Chasing the Sun: My Journey in Tallinn, Estonia

This blog post comes from our Spring 2025 student, Caroline who had the opportunity to intern at Mondo, an Estonian NGO focused on global education, development cooperation, and humanitarian aid. Mondo works to raise awareness and build more inclusive, sustainable communities both locally and globally.

Here’s Caroline’s experience!

The sun has defined my stay here in Estonia, its journey in a sense becoming my own. Let me explain myself. 

When I first arrived in Tallinn the sky was gray, clouds covering the sky, blotting out any possible bit of blue. I arrived knowing that the sun would not appear on the horizon until 9:30 am and then would promptly disappear just six hours later at 3:30pm. And while I knew this prior, I cannot deny the feeling of dismay that filled me when I stepped outside the airport that very first day into a world of thick, wet, frigid air and gray skies. This feeling conflicted with a nervous excitement of being in a new country, meeting my new host family, and being about to begin a very new and very uniquechapter of the book that is my life. Imagine how my nervousness amplified as my host mom began speaking to me in Russian… and I did not understand a word. I confess I was overwhelmed and a little scared, despite being excited. However, after finally reaching the top of the ten story apartment building I would now call home, something remarkable happened. I stepped into the door of my new room to discover a large, beautiful window that boasted a view of the Baltic Sea… and the beautiful, vibrant setting sun. Even the thick clouds in the sky could not hide the wonderful hues of orange, pink, and red. It was those colors that instantly reassured me that however strange this experience was, I would be stronger and braver in the end.

The Dark Months (January-February)

Orientation week came and went, a time that was filled with long hours in a classroom until the weekend when I finally got to explore the city for the first time. When I look back at the pictures that I took during this time, the dark dreary filter over every single one is almost unbelievable. How did I survive? Vitamin D supplements! 

A lot of things began at once, all of my classes, my internship, and the slow adjustment period to my new life. Having a routine to fall back on definitely helped, but oh my goodness I was sleeping so much. The cold darkness just made me want to hibernate. I feel like one of the biggest adjustments for me was having a more open schedule. When I am at home I am always either at work, doing homework, or maintaining a fairly robust social life. Here I have less homework, no paid job, and less friends to hangout with. However, I learned to fill that space with journalling and work for my thesis class, that I am taking from my home university while I am abroad. 

My internship started slowly and awkwardly due to the lack of talking a lot of my supervisors wanted to do, it has been quite difficult to get to know people. However, I knew straight away that I would enjoy the tasks I was given because the non-profit does a lot of important work on the international sphere for human rights causes. I could not be more interested in this. One of my favorite parts up until the very end was simply going to the all staff meeting where I hear each team placed around the world report on the different tasks that they are doing.

The Middle Months (March-April)

March was my most difficult month. February ended and I was reflexively waiting for the sky to clear up and for spring to begin, like it does in my own hometown, but unfortunately this was of course, not the case. And while the sky was blue on some days (which I savored and walked out in everyday), the majority of them were gray. The only saving grace was that it was getting lighter earlier and earlier and getting dark much later. I also got a nasty stomach bug from my host family and had to skip some school.

However, not all was bad. I started to pick up on a lot more Russian and was understanding my host family more and more. My internship was also getting better and better. It all turned around when we did start having consistent blue skies. First, my refugee law class started and it was exactly what I needed, a break from the monotony of my schedule and a more mentally stimulating class. After that, we had spring break where travelling was the perfect reset.

In April the weather actually started to become beautiful! I started to feel myself actually wanting to stay up later, instead of going to sleep at like 9 pm. I could also start walking to school more regularly which was a really nice change. Internship wise, things started to get a lot more interesting. All the conferences that I was preparing for happened! And I was assigned really awesome roles! 

The Youth Environmental Conference was in Narva at a large high school. It consisted of a guest speech by Abigail Kima and then three workshops where the guest speakers engaged with the youth, discovering their opinions of the state of climate change. I was honored to help out in the best way I could, which at this conference mostly consisted of me interacting and socializing with all of the guest speakers. I met so many incredible people from all over the world, Kenya, Georgia, Ukraine, Ghana and more. I also got to meet and spend time with several incredible, young Estonians. I had not had the opportunity to really get to know and be friends with people my own age, and I loved being able to actually speak to Estonians about Estonia. We also unveiled a gorgeous mural in the city of Narva, painted by a Ukrainian artist, dedicated to Elizabeth Wathuti, a Kenyan environmental activist and founder of the Green Generation Initiative.

The next conference was in Tallinn and featured all of the speakers I had spent time with on the prior Tuesday. I was in charge of ensuring that each speaker arrived and made it on stage at the correct time. The job was honestly more fun than hard work, I got to spend a lot of time simply speaking with the speakers and getting to know them. The entire event was an absolutelywonderful success that I was honored to be a part of. It was remarkable to be the one with the clipboard telling everyone which way to go, right in the center of all the action. The picture above features me posing with two of the guest speakers I had the honor to hangout with for the week, Elizabeth Wathuti and Aisha Huertas, a representative of the Climate Reality Project from the United States. 

My next conference will be next week and is a youth Model UN conference located in south Estonia. I am excited to have the role of assisting with several of the committees and in guiding and greeting all of the guest speakers. This month has truly been delightful and I am looking forward to all the brightness it will continue to bring, despite it being far colder than I ever imagined. By that I mean, it is quite literally pouring outside right now, but It will be warm next week, so I am staying optimistic that the sunshine will return.

The Light Month (May)

May is about to begin and the sun is already waiting until 9:00pm to set. Overall, my study abroad experience with CIEE has been an impactful one, where like the sun, I learned to adapt and thrive in this new world, shining brighter each day. I learned to chase the sun, catching the joy it brings each time and making the most out of my study abroad adventure. 

I am excited to see what joy awaits me here yet, but if you wish to know, you will have to find me then!

Caroline Hukin, Spring, 2025

CIEE Program: Tallinn Semester program

Georgetown University

Caroline is sharing her CIEE referral code! Use it when you apply and get $200 off your study abroad program. Plus, a $200 donation will be made to the Global Navigator scholarship fund to help more students study abroad. Here's the link: https://my.ciee.org/?rc=9926eb51-6d3d-ef11-9e45-0050561072ea-5-web