Special Olympics 14-25.03 2017; Delegation Assistant
Liaison (DAL)
14.03
Arrival of the
Estonian delegation
Went to Graz airport to pick up and welcome the Estonian
delegation. Had to be in the airport around 1,5 hrs earlier. Met Marco (the
other DAL for Estonia) over there, got the box with the accreditation and spoke
to many people. At some point, the representatives from the host town Villach
arrived. They are also very nice. Everybody were exited. We saw the plane with
the Indian delegation arrive and they were greeted woth a loud applause. An
hour later the plane with Estonian and couple of other delegations arrived. The
exitement grew. As there were other delegations also on that plane, they came
out in groups. Everything was so organized, that it worked like a machine - one
group out, meet & greet, photos, on the bus, next group out etc. It took a
while for the Estonians to come out - it turned out that 3 of their luggage
items were damaged and they had to report it. Once they were out, Lill (the
coach I knew) came and hugged me straightaway. There were also some photos with
all of us taken. Soon after that we were led to the bus and after figuring out,
how hungry the delegation is and letting them all one at a time enter the bus,
we could start to drive to Villach.
The ride was calm, most of the people slept. I spoke to
Lill and Tiina and Marco mostly. In the hostel, we got dinner (ral local food-
frittatensuppe, schnitzel, apfelstrudel) and then most of the people wanted to
go to their rooms. And then to the shop to buy sweets etc. Most of the athletes
are under 18yrs old, so very young and of course they go for chocolate. I had
to do the accreditation, which went fast and could then go out and take two
Geocaches nearby. I am staying alone in a 6-person room. When I got there, the
window was opened. It's pretty cold in the rooms. Luckily they have many
blankets and I am gonna use them. The phones we got, have also got a charging
problem, as the metal part ia wee bit too big. But the normal charger works
with DAL-phones. Had to explain it to Tiina (Head of Delegation) as well. So
far so good. Looking forward to tomorrow. Today we managed to succeed in our
tasks. Marco dealt with the broken bags and ensurance as well. Our team works
well. As I said, so far so good :)
15.03
The heating didn't work and the room was cold in the
morning. Luckily, I had two blankets - I was warm. Before breakfast the whole
team had short morning gymnastics and then breakfast and then we got into the
bus and went to Villach. In Villach we had a short guided tour and I was
introduced to the guide as the translator..... That continued for the whole
day. The tour was nice, the guide came originally from Ireland. Villach is
located next to the river Drau and you have a marvellous view from the main
bridge towards the mountains and the city and the river itself. The athletes
were a bit bored of the tour, but nothing too tragic. I guess the market was
the most interesting part of the tour for them as they could see various local
products and compare the prices to Estonian prices. The athletes think now that
it's extremely expensive here.
After the tour we went to meet the major of Villach, who
had put out some candies for us. The delegation ate them so fast. After a short
meet & greet speech and gift exchange, we took pictures with the major and
could then just chat to all the people there. It turns out that the major plays
floor hockey a lot. Today's main topic was to explain everybody the difference
between floorball (which the Estonian team was actually playing) and floor
hockey (which every single person seemed to think that Estonians are doing).
After the meeing we went by bus to the mountain called
Dobratsch. While driving up there, we heard many "ooh"'s and
"aah"'s as the view only got better. Took many pictures during
various stops that we made. Estonians were very interested in driving up there
and how it all works with driving in curves etc. Once we were up, we had lunch
in an Almhütte and were then supposed to go on a short hike. For our big
surprise, there was also a girl, called Eva, with the rangers, and she is from
Estonia!!! How random and cool is that?!?!?! :) Anyway, she joined us for the
hike. The "hike" itself was short and you could see how fit some
athletes were as they ran up the mountain in the snow very quickly while we
were a lot slower next to them. But after only 20 minutes of walking, we got to
the viewing platform and could enjoy the view towards the Alps in Italy,
Slovenia and Austria and could also see Wörthersee from above. There was a lot
of snow on the mountain so it looked great up there.
After a short break on the platform ,we went back to the
hut. Over there we were supposed to get a "Kirchtag". As I didn't
really know what it is, I thought we will get to enjoy a concert in a church or
sth. Naja, I also told it to the delegation. Well, Kirchtag is actually a
"village party" that people have after they go to church for an hour
or so. So, once back in the hut, there was a band waiting for us and the hosts
had put on Dirndl's. We were supposed to dance a lot and some guys from the
floorball team took almost all the women to dance. They were so cool! I also
danced with Marco and lots of other guys. Everybody enjoyed it more than we
would have expected. We also sang "Õllepruulija" and Estonian anthem
with the band. After the party we drove back down toVillach and had dinner in
the hostel and then a team-meeting and a short meeting with just the heads and
coaches. Now I'm quite tired, but happy. It was a day full of joy, constant
laughter and many great emotions and experiences. I really like our team here
:)
16.03
The day started with a confusing call from the host town
people, who said that the people, who will drive to Graz today, will have to
start straightaway instead of starting in the afternoon - so they couldn't go
to the museum. We tried to reorganize that as the whole delegation was not
expecting such a change of plans, but in the end we had to tell the delegation
with almost no notice, that we are going to be divided sooner than expected.
Such a shame! Anyway, my group continued to Granatium to learn about the stone
"granat" and to mine it out of the wall ourselves. It was a nice
visit, the stone itself is beautiful and I got to take home 4 of them.
Now I just have to figure out how to make them shine.
After the Granatium we drove to the hostel in Ramsau. In
the same bus with us were also the British and Hungarian teams, who we dropped
off before. In the hotel, one of the athletes dicovered that he forgot his
tablet into the bus and I had to organize how to get it back somehow. I managed
it quite well, because the bus driver dropped it off at a petrol station in
Schladming from where I could pick it up when going to the Head of Delegation
meeting. The meeting itself was after dinner and we drove to Ramsau and then to
Schladming. Got lots of new information. Today was a long day, we got back at
around 21:30 and then spoke to our coaches and made plans for the next couple
of days.
My room is lush, a really cosy room in a farmhouse, with
a double bed and a balcony. The whole house is actually a proper farm- under my
window is a place for goats and chicken run around everywhere. Next to us are
also some ski-lifts, but those cannot be used here any more as the snow was
melting so fast, that there were rivers of melted snow running downhill.
Aja, got nice box of pralines from the host town women as
a thank-you for translating. ;)
17.03
Today was the first day of divisioning. We luckily got to
get up relatively late, had breakfast and then drove with the shuttle to the
Competition Centre, where all the events were supposed to take place. It was
clear to us all relatively quickly, that it will be hard to ski on the snow as
we had a proper warm springday and the snow was melting everywhere. After a bit
of searching we managed to find the rooms where we could put the skis and went
after that to prepare the athletes for skiing training. Me and the Ahod (Assistant
Head of Delegation) stayed in the tent and kept an eye on all the backpacks.
During that time I got to look around for a bit and get to know various
athletes and get used to the environment. It’s pretty vcool to see all the
athletes from various nations all preparing together for their competitions.
Later, when our team got back, there started a big thing about badges from
various countries – everybody went around and tried to exchange the pin from
their country to a pin from another country and then put it to their
accreditation Laynards. Then it was time for lunch in a big hall, after which
me and my Ahod had to go to Schladming to pick up some goggles for the athletes.
It turned out we would get them only after the end of the games. So we returned
to Ramsau just in time to see our athletes doing the 5km divisioning. They did
well. After the divisioning the coaches left for their meeting and we went with
all the athletes again to Schladming to check out the Olympic town. We didn’t
have too much time, but still managed to get many pins from the Coca-Cola tent,
where you could have pictures of you taken and put on those pins. For my
surprise, almost all our athletes wanted to take a picture with me as well. The
athletes also made some bracelets with their names and some hearts out of
plastic beads. Of course, we also had to go to a food store. After that we
returned to Ramsau and went to our hostel, where we had dinner and an evening
meeting. Today went really well, I enjoyed getting to know how everything
works. Also, the bus drivers and other DAL’s are friendly and greet us already
from far away. :)
18.03
Only one of our athletes had to compete today, so the
rest of us went down to Schladming to visit the Coke tent again. For our
surprise, we could watch the Final Leg of the torch run, which was really
emotional and sweet thing to see. I also got a pin for my Laynard which was
made for the Final Leg. As the weather was relatively crap – cold, windy and
rainy – we decided to drive back up to Ramsau to our hotels to relax before the
opening ceremony. That’s what I’m doing right now. But soon we will have dinner
and then start towards Schladming again. Let’s hope it won’t rain too much
during the ceremony...
19.03
It rained through the whole ceremony! L But to the beginning:
our bus picked us up earlier than expected and we were in the parking house
early enough. We met the Graz part of the delegation already on the way to the
parking house. They were very happy to see me and explained to me the whole
evening, how their competitions have gone so far and what they have done. It
was hard to listen to them all at once. But it was so sweet of them. One of
them even brought me tea that everybody could get from special points in the
garage.
The waiting time to get to the arena was long. Estonian
athletes were jumping around and it was very loud everywhere and every single
person was extremely exited. It was overwhelming... Once the march towards the
arena started, people were anxious to move on faster. After a little while we
actually got to move out of the garage and to the arena. As we had a constant
rush to walk through the so called „catwalk“,
our time in the limelight lasted for maybe 20-30 seconds. But it was cool to
walk there and have all the people wheering for us. And it was so bright there.
Agter getting through the arena, we had to quickly get to our places on the
tribunes. It was raining hard, but luckily we got rain ponchos. I felt really
sorry for the Villach Rotary ladies as they didn’t have anything rainproof. They
left before the end of the ceremony.
On the tribunes we watched all the other nations do their
catwalk and then the concert. Helene Fischer didn’t sing any of her own songs,
but damn, she actually has a very good voice. There were also people dancing –
that lasted for a bit too long and our guys got impatient and started to fool
around. But once all the speeches were also done (ha, saw Van der Bellen), then
the light for the Olympic Torch was brought down from the slope by skiers (100
of them or so). The lit torches formed a serpentine. The light was then passed
on to some athletes, who, taking turns carrying it, took it to the place where
the flame was lit. And then Jason Mraz and Grace VanderWaal sang „I’m yours“ and
one other song. Jason’s voice was a bit louder then Grace’s, but that was the
fault of the sound guys. They both sang well though. I enjoyed it a lot. After
that the concert got a finale with huge fireworks and we got off the tribunes.
It took a bit to find the right direction in the chaos and our Graz group had
to go to another parking space (they arrived to the from parking area) and ours
of course wanted to follow them. So, after marching for 5 minutes in the wrong
direction, I managed to convince my group to turn around and go to our parking
area. We were all basically frozen and wet. After the ride home we went
straight to bed, but I didn’t sleep too well and was cold for a long time.
Today, soon after I got up, I got a message, that all the
events for the day are cancelled due to bad weather conditions. So we had the
whole morning off. At some point someone called me to tell that our ambassador
is coming to visit us, so I told everybody to be prepared. At some point some
guy from our social ministry came and 15 min before we wanted to leave, also
our ambassador in Austria arrived. We all spoke shortly and then had to go for
lunch in Ramsau by bus. After the lunch we decided to go to Schladming. As did
many other delegations. While struggling to get on the bus, we saw the
ambassador waving at us- the poor guy had come to see us for longer in Ramsau,
but due to bad luck, we had to go again. I really felt sorry for him. While
trying to get on the bus, some Belarussian lady tried to push herself in before
us to the to the bus first, which I didn’t let her do, so she got really pissed
at me. Never mind, her DAL saw me and said that she is always like that. Down
in Schladming we visited some tents in the Olympic city again and met with
Hannes Hermaküla – Estonian patron for Special Olympics. He made a short
interview with some members of the team. After that we drove up to Ramsau and
then to our hotel again.
