first weeks

so that everyone is on the same page, here's the intro:
i've recently graduated from the university of the arts in philadelphia with a bfa in crafts - jewelry/metals. i'm now spending ten months in tallinn, estonia on a grant through the us dept. of state fulbright program. i hope to learn more about ancient estonian jewelry, including the work of an indigenous population called the setus, and how jewelry in this region has progressed over the years. i will be affiliated with the estonian academy of arts in tallinn and will also be looking at contemporary jewelry. all of this with the hope that i will be able to make a body of my own work while i am here in response to my research and experiences.

so it's been almost two weeks now and i'm loving tallinn. the first week was busy with getting adjusted, finding an apartment, getting a cell, etc. everything's been going pretty smoothly, except that time i got on the bus and suddenly didn't recognize anything. i wound up just staying on until the end of the line then going right back to the section of the city i was familiar with. even that was a good experience though, now i know where the zoo is!

my sister rose was here for the past week helping me get settled. we spent lots of time decorating my apartment and eating in restaraunts, everything from medieval food to a swanky restaraunt that includes apples in every menu item. we even conducted an experiment to find out if estonian mcdonalds tastes the same as in the states, it does, exactly the same. we found that to be a bit disturbing.