This past week, a study was published that revealed that Estonians are the biggest bookworms of any nation and that Estonian households often have over two hundred books on their shelves!
This past weekend, I visited the Tartu Toy Museum with a friend. The Toy Museum is one of the largest collections of the most famous toys from the last two centuries. It was amazing to see how well the museum preserved cloth and wooden toys from the nineteenth century and to see how the human imagination has evolved over the decades. I loved seeing the Estonian claymation puppets, one of the favorite hobbies of locals in the late 20th century. My friend and I even got to play old Estonian board games. My favorite was the Tartu version of Shoots and Ladders from 1990!
This week I went to an Italian Culture Night at the Tartu Nature House. The residents of Tartu love to celebrate the cuisine and lifestyles of other countries, and every once and a while they host events representing a specific country. On Wednesday I went to the Nature House to cook a traditional Italian meal and learn some Italian language words from Italians living in the city of Tartu.