When the coaches got back from their meeting, we found
out that we cannot go to the Healthy Athletes program on the 24th. So now we
need to figure out how we could go there as most of our athletes are competing
on the 24th. I have started to organize it, but will have to continue calling
people tomorrow. We’ll see. Lots of stress tomorrow, as the day will be long I
will have lots to organize.
20.03
Our first medal! But back to the beginning. The day
started at 06:20 with the alarm clock ringing. At around 07:30 we already left
the hotel. In Ramsau, the organizers had managed to make all the skiing tracks
nice again and the team got to do even a warm-up round. Soon after that the
divisioning for 1km started and it lasted for about 2 hrs. The weather was
perfectly sunny and warm. Our patron also came and made some interviews with
the athletes. After the divisioning I went down to Schladming with Birgit (the
Finnisch DAL). We were supposed to get some sort of a present from the
organizers as we had done such a good job until now. It turned out that Birgit
had already gotten hers as it was a bag with some goodies and coupons in it.
Well, the coupons are relatively pointless as they are valid only for the
duration of the games and only in Ramsau-Dachstein area. I might get to use the
Dachstein-Gondle though.
Unfortunately I didn’t manage to organize a shuttle to
Graz in the middle of the day as the microbuses don’t do that. That’s why we
still decided to go to Dachstein. Anyway, in the afternoon were the finals for
5 km and I was supposed to take the photographs of it. Both of our athletes
gave their best, but only one of them got a medal- a silver medal. The other
one was unlucky enough to get into such a division, where he was the last one-
5th. He wasn’t exactly happy about it and stayed grumpy the whole evening. The
award ceremony was great, the tent for it too smaal though and we didn’t fit
all our athletes in it in the beginning. That made already tired athletes even
more grumpy. There was lots of good music played during the ceremony, it was
full of energy and joy. It was yet another good experience for me, too. After
the ceremony we had to wait around 45 minutes for the bus. During that I got to
speak with the DAL for United Arab Emirates. He has a tough job- it seems he
had to rearrange the award ceremony for snowshoeing so that his whole
delegation could come to see it. But he still keeps going with full energy
after all that. The DAL was a bit too
friendly with me, was a bit awkward, but I hope he didn’t mean anything with
his behaviour. He told even that we should drink coffee if we happen to have a
free moment (ha, don’t believe there would be such a moment). Told Hannes about it too.
21.03
Did not have a free moment to drink coffee. Not sad about
it either. The day was busy enough. As soon as we got to the arena today, our
athletes competed for the 1Km and that took about an hour or two. After that we
had a quick lunch and then went to the award ceremony. Estonia won 1 golden, 1
silver and 1 bronze medal. It was as hot as in a greenhouse in the ceremony
tent. It lasted long. After it was done, we went to shops and then straight
back to the hotel. Oh yeah, I managed to take a picture of my Ahod with Timothy
Shriver (the Special Olympics patron). In the hotel we had around 2 hours until
dinner so I decided to go for a walk and take two Geocaches on the way. The
caches were amazing – one was hidden into an insect hotel and the other one was
hidden into self-made wooder figure of a sunflower with a bee on it. Those
caches are definetely in my top 3 of the best caches I’ve ever seen and taken.
After dinner I had lots of free time and just surfed the internet and now
cannot really fall asleep. We’ll see, maybe it’ll work soon...
22.03
It was quite a lazy day. Our team had the race for 4x1km.
We had two teams that competed and I shouted a lot for both of them. Now every member of the skiing delegation has
a medal to bring home! Great, ain’t it? J
After the award ceremony I had time off and could go to Schladming. I tried to
take one Geocache, but couldn’t find it., so I watched the awards ceremony for
snowshoeing and then went to Congress Schladming to the Volunteers-evening.
