Departure and Valga

Today I had to say goodbye to the other volunteers. At lunchtime my family had to leave the meeting. That was the first thing that was very sad, because we don’t know when we’ll see each other again. I’ll meet some of them at the autumn meeting, so hopefully the time will pass quickly. Then we drove from Tallinn to Valga, the border town with Latvia. That’s where my sister’s boarding school is now, and even though it’s only for a week, it was hard to say goodbye. Especially because I was reminded of my first week at boarding school in Germany, and I’m very excited for her, but also sad. The first time I sat alone in the back of my family’s car. Then we went to see some old castle ruins and, as I’m used to doing, I climbed all over the place. My little brother kept shouting, “It’s dangerous, don’t climb there. You’re going to the cemetery, not the hospital”. But that didn’t stop me from trying. In the same area we found a cave system. After entering it for 30 metres, it was so small that my brother and I left our parents behind. After another twenty metres my brother stopped and I had to crouch down. But after about 30 metres of crawling through mud and sand, I came to a room where I could easily stand. But from there every direction was a dead end. It was an exhausting and sad day, and definitely not what I needed before my first day at school, but all in all I’m grateful for the opportunity to have adventures like this.

The top of the building on the upper picture was my first climb this day.