Got to Tallinn in the evening and the whole airport was already like a mini song festival - lots of people arriving for that from all over the world, many old Estonians from overseas, very busy but somehow an elated atmosphere.
Got to my parents' place about 8 in the evening and it was so light! The light nights of the midsummer are just so amazing. One evening I realized at 11 pm that we were sitting and reading and still didn't have lights on. We haven't been here at this time of the year for such a long time now that it seems truly magical. Kids don't want to go to sleep because it is still light at 9 or 10 and of course it is light and bright already before 4 am again. Somehow this has worked it's magic on jetlag - we didn't have any! The nature is all so light-green as well, still early summer. Outside the house we have a 280 degrees view of light green fields of rye and bright yellow rape-seed. The sky is huge, clouds dramatic. Big yellow full moon at night. The strawberries in the garden have the best crops ever, we are eating kilos every day.
The first day here was quite nice and warm so we decided to take the chance and went to beach. However there it was so windy and the water was probably 16-17 degrees, so Robert was the only one who swam and we didn't last much longer than 1 hour. And next day the weather changed and it was typical nordic summer again - rainy and cool. So we went to the water-spa-centre here and warmed ourselves up in 10 different saunas.
Then on Saturday was the first day of the song festival. We got there in good time and even managed to get seats but the start was delayed such a long time because the parade was late. And by the time the concert started the first drops of rain fell as well. It was still quite magical to see the light go up to the tower and to see the 30000 + singers on the stage. The rain fell on and off and by 10 pm we were too wet, tired and exhausted, so we left and watched the last few bits at home in TV. This was actually artistically the best bit - they sang Verdi and Carmina Burana of Carl Orff. Neeme Jarvi had to shake the water off his notes. A shame the weather!
Robert met an old friend from Gothenburg and we joined their crowd in the hotel where they had been staying an partying so that all beer in the bar was finished. We left about 2 am and the sky was already getting lighter.
Sunday morning we invited us to my sister's place. That was a good chance to see them because they are so busy preparing for Jaanus' exhibition that opens on the coming Thursday. Also Robert's mum hadn't been to their flat which is all but standard. Then on the second day of the song festival the crowds were even bigger. This was a daytime concert with a lot of popular songs that everybody knows and no artistically challenging program. There must have been at least 100 000 people. It was even hard to move around and we had to use all tricks to get some seats on the benches. But the atmosphere was really fantastic. It was my first "laulupidu" after the independence 1991 and it was just so amazing to see all these flags and people joining in the songs. Then the singers at the top of the stage started a wave of hands going up and everybody joined in and we could see it travelling all the way to the back of the slope. And they kept going on and on. Also many songs were repeated. The weather was nice and sunny too. I hope to get the DVD before going back. It really is something so special.
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