They had a proper reception for us with lots of food and even wine. I had
managed to organize myself a lift back to the hotel with a guy, who’s staying
in our hotel. So I could stay with the volunteers for a bit longer. Met the UAE
guy right in the beginning as he was standing near the entrance and went then
afterwards to sit with some other people I knew. There were many speeches, one
even from a guy called Hans Knaus, who seems to be well-known around here.
After dinner I went to pick up another glass of wine and ended up near the UAE
guy again. My aquaintances were giggling aroung him like teenagers and he seems
to attract females like bees for honey. From his behaviour he is really similar
to Pavel (one of the EVS volunteers that I know from my previous work),
actually. Anyway, the group got bigger in time and I had lots of fun talking to
lots of people. In the end we were all a bit tipsy. At around half eleven I
went home with the guy from our hotel (a really nice older man actually). Called
still Hannes and then went to sleep.
23.3
Today started off with
mini-hangover but as soon as I got to Ramsau, it was all gone because I
found out that our timetable for Friday is impossible. We couldn’t have managed
to catch our buses in time so we organized for the buses to wait for us all
after the competitions. Had to call to lots of places and then managed to get
back to the delegation to pick up the athletes and go to Dachstein with them.
We still managed to watch the race of one of our athletes, who then got bronze
in 500m Freestyle. Then it was time to catch the bus. Alraedy during the drive
up towards the Gondel the athletes were astonished by the views. We took the
gondel really quickly and drove up to the glacier. What a view! It was amazing
up there! Really really cold, but still amazing. The hanging bridge, the glass
platform and ice palace all looked marvellous. I enjoyed every moment of it.
The wind was very strong so the temperature felt even colder, but thanks to
that, the air was completely clear and we could even see a bit of sunshine. We
didn’t stay up on the glacier for too long though, because it was relatively
late. We got off the bus in the crossing to our street and walked home from
there. We had to still try to relax before the long day tomorrow. During the
dinner I got a nice present from my delegation! So sweet of them! By now I am
so used to everything here, that I really don’t want the games to end. But all
good things always come to an end :(
24.3
The day started off in Ramsau centre again, wehere we had
to go again with most of the athletes. I gave my phone away in the information
desk and then we went with my Ahod and 1 athlete (who couldn’t go the previous
day) to Dachstein. I had managed to organize myself another Coupon for the
gondle, so the delegation (who were willing to pay my ticket) didn’t have to
pay for it. On the way up we met a DAL
for Monaco, who said that her country didn’t give her even the pin from their
country. Anyway, the lady joined us for the whole time we spent up on Dachstein,
which was, by the way, a lot warmer than yesterday and there was also no wind.
You could actually see even further than the day before. After around 1,5 hrs
up there we drove down again. On the way down I had to stay on the phone with
one of our coaches, because one of our athletes got disqualified, but
unfortunately the coaches didn’t report his bad state from the divisioning
which put him into slower group for the finals. That meant that his time was
too good for his group and we he got disqualified and we couldn’t do anything
about it any more. Once we were back in Ramsau, we had a quick lunch and could
then watch the award ceremony. 2 bronzes and one silver! J The award ceremony was
done faster than we could have expected so we had to wait actually for 30 mins
for the bus to start. And then 30 mins drive and then only another half an hour
to get ready to go to Graz. Didn’t sound too good. I tried to talk the bus
driver into various options to get to the hotel faster, but it seemed
pointless, because he had his instructions.
But then, he went and spoke to his boss and decided to take the shortest
route to us (before we were the last ones on the route, now we got to be the
first). Once the bus started, we were in the hotel within 5 minutes.
