Time for a new Ten Thing of Thankful post. As tomorrow I am going to my boyfriend's friend's graduation in Viljandi, I am posting a day earlier than usual.

This week was cool because I finally went out of my apartment, lol. I have been cooped up in here like a proper goblin or something (except for visiting mummy), because everything I like (my computers, coffee machine, music collection, books, bed, etc.) is here, haha. Also this thankful is a bit different, am sorry for the flood of photos but I got nostalgic.

Anyway, as always, we have other participants in the blog-hop too and all of the entries can be found at the link-up.

Ten Thing of Thankful #7

AKA a Guided Tour of Estonia by an Overenthusiastic Goblin with a Camera.

First — the cinema here.

I have been a big fan of the Scary Movie franchise, and my boyfriend works at a culture house with a cinema, so I was able to go and see the latest one this week.

I must say I enjoyed the older ones more, as they had more jokes about horror movies themselves... but there were a few good jokes, especially the Smile part, as I love the Smile movies, lol...

As with all of the Scary Movie episodes, it will probably seem dumb and not funny if you haven't watched horror movies, as some of the parody parts only make sense if you have seen the movies themselves...

However, there were many more lame jokes this time that most people would understand. Whether they would find them funny is another story... For some reason, I like the lame, stupid jokes, even if some of them are so lame that I would never publicly laugh at them, haha.

It is good that I got to sit up on the balcony with no people around us and the doors locked. It was as if it was us two at the cinema, though below the balcony were people too.

After the movie, I was offered cake by his coworkers too. WOHOO!

The artwork, by the way, changes regularly and is displayed throughout most of the halls in the Paide Music and Theater house. These are not all of the paintings, and I didn't post the paintings themselves, even though I took a million photos, but it's really cool that they do that...

Unfortunately, it seems that my CDN makes the information board unreadable, but the QR code still works, and you can see some photos of the displayed artwork there.

Second — fast help.

My boyfriend had a huge operation to remove his wisdom tooth, which was growing sideways. Anyway, the doctor said that it was the most difficult case she had seen in all the years, and if he feels any pain again after it has healed, he needs to go back and have literally his whole jaw opened up and there is a possibility of him losing feeling on that side of his face...

Anyway, he had a complication and one night he woke me up and I was ready to go to the ER because of the pain he was experiencing, but it subsided with medication enough for him to be able to wait and luckily we got to see the doctor the next day.

She removed what was causing trouble with a second surgery and now he feels better. It's pretty scary, as his whole cheek and gum are cut up on the inside of his mouth, and he has been on medication for weeks now.

Btw it's considered one of the best places in Estonia to get such a surgery... And the operations were free for him because it was a medical emergency in his case (free healthcare doesn't fully cover teeth).

Hopefully it will heal correctly and he won't need another, more intrusive operation.

Third — his coworker friend.

As we live in a town where doctors who perform these kinds of operations are not present, and both cities where they are available are about an hour and a half to two hours away. As you can imagine it's pretty annoying to get there if you need to use a bus.

We are both currently finishing our licenses too... not that I would have let him drive on those painkillers and with the amount of pain he was still in...

Somehow we were lucky and his coworker had to go to Tartu the same day, and we got there by a car. After the doctor, he had immediate relief, and we had time to walk around the city before he took us back to Paide.

Fourth — Estonian towns.

They are just beautiful, and I have been so lucky to have lived in quite a few as I have had to move cities several times or work in one while living in another.

A lot of the architecture was actually built during different periods of Danish, Swedish, German and Russian rule, while many of the apartment buildings we live in today were built during the Soviet era.

But it's history, and now I just walk around the towns gawking at the buildings.

Fifth — Tartu.

This, or Kuressaare, is one of the places we think about moving to next if we have to relocate or if we find work there. I wish I could upload all of the photos I took (which is a lot, and the ones taken along the banks of the Emajõgi are just beautiful), but there were so many people around because it's university graduation season, and I don't want to post photos with clearly visible faces or car license plates in them.

The town is actually very beautiful, with lots of green parks and a huge river running through it (the Emajõgi). These photos only show a small part of the Old Town.

I also took a few photos of the artwork found on the walls of the shopping centres.

It's actually quite usual here to display art outside of museums, or to paint utility boxes and buildings with murals and graffiti. Unfortunately, I messed up the photos of the QR codes displayed next to some of the paintings, so I am not posting those here, but if you happen to visit Estonia, then yes, it's quite common to come across art in unexpected places.

Sixth — Viljandi.

I lived here for a few years. The Old Town is lovely, and so is the lake, but I will share two videos of my absolute favourite place (the castle ruins!), where I often used to read books or take walks.

I love walks...

If I go on one, I am disappearing for hours—bonus time for an album or two in my headphones.

Seventh — Kuressaare.

As a kid, I visited this place often and spent a lot of time here, as some of our family used to live here and in the surrounding countryside. I love this little town. It's just beautiful.

The whole island of Saaremaa is gorgeous and definitely a place I recommend foreigners visit while in Estonia. I will only add a few photos of the castle and Kaali Crater, but the town itself is simply gorgeous, and you can find plenty of photos of it on Google if you are interested.

These two, together with Karujärv, are my favourite spots ever.

The whole castle is a museum, and there is a lot to see there. Unfortunately, they do not allow photos in many of the exhibitions but it's a really cool place and I do have some photos of the interior somewhere...

The tree trunk is called the Devils tree and it's near the Kaali Crater which is the last photo.

Eighth — Kärdla.

A small town on another island here in Estonia, where I had the luck to work as a cook for a while. I lived in Viljandi at the time and took a two-hour bus ride to the airport before boarding a plane to go to work.

I stayed for a week or two and then came back home for about the same amount of time and repeat. The place itself is very beautiful, as is the island.

What I liked the most was that at the hostel I was staying at you could hear the sea and the town itself was super peaceful. I used to go swimming every evening after work and drink copious amounts of wine while there.

Ninth — Tallinn.

I used to work in the Old Town, in three different places over the years I lived there. I will add some photos of the architecture from the Old Town, the place I know like the palm of my hand. There are actually a lot of weird alleyways there and cafes and museums. A super cool place.

Tenth — Paide.

The town I currently live in. A very quiet town in the middle of Estonia, and one I have grown very fond of...

The tower is part of a museum and could be super fun to visit with kids, as you can touch most of the exhibits. The first photo was also taken from the upper floor of the tower, where they have paintings on display as well.

I didn't upload those this time, as when I took them I wasn't thinking I would post them, but this tower is super cool and the town has a lot of old buildings and cafes that are super cozy in the centre.

There's more of my work:

If you like short stories I have them scooped up into one category (including the six-sentence stories).

Or maybe you prefer poetry,, more personal entries can be found at the Blog.

There's also the IT studies blog in Estonian and "Chaos in Spring" on YouTube, Spotify and other streaming services.