Knowledge is Power

Scienta Potestas Est

Welcome to Saaremaa, Kuressaare!

Plan of activities

A day at school and in Kuressaare

Monday was an interesting day! Those who didn’t go to Tallinn got to see their visitors for the first time in Kuressaare. The day started in Kuressaare Regional Training Centre with an official welcome by Mr. Neeme Rand, principal of KRTC and Ms Tiiu Aro, Chairman of Saaremaa Council. All of the Erasmus+ Route Docs club members from the Estonian party were also present.

After welcome speeches were listened to, gifts received and birthday songs sang it was time to show our guests the schoolhouse. First in the Kuressaare department in 3 groups and then we took a bus to Upa and had school tour at the Upa department led by our school students. In Upa we also had lunch.

After lunch we returned to town by bus and visited Kuressaare Town Hall and Kuressaare Tourist Information Centre. We had a lecture about “Tourism and economy in Saare county” by representatives of Visit Saaremaa MTÜ and Saare Development Centre. As everyone was bored from the sitting we took a walk from the Town Hall through old town to the Episcopal castle where we had a treasure hunt. It was fun!

But the day was not over, we ate our surprise cake and set our plans for free time. Of course everyone wanted to see the local beach for the first time, so we did. We played some volleyball and the brave ones went for a swim also.

Markus Treirat

III Transnational meeting and

workshops at school

III Transnational meeting

Teachers had the third transnational meeting of the project where they discussed the progress of the project to date, which included the status of the project's facebook page, etwinning site, and the web page. The plan activities for the the week were discussed so that everybody knew exactly what would be happening during their time here. Finally the next project meeting in Portugal was discussed and preliminary dates were set for this.

Tuesday, 22nd May

The day started like a normal school day, but it was actually pretty special. All of the students including Estonians attended an Estonian lesson. The teachers were at their meeting. The class was lively and it was fun seeing foreigners learn one of the hardest language in the world, especially when some of the languages were very different to Estonian.

After the difficult lesson we met our teachers again and all together we reached the school assembly hall to watch some videos about Tenerife. The videos were created by the students themselves. What a great job! Before lunch we also shared the top 10 places to visit in our countries, each country had their own.

Later, the school restaurant KASS (a cat) had prepared tasty Estonian food for us to enjoy.

After the lunch break we practised video editing guided by our school's own student who was good at what he did. Here our planned activities ended but then we kept on spending time together on the beach. We swam and just walked and chatted and everyone seemed happy. We even played volleyball.

The day was totally awesome.

Aili Tänak

Workshops on VIDEO EDITING & PHOTOGRAPHY

The workshop was hosted by Ivar Äkke with the support of his classmates from TAK-15. Ivar spoke about the different free software options available to use in video editing and recommended using OpenShot for students to complete their videos for the project. He had prepared some videos in advance and talked the group through how to add videos and add some effects to them. Then, he showed students how to add text overlays on their videos. Finally, he showed how to import a song to use in the video. Ivar reminded everyone that you can't just use any song in your video due to copyright restrictions. It has to be a song with a license which is free to use otherwise your video may be breaking copyright laws and could get removed from online sites (such as youtube). The workshop was a great help to the students as they will all be making their own videos very soon. We also had a guest speaker on the day, Kerli Adov came to talk to the students about her experiences studying as a film maker and her work experience in this area. She had great advice for everyone and our students had some great questions to ask her. All in all the workshop was very enjoyable for everybody and students left with new knowledge they will surely use!

Ian Erik Pettersson

West-Saaremaa

As Wednesday morning arrived we started our day-long guided tour to West-Saaremaa, led by Elle Mäe, and the bus driven by the amazing Silver. Huge thanks to you!

Our first stop was Kaali Meteorite Crater, the biggest Crater being in 8th place among world’s giant craters and rarest in Estonia. Then we headed to the Angla Windmills, built in the early 20s, nowadays characteristic to the Saaremaa island and Saaremaa vodka.

It was time to hit the road again, a quick detour to Karja St Catherine Medieval Church and then we headed to Panga Cliff. We enjoyed the view, watched the layers of bedrock outcrop and had a fancy picnic. Then we set our course to Odalätsi springs to wash our face and hands with spring water- by doing that one will stay young forever. After that the bus took us to the Vilsandi National ParkVisitor Centre and Loona Manor. We got to know the history and saw a short movie about Vilsandi wildlife.

Dinner time arrived which we spent at Lümanda Tavern. With our stomachs full of all the best Estonian food and a quick game of “kartul” or “potatoe” played we felt good again and took our course to Mändjala to get to know the game of Discgolf. Although getting more and more popular in the world, it was our guests' first time to hear about it. Being similar to the real-life golf, played with the same rules but with some differences, your goal is to fly the disc from the tee to the special basket. Who wasn’t interested went to beach or took a walk in the forest. I was delighted that so many of the guests wanted to try the game, I barely had enough discs for everyone. After we played one round we headed back to Kuressaare and after that it was free time.

Markus Treirat

East-Saaremaa and Muhu island

A day in Tallinn

Friday, May 25 was a day full of different emotions. Frustration, love, disbelief and even shock ran through every students' and teachers' body.

The day started with saying goodbye to the host families and packing the last of the luggage. Some cried, some smiled with joy. It was truly incredible, but every good thing comes to an end and we left our homes and began travelling to Tallinn. We took a ferry from Kuivastu to Virtsu. Shortly after we had left Virtsu we had a nice outside picnic for the last time.

A few hours later we arrived in Tallinn. We went on a guided tour in the Old Tallinn which was very beautiful and mesmerizing. After the guided tour we had a Photo hunt that was a lot of fun.

A short amount of free time followed the Photo hunt. And this was the time we really realized that, we won’t probably see each other ever again. The feeling was strange but it made our hearts warm.

After the free time ended we took a bus from the meeting point to Ülemiste hotel, where our guests checked in and we said our last goodbyes and set off. The air was filled with great emotions.

Steven Stepanov TAK-17

What happens if I lose my passport while I’m away?

This is a question one student (who will remain anonymous) had to ask on his visit to Estonia. When he arrived at Tallinn airport, during all the hustle and bustle he managed to misplace his passport. He realised his dilemma after he had settled into his host family’s home and immediately told his teachers of his serious situation. So what do you do? Well, the first thing is to immediately report your lost (or stolen) passport to the local police station. Then you need to contact your country’s embassy in the country you are visiting. In this case, our Portuguese friend discovered that there is no Portuguese embassy in Estonia. So they had to settle for the next best thing, which was the Spanish embassy. The friendly staff there were immensely helpful in organising an ETD for our forgetful student. An ETD is an Emergency Travel Document, which allows for travel for a limited period. The Spanish embassy worked with the Portuguese embassy in Helsinki to prepare the document. We had to visit the Spanish embassy in Tallinn with the student and a photograph of him for the ETD. They also provided a letter, with contact names and numbers of officials at the embassy, about the situation which was signed and stamped by the embassy in case there was any issues in customs. Thankfully, the ETD was ready in time and did not cost anything, and our absent minded student was able to travel home safely.

So if you lose your passport while abroad, it’s still possible to get home safely. But it’s a great inconvenience and you may not be as lucky to get great help like we got from the Spanish embassy in Tallinn. So always take great care with your passport!!! Always keep it safe and never let it out of your sight.

Have a safe flight!