After an
hour we got into the Shuttle to Graz and the bus driver had no idea where to
pick up the other guys from. Luckily I knew, so I showed him. On the way to
Graz the bus driver trusted his GPS blindly and took in Schladming the smallest
countryside roads. To get to the arena in Graz, he also took a very bad route
and we were stuck in a traffic jam. The result? 20 minutes before the beginning
of the ceremony we were still in the bus. Naja, luckily only about 500m away
from the arena. So we decided to walk. On the way to the arena I also had to
give my free tickets to Hannes and his best friend, Huck, who just didn’t ever
seem to see me. Anyway, once I managed to get us all also into the arena to our
places, I had to bring 2 of our guys to another place to carry the nation’s tag
to the arena. And then I discovered that the guy from the Graz group was also
not where he was supposed to be and went looking for him too. As soon as I
managed to take him to join my two guys, I discovered that Marco (the DAL for
the Graz group) was planning to run into the arena with all the other
volunteers to do the volunteers dance, while being completely clueless why he
wanted to go there and what he was going to go for. I grabbed him and we ran
back to our sector to sit down exactly when the show was supposed to start.
That all after 20 minutes of runnning around properly.
The whole arena seemed so empty, there were lots of
people, but the area was just so big. The show itself was unfortunately not a s
great as I was expecting – you couldn’t see too much as the stage was so far
away. Helene Fischer sang the same song again as during the opening ceremony,
Gabalier also chose a very slow song. The major of Graz, Nagl, made a too long
speech and thanks to all that the audience grew impatient. The best part of the
whole show was Schwarzenegger’s speech J
„I’ll be back!“ After the show I took our group as fast as possible to the bus
in order to be able to start faster towards Ramsau again. It took a while for
the Swiss delegation (who were also in the same bus) to arrive, so we started
still late. And of course, the bus driver
- instead of driving straight to the motorway which started basically
next to the arena, he drove to another part of the city. The DAL for Pakistan
(they were also in the bus) then guided him the shortest way to the motorway,
and after 15 minute toilet-break on the motorway-stop, we drove finally the
normal way. Andreas, the DAL for Pakistan showerd the guy the best way to get
to Ramsau again. On the way to Schladming and Ramsau, we already saw most of
the buses driving back empty. We got to
our hotel at 1 a.m., most likely an hour later than many other delegations.
25.3
Didn’t sleep almost at all. At 4 a.m. our bus came, we
loaded our things into the bus, had a small breakfast that our hotel-lady had
prepared for us and then drove off. Picked up one more delegation on the way.
In Graz airport I waited until the Graz group also arrived and then said my
good-byes to everybody and then Marco took me to the city from where I went
home to continue my day with Huck, who had stayed overnight at our place. I had
had no sleep.
I didn’t get to rest too much for the next two days and
was ill the whole week following the SOWWG 2017. But I got an invitation to go
and join the Estonians again as a DAL in Abu Dhabi in 2019! Let’s hope it will
work out and I can sign myself up for that! :)
It was hard for me though, because I couldn't cancel my work, even though I tried to- so I had to say good-bye to him through the phone in a shopping center (luckily I had another colleague with me, who could look after my client for the last 10 minutes of Lotu's life). I wish no one would have to go through such a thing.
Today my family buried him on the edge of the forest next to our home, his head facing towards our home so that he can keep an eye on us even in his endless sleep. He has some rays of sun peeking through birch leaves so that he won't be too cold and too hot either. He has a nice wooden sign on his grave and flowers and a candle burning for him. My great aunt also planted an apple tree next to his grave. He is in a better place now, in a world full of sausages, storks, ladies, where he can walk himself as much as he wants to. But I will always remember Lotu for all his weird perks and behaviours and mostly his deep faithfulness and devotion towards me and my family.
I got Lotu (and named him actually Danny) on a relatively sunny autumn day in October 2014. We heard from some hunters that a very poor person has a dog at his place, who came to him, but he doesn't have any money to feed him. IThe dog had run away from his owner and no one knew where he came from. At that time Lotu seemed to be a bit less than a year old so we estimate
that he lived altogether almost 14 years (more than German Shepherds
usually do).
So, as we hadn't had a dog for a while, we decided to go and look at it and fell in love with him straightaway. As he didn't have anything else to eat besides apples, we gave him some sausage and then took him home. I can still remember running around with him in our garden being the happiest person in this world. He would play with us and you can't believe how proud I felt to be able to go for a walk with a dog. I named Lotu actually Danny, but as he sometimes behaved a bit stupid (even though he was very intelligent), my father gave him the nickname Lotu (which is a sweet word for someone who is a bit stupid, but in a cute way) and it stayed with him for the rest of his life.
