2006: A Preview

This is a very interesting piece by ABC news recapping 2005 in technology and predicting what is to come in 2006:

Technology Trends of 2006

In my own opinion, they're absolutely right about all of the trends (Wireless expansion and TV-meets-Computer entertainment centers particularly), though I'm not totally sold that they have the time frame exact. I think that while all of these phenomena will inevitably become our future world, they might be a bit ambitious to say it definitely will happen in 2006. I think perhaps mid-2007 might be more accurate, though it's hard to say for sure. Also, something they left off, but is equally important (and might be very important to 2006) is RFID.

Any thoughts from you guys?

Christmas in Riga

Hey everyone, I'm back from Riga. I got back 3 nights ago, and had a wonderful time. It wasn't home, but it was a close second, and I'm definitely glad to have had the experience.

Sorry it's taken me a few days to get this up here, but I've just been doing other stuff and haven't had the time to write something thoughtful, put the photos online, write captions, etc. etc. etc. It can be a production sometimes to keep the blog, but I like doing it, so here goes. :)

Our trip began on the morning of 12/24, and when I say morning, I mean it. I met up with the seven others in our group at 7 in the morning, braving a snowstorm to walk to the bus station. On the trip, it was me, Maya (Swedish), Knut (German, pronounced ka-noot), Michele and Daniele (Italian guys, both are Italian-sounding names), and Guillaume, Amelie and Anne (Ah-may-lee and Ahhhn, all French); a truly International affair.

Our bus was semi-crowded, but we all got to sit together, and while everyone in our group slept, Anne and I ended up talking for the first few hours, which was nice. My friends couldn't figure out why weren't tired, but I think it had to do with the two cups of coffee I slammed down before leaving that morning. Hehe.

We made it down to Riga safe and sound, and with friends, the 5 hour bus ride passed relatively quickly. We then consulted the map and found the location of our flat (that's 'apartment' for all you American readers... :) ), which was actually labeled as a bed and breakfast, and it was quite nice. After dropping off our stuff, we tracked down a local supermarket and acquired the necessary ingredients for our feast. Everyone made a dish specific to their home country, so as the American, I had the most trouble since we've stolen most everything from everyone else, and I didn't feel like cooking hamburgers (not really Christmas dinner food). So we began cooking up a storm: I made the same tasty salad I made when Jon was here (mandarine orange balsamic vinagrette dressing with blue cheese and fresh pears and tomatoes), Amelie and Anne made quiche, Michele and Daniele made lasagna, Knut made fruit salad, Guillaume made a chicken and Maya made Swedish meatballs.

After gorging ourselves on the delicious food and having a few glasses of wine, we waited until midnight and then opened the presents we'd bought for each other. Before leaving Tallinn, we drew names from a hat and each person recieved two names of people they were to buy presents for, with a maximum limit of 60 kroons (roughly $4). I got the French connection: Guillaume and Amelie, and I got Guillaume a book called "150 Classic Cocktails" (wihch was later put to good use!) and for Amelie, a very nice smelling handmade candle. Daniele and Michele gave me darts and a dart board, which was a great present (though perhaps a bit unpractical considering the fact that I don't want to tear up my walls in my apartment....hah! But still fun.

We ended up partying the night away and didn't get to bed until late, which in turn, resulted in our sleeping the next day away. I woke up at noon and was by far the earliest one up, so I made the coffee, and attacked my book, Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson. It was great and I actually just finished it two days ago, even though I got it for Christmas. If anyone like a thriller with a technological bent, I recommend it.

So we ended up just lounging on Christmas, playing around with the piano, singing terrible karaoke, and of course, eating more. Then that evening, we got around to sightseeing a bit and saw a bit of the nightlife in Riga, which was (as I had been told to expect) largely based around sex tourism. To avoid this, we went to the only place that was open on Christmas that wasn't focused on dancers and prostitutes: TGIFridays. It was actually kind of fun; the themed drinks were perfect for a group like ours. After a few drinks half the group went home, and Dany and Miki and I ended up trying to go to a dance club, but the one we had heard was best was closed (it being Christmas), so instead we went to a pool hall and did our best not to stink up the joint. It was quite fun, and very cheap, so we stayed there for a few hours.

The next day, we got up a little earlier and actually got to see the city. It was much bigger than Tallinn, but that makes sense because the population in Riga is 75% larger than that of Tallinn. All in all, the city was beautiful despite heavy snow, and we continued to just have a blast as a group. I couldn't imagine a better group to be with, and even though these international students all leave on/around January 15, I've definitely made some lasting friends, all of whom have offered places to stay should I come visit their respective countries. Of course I've made the same offer to them, though the US is a bit farther away than Europe for everyone. Who knows, though? I'd love to have any of them stay with me!

At 6pm on the 26th, we had to catch a bus back to Tallinn, and the ride was uneventful. I got 2 new stamps in my passport, which is always nice, and it's almost full!! (that is my goal).

We had a great time, and many pictