I’ve just returned from California for the second time in a month, and my body is getting really rather confused. One thing that should help this time is the extra daylight. We’re fast approaching the cross-over point of 12 hours of daylight, and the extra 5 or 6 minutes a day adds up quickly. On top of that, even though sunrise isn’t officially until about 7am at the moment, it’s getting light quite a bit earlier than that. 5am this morning looked similar to how 9am looked when I arrived in December. I’m operating mostly on US time so I don’t notice sunset quite so much, but there’s a few interesting events on over the next few weeks that might manage to drag me out of my apartment of an evening.
Last week I was in California for the second time in a month. This caused a raised eyebrow from the immigration officials, and I also got to join the “special screening” line at security (I think it was a mix of having only hand luggage, and not having any part of my journey involve the country that issued my passport). But the most interesting part was trying to book a hotel in Palo Alto.
I was booking at the last minute, so all my first choices had either no, or restricted, availability. I eventually got booked into the Comfort Inn Stanford/Silicon Valley, but it was a painful experience. Their website availability guide didn’t work at all on Firefox on a Mac, so I had to switch to the PC just to check if it was even worth trying to call them.
When I did call them (Yay for Skype allowing me to call US Toll-free numbers from abroad), things descended into farce. I don’t think my accent is that strong – at least compared to many people I know – but they just couldn’t understand at all some of the things I was saying. I don’t recall ever having to explain before that ‘eight’ is ‘the number between seven and nine’. I was also pretty sure they got my name wrong (it sounded like they were calling me ‘Tomy’, like the Japanese toy people), but I guessed it was more trouble than it was worth to correct this. They also really couldn’t handle international phone numbers – not only are they too long to enter into their form, but the concept of starting with a plus sign seemed to really confuse them. They eventually gave up on trying to take my address after at least three times around the “Where?” / “Estonia” loop, with a higher degree of incredulity to the question each time.
I never did work out whether this was because they didn’t understand my accent, or they just had never heard of Estonia…
Apologies for the lack of posting for a while, but I was in California. This was largely made possible by the extraordinary service of Estravel in Suur-Karja. The trip was arranged at the very last minute (booked on Friday for Monday departure), and Liis patiently sat for well over an hour trying to find me flights that wouldn’t cost an absolute fortune. Eventually she found me business class flights to JFK via Prague for less than the price that most airlines wanted for Economy.
I’d never even heard of Czech Air before so wasn’t sure what to expect. They’re no BA or Virgin, but I usually hate any flight over about 6 hours, and they managed to make a 9½ hour flight quite passable, so I would certainly fly with them again. (They’re probably equivalent to someone like Iceland Air.) Plus they provided the best airline food I’ve encountered in quite some time. (And with real metal cutlery!)
The main disadvantage became apparent on the return trip – the seats don’t recline enough to sleep well. Even though I was ludicrously tired, having had to leave my hotel shortly after 3am to get the first flight to JFK, I got almost no sleep on the way home. Coupled with the 10 hour difference my sleep patterns are now even more messed up then before…
When people warned me about the weather in Estonia I thought they were mainly referring to the temperature. I’m generally quite warm, so this doesn’t bother me too much, although the couple of times it’s reached sub zero not just in °C but also in °F then I’ve been willing to admit that it is might actually indeed be a little chilly.
However, I wasn’t really expecting the snow to bring quite so much physical danger. I’m getting better at judging whether the maniac drivers are actually going to try to stop when I’m crossing the road, although there seems to be at least one every day who decides just a little too late that driving straight into me might not be a good idea, and ends up skidding at me quite aggressively instead. But the real danger seems to be from huge sheets of snow suddenly falling from the tops of buildings into the street. I had foolishly assumed that people were choosing to walking down the middle of the streets in the Old Town because the footpaths were too slippy or had much more snow to wade through. This afternoon, after a near miss just in front of me, immediately followed by a direct hit on a couple just behind me, I decided that it would be much safer avoiding the footpaths entirely and jostling with the cars instead.
This evening I ventured out to see the Tallinn Light Festival. Most of the lights on Pikk have been replaced with red lamps, and there are five installations of light along between the Three Sisters and Town Hall Square.
