Aaaand ... TOUCHDOWN

Poetry, songs, beautiful weather, parade, tailgating, adopting streets, American football and freebies. Last couple of days has seen it all.

It's Saturday and I'm sitting in the lobby again - near the fireplace where I really enjoy being. There have been only a few nights when I haven't been here during the evening. Past two evenings have been wonderful with lots of people and much laughter. I love laughing. It makes you feel safe and loved.

On Thursday was the Read Aloud Day in Estonia. I talked to Piret in the morning (Estonian morning) and she told me that she's about to read something and then I had an idea: we should also celebrate the day by reading poetry in our own languages. Finally, I managed to get together about 8 people in the evening and we read poetry and translated it and discussed it. I absolutely loved that evening as it showed how close we have become to one another.
The poem that I read was written by my grandmother before I was born but it has always so-to-say "spoken" to me. You can read the Estonian version of it here and I translated it to English later (I was pretty satisfied with my translation - it can be seen under the notes on my FB page).

 The Poetry Evening in the Lobby of Holiday Inn Express in Boone

Rinna, me, Soythip, Margaret, Jahan, Kristel, Aida and Pablo taking the picture
Countries: Cambodia, Estonia, Thai, Turkmenistan, Argentina and Guatemala

As I already mentioned - I loved that evening. And next evening we had Songs Night as part of the series of Cultural Nights. Every country had to play a song in their language and talk about it and share dance moves or something else. We were joined by Hugo from Argentina and two more ladies from Turkmenistan.
We decided to play:

Ruja - Teisel pool vett

I feel that this is one of the most powerful songs in Estonian language and also it has a story behind it that can be told to people. I still get goosebumps just by listening to it.

Kristel played a song by V2gilased that was more like folk music. 

Saturday started beautifully with no clouds in the sky but frost on the ground. Later on in the day it got warmer.

While waiting for the Homecoming 2011 parade we took a lot of pictures and shopped a bit (I got a book by Neil Gaiman from a second-hand bookstore).

The parade was GREAT! They have a real sense of community here. Everybody was out there looking, participating.

Beginning of the parade. The same orchestra played at the Homecoming Football match as well.

After the parade we went tailgating. Which means that we got some free food and a lot of freebies including sunglasses and a T-shirt.

Approaching the gate.

Football was powerful. I liked the way the WHOLE TOWN was wearing the colours - Black and Yellow!

A picture from the stadium as well.

You can read more about the Appalachian State Mountaineers here. They have a mascot called Yosef who used to have a pipe in the seventies but now "it's not politically correct anymore" as one of the guys told me during the parade. They crowned the Homecoming King and Queen during the game and the cheerleaders were great. I loved the game although I didn't understand much. Should have done some private learning about American Football before I went to the game...

The day has been so long and I'm really tired. I hope I'll have some time to blog tomorrow or some other day soon. I have so many good memories of today. And of course - OUR team won! :)

Take care!