My Estonia 1

See on nii romantiline! Mitu inimest on mu käsikirja kohta kasutanud just seda fraasi ja neil on õigus: noor kriisis ameeriklane armub põnevasse eestlannast ajakirjanikku ning alustab teekonda, mis taastab noormehe usu endasse ja maailma. Nõus. See on romantiline. Aga see teekond ei olnud lihtne. Välismaalane saabub keset kõige pimedamat talve ja peab jääma ellu sel kõige õnnetuma saatusega Skandinaaviamaal, kus iga perekonda kummitavad minevikuõudused, kus inimesed söövad verest tehtud vorste ja tarretiseks keedetud lihatükke, joovad sooja leivajooki, ning hilinemise eest võib neid tabada surmanuhtlus. Ma hakkasin seda maad armastama tema ilus ja inetuses, ja armastasin edasi ka neil hetkedel, kui mind maale tagasi lasta ei tahetud.

“It’s so romantic, it’s so romantic” Some people have told me this book is romantic and maybe it is: a young lost American falls in love with an intriguing Estonian journalist and embarks on a journey that restores his faith in himself and the world. I agree. It is romantic.

But it was never easy. A foreigner arrives in the middle of a dark winter and must survive in Estonia, the least fortunate Scandinavian country, a land where people eat blood sausage and jellied meat, drink warm bread, and are always on time; a place where every family is haunted by the past and is struggling to catch up to the present.

Over one year, so much happened in this tiny land that it stopped being foreign. Estonia and I became intimately acquainted. Inseparable. And in the end, I came to love it, and I loved it even when they did not want to let me back to their country.
-Justin Petrone