For all the people who’ve been asking me for photos, I’ve uploaded pictures of some of these to flickr. However it proved more difficult than I’d have liked to get even half-decent photos. The first problem was that I’d managed to leave my memory card at home! Rather than fighting my way back through the snow (I’d even had trouble getting out my front door as the snow was wedging it shut), I decided to just buy another card – I could do with a spare anyway! The bigger problem however was that I’m not really sure how to take good photographs of lights in the dark. And even aside from the purely technical questions, it’s hard to hold the camera still for long in snow and winds with an effective temperature -14°C!
I got reasonably plausible photos of four of the installations, but completely failed to get a good shot of the fifth; the Pong game that the Three Sisters Hotel was projecting onto the building opposite it. I also tried for a while to get a good photo of the entrance to the Old Town at Fat Margaret’s Tower showing the red lights stretching down Pikk. It was a good idea in theory, but I was completely unable to get a shot that wasn’t blurred, and by this point I was starting to lose feeling in my hands!
The inflatable hands near the Town Hall Square seem to get the most attention, especially as they spring to life as people go past, but I much preferred the strange installation at St. Olav’s.
Late last week I got a note in my mailbox from Eesti Post. I assumed that it was one of those notes to say that they hadn’t been able to deliver something because it was too big to fit through the slot, or needed a signature or something, but it was in Estonian, so I couldn’t really tell what it said. This surprised me slightly, as their website is in Estonian, Russian, and English, and it was a preprinted note so it probably wouldn’t be too difficult to make it multi-lingual too, but as I’m just the dumb foreigner who doesn’t speak the language I’m not really in any position to complain!
The note did have an email address on it, so I typed up what looked like the key text from the note, and asked if they could explain what the note was / what I had to do. Unfortunately the text I quoted, whilst important, wasn’t really key: it was the part that said that I should bring ID with me when coming to the Post Office. And, even more unfortunately, the nice person at Eesti Post who responded to my mail only provided a translation to the part I’d quoted, rather than explaining what the whole thing was!
I could probably have replied quoting more parts until I eventually worked it out, but I figured it would probably be easier just going to the Post Office. This also backfired slightly as although they’re open pretty long hours during the week, they close at 3pm at Saturday.
So on Monday afternoon I tried again. The friendly staff there were able to tell me that I was correct in my thinking, but incorrect in my location. I wasn’t meant to go to the central post office, but to the one on Kotzebue. Unfortunately they couldn’t tell me where this was. I’m not sure whether this is because they didn’t know, or just weren’t confident enough in their English – I’ve noticed that lots of people who have otherwise great English become very hesitant when trying to give me directions.
Operating on the assumption that my mail would only be waiting for me at Kotzebue if it were my closest post office, I started scouring the area of the map up near my apartment. Thankfully I found it quite quickly – just a couple of streets below my nearest Rimi (opposite the doll museum!). So yesterday afternoon I was finally able to pick up my parcel – one of the books I’ve requested on Bookmooch, which was not only a great way to get rid of lots of my books before leaving NI, but is now a great way to get books that the local bookshops are really unlikely to carry. And as my post box has a really narrow slot, I suspect I’ll be back to that post office quite frequently!
So far the weather hasn’t been quite as bad as I was expecting. When I went out to the post office yesterday (more on that story later!) it was -3°C, but didn’t feel particularly cold. A little chilly, perhaps, but certainly nothing to, erm, blog home about.
This evening, however, whilst sitting typing emails, I noticed at one point that my feet were feeling a little colder than usual. A quick check of my weather widget informed that this was mostly likely due to the temperature dropping to -8°.
At least I’m not walking home via the docks, as the wind chill is reporting -14°…
This week I tried to sort out my telecoms.
Firstly, I tried to switch my mobile to use a local provider, rather than international roaming. It was relatively simple to get a pre-paid SIM card, although the instructions with it are only in Estonian and Russian, so I don’t know how to do things like check my balance etc. The bigger problem, however, was that my phone is locked. It seems that when you get a phone in the UK it’s locked to the network you’re on, and when you change the SIM, you need to provide an unlock code. There are lots of sites that will sell you codes for £5, but I managed to find one that provides them for free. Most of these sites warn that you only get 3 or 5 attempts before the phone locks up permanently and you need to reset it with cable, but I tried at least 5 different wrong codes before I even worked out that the whole unlock code thing was (the info with the SIM listed at least 4 PIN-like numbers each of which I tried, and the girl in the phone shop claimed that the Nokia default was 12345). Maybe the try count resets each time you get back up and running with the original SIM in?
