because it looked like such a strange little flower, and though I watched along the road side for quite some time after that, I didn't see any more of them. (It wasn't until three days later, when we saw them in a friend's garden, that we found out that this flower is called, -in German, Wachtelweizen. And though Pamela didn't believe me at first, it does indeed have little purple flowers, AND little yellow ones.) At last we did get back to smooth roads, and signs of life. I even got a picture of Pamela's joy and ecstasy at being away from the gravel roads at last.

One interesting note, to add in now, as I write this, came from Ruta, who has studied some Estonian cultural traditions. She told me that carving crosses into a tree is an ancient practice, but in modern times, hardly anyone does it. So... in my hypothetical situation, at the beginning of this tree-of-crosses, the towns folk would have been expecting a halt to happen anyhow, and would have a preconceived idea about what they would do then. The only thing that makes this particular tree notable, is the fact that the tradition has been continued through the last century.

We drove on to Parnu, which we got to fairly late, meaning we missed a fairly interesting concert. We were also too late to get to Saramaa that evening, and I felt rather disappointed about it.

We went swimming in the sea though, and I felt refreshed, and somewhat better after that. There was an interesting photo, which I just missed taking. It would have been of a swing, with stiff... chains? Supports. It's made for swinging very high, and eventually in full circles. Just imagine sunset lighting, with clouds in the sky, and tall beach grasses in the background, and someone fifteen meters off the ground, suspended upside down. He paused just there, at the peak, too.

We went on to the center of Parnu, thinking of having some food, but what we saw was so... dull, boring, and pointless, we turned around and got back into the car. (It could be that we were just in the wrong streets in the center, but they really felt lifeless.)

We went on to Lihula then, because it was in the direction we wanted to go. By the time we got there, it was ten pm, and I was more than a little worried about finding a place to stay. So, I was ever so relieved when we got to the center of that town, and recognized it as the place the Fischers, (a German family living in Estonia,) had told me about: This family often liked touring around the country side, looking at manor houses and old farms, and once when I went with them, and we stopped for tea in Lihula, they said they'd sometimes slept at the Bed-and-Breakfast there, when their excursions had gone too late.

So, the whole time driving after Parnu, I'd been hoping, without hope, that this would be the town we were headed to. It was, and we were welcome, and they had a lovely little room for Pamela and I. We had a place to stay. Great. That only left us with the problem of dinner, (we'd last eaten in Viljandi in the early afternoon, remember?)

This B&B had nothing for us. We'd already seen, driving through town, that Nothing else was open, and the receptionist of the B&B assured us that such was, indeed the case. I asked her about the gas-station down the road, and she said that it was closed as well; there was only the window to the cashier open, where you could pay for your gas. But Pamela and I were Hungry. So we drove there, hoping we could get in, or else plead and beg with the gas-station-clerk, to give us something from inside.

As I walked up, I saw the clerk go away from the window, and bring a beer back for the customer waiting there. so it WAS possible to get things from the store! The last challenge was then, What to get?

This gas station had snacks, chips, icecream, uncooked sausages, chocolate, -and candies galore. (Plus many more candies still.) No bread, no cheese, no cooked meat at all, other than vacuum -packed, smoked chicken legs... which I took two of. (Along with half a liter of Icecream, and a bar of chocolate.)

With small cucumbers, wilted lettuce leaves, little tomatoes, a quarter of a loaf of dried-out-bread, rather smelly, sweaty cheese, (which had been all day in the car,) and two small peperoni-sausages, (All of which was one to three days old,) we had a... unique little feast, back at the B&B. They were kind enough to let us use the lovely dining hall, and we started right away with the icecream, to keep it from melting. It was a messy little meal, but we both quite enjoyed it.

And our room was great too: there had been no double rooms left, so we were in a four-bed-room, but had it all to our selves. I needed, badly, to wash my hair, so directly after dinner, I went upstairs to the one shower, shared by all the larger, many-bed rooms. The last person to use it had completely soaked the floor, which is something that annoys me, so I mopped that up as well as I could with a hand-towel, then had my shower. Coming back down stairs afterwards, I met Pamela on the staircase. It seems that she was just coming up to tell me that I'd better end my shower, because the ceiling was leaking. Right under the shower, there was a reverse puddle, oozing out of the ceiling, and dripping off the smoke detector onto the hall rug.

For me, first thing was first: I got the small garbage container out of the bathroom, and put it in place to catch the drips. Second thing to do, was decide if I had been the one responsible. But... the water dripping down was cold, which suggested to me that it wasn't from the drain of my shower, but from the soaked floor of the room, (which was someone ELSE'S fault.)

So, that was that. Whatever damage there was, was already done. And if I could keep from being blamed for it, then very, very well. So, Pamela and I went to sleep.

At four in the morning or so, I got up to get a drink, and moved the garbage bin back into the bathroom, to erase all evidence, and in the morning, when Pamela asked where she could shower, she was directed to the same room. (Which I had found for myself; I wasn't Sure if it was for our use.) If anything went wrong then, it wasn't our fault. (And it didn't leak from Pamela's shower, so no worries at all, in the end.)