Lotu had this weird behaviour from his time in the wilderness, that when he got on a field, he actively had to look and dig for mice, rats etc. He would sometimes dig 50cm deep holes into our fields, dig not only with paws, but bite the toughest pieces of soil and grass off with his teeth. He would then sniff around in the whole he dug and make funny snoring noises and then sometimes suddenly jump to a random direction to try to catch a mouse. Sometimes this would last for hours. Our fields would be like a minefield of holes where one could break their leg. Lotu caught many mice, never ate them though. He preferred to throw them in the air and then catch them. I tried to rescue the mice from him, but when I tried it, he ate them.
During our walks he also had the tendency to try to run all the time and pull so much on the collar that he had no breath. Not that this would've stopped him. He would then sometimes jump in random directions without a warning. In the beginning the walking lead was also short, so wherever he jumped, I fell after. Once I ended up in a half-frozen river. The other time he dragged me couple of meters behind him in a very muddy field. Oh the joy! What would I do, to be even dragged behind in mud by him?
During our walks in the forest we sometimes encountered deers and rabbits. Somehow I always noticed them before Lotu (well he was too busy sniffing everything and made too much noise to hear anything besides himself). Once he noticed them, he tried to run after them and barked and howled so that dogs in 10km radius could hear him.
Often, when Lotu dedided that he wasn't walked enough by us, he did it by himself. No idea, what kind of rounds he did or how far he went, but sometimes he would go away for hours and then come back wagging his tail. He learned pretty soon that this resulted him being in a chain for couple of hours as a punishment, so he started to return from his rounds happily and then going straight to the chain waiting to be locked up happily. As the punishment didn't stop him, we had to barricade our fence with cement blocks in the places he dug himself our from. Well, it became an everyday activity and we needed many cement blocks. Then he started also bending the fence down and going over it..... That's when we gave up. He always got his chain-punishment though. I wonder how many puppies he made during his rounds in the village. He was, after all, a man of the village. :) He did his walking rounds even when he could barely walk in the end. That's how tough of a dog he was.
Lotu also loved running after storks. As there was a nest of them near our house, it became his past-time hobby. The storks found it also funny and flew over our garden relatively low, Lotu barking like mad and running after them. The problem was always, that he didn't look where he ran. So he often ended up running into a wall with a big bang. Sometimes the storks would sit on our roof for may minutes and Lotu would bark the whole time and run around like mad.
Lotu also liked eating bees that annoyed him. Sometimes he would look like out of a dental surgery- his mouth would get so swollen from all the stings from the bees and wasps he ate. He never learned not to do it though.....
He also had his own basketball, which he ended up making a whole into so we played football with a half-filled basketball. He didn't understand the rules of football though, it was hard to get the ball back from him. He chewed through couple of such balls.
What I regret the most, is that I couldn't spend a lot of time with Lotu, as I moved away from home 2 years after I got him. Every time I came for a visit, he would run 3 rounds around the house at the top speed out of joy. He wouldn't leave my side. He would show his love by wiping his whole body and ass into my trousers while walking by (I'm still convinced he tried to take me down like this) and then afterwards sitting on my feet so that I couldn't move. When thinking back about it, he only wanted me to stay home. Unfortunately my visits home became more and more rare as I went to uni and then abroad. At least I know he had a very happy life with my family. It also seems that he waited until I came again to Estonia so that I could say properly good-bye to him. I will remember my last good bye to him for forever. It was the morning when I had to go back to Austria (two days before he died) and he would only look at me from his sleeping place. He had this sad look as if he already knew that I would be going again. And then, when I kissed him on his nose, he didn't even lift his head towards me. He only looked at me as if saying good bye. And then I got the feeling that this was our last good-bye. I just didn't know that he would be gone so quickly. Oh how I wish I had had more time with him. How I wished that!