For my more general telephony, however, being in Estonia I think it’s compulsory to use Skype! Again, getting set up with Skype itself was trivial, as was getting SkypeOut credit, but actually getting hardware was less simple. I don’t particularly want to have to physically be at my laptop to make calls, so I was going to get a cordless skype phone, like the Linksys CIT200.
But then I discovered the Belkin Skype WiFi phone, which lets you use any wifi you can find to make calls. This seems perfect for someone like Tallinn which has ridiculously high free wifi coverage. The biggest problem seems to be the short battery life. Plus, of course, I still haven’t found where to actually buy one.
So, in the meantime, I had to just go buy a traditional headset to actually be able to make calls until I work out what handset I’m going to get!
But I should now be properly contactable. Mail me if you want my new mobile number or skype id. I’m also considering getting a UK SkypeIn number as well so that if anyone does need to ring me they won’t have to pay international rates. I can’t get an NI area code yet though, so it would still have to be a national call for most people. If you’d like me to get one, please let me know!
My sleep habits have been seriously disturbed since moving here. The overnight flight to get here knocked things out straightaway, and in some ways I still haven’t really recovered. I always have difficulty adjusting to the time difference when moving east, and although I didn’t really expect two hours to be significant, I’m mostly having to work on UK time so I often find myself automatically subtracting 2 hours when I look at a clock. The bright streetlights outside my bedroom window aren’t helping much either, as I’ve gotten used over the last 8 years to living far enough outside the city for there to be no artificial light at night.
Then, for much of this week, I found myself in the interesting position of having to do work in the middle of the night UK time, when servers would be at their least busy, whilst having to discus the plans for this on Japanese time! I don’t think I’ve managed to get to sleep before 4am all week.
Until last night, when everything caught up with me, and I fell asleep at 8pm. Unfortunately I then woke at midnight and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got back up again. By 8am I was really tired again, and went back to bed until noon. I’ve considered experimenting with this sort of sleep pattern before, and in some ways now would be an ideal time to start. But I think I’ll leave that for another day.
My key question for now is what time I’m going to get to sleep at tonight…
Generally I’m not a big fan of laptops. I don’t like the small screens, I hate trackpads, and my wrists complain if I have to type on a laptop keyboard for too long. But they are considerably easier to travel with, and so I’ve been working off one for a few weeks.
I did however plan ahead, and also brought a proper keyboard and mouse with me. Unfortunately I was far too stupid to actually test these in advance, and upon arrival discovered that I had no way to actually connect them! I have therefore spent the last few days in search of a USB/PS2 adaptor.
When I was last here in October I forgot to bring a power adaptor, and had to seek one out locally. The electronics department in Kaubamaja proved itself up to that task, but has let me down on this one. They said that I would need an actual computer store and suggested I tried the Kristiine Centre.
Kristiine has been on my ‘to visit’ list for a while, so I today I set off in search of it. Getting to it on foot is slightly trickier than I had expected, due in part to having to cross the railway line. The most awkward part however is the number of places where there are only pavements on one side of a road and thus junctions where you can’t just cross straight over, but need to cross two roads to continue on the opposite side of the same road. With a lot of building work going on everywhere as well, there are also the perils of temporary wooden footpaths which were much icier than I was expecting.
However, despite my needlessly circuitous route, I managed to find the centre. It has a few interesting stores, including a bookshop with lots of seating and a relatively large English language selection, a Euronics store with several interesting LCD monitors at significantly reduced prices (I mostly need to decide whether I want the widescreen one…), and the largest hypermarket I’ve discovered here yet.
Unfortunately the computer store in it is rather tiny and I wasn’t particularly hopeful that I’d be able to get my adaptor. Indeed they seemed rather puzzled by my request, which made me think they had never heard of such a thing (although it may of course just been a language issue). They did however helpfully recommend that I try the computer store in the Ülemiste Centre.
This is meant to be the largest shopping area in Tallinn, and has also been on my to visit list for a while. I’ve been past it in taxis a couple of times, as it’s right beside the airport, but haven’t been down that side of town on foot yet at all. I’m meeting someone down that way at the weekend, so I’ll be able to check it out then.
If I have no joy there, then my next option is to try to find one online. I’ve found a couple of sites so far that sell computer gear locally, but both have only been in Estonian. I actually made it quite far through the registration process in one, but then they started asking questions that I just couldn’t translate at all, and couldn’t work out from context what they might even conceivably be asking.
As a last resort I’ll have to fall back on ordering from the UK, but as I’d take that as a personal failure, I hope I don’t have to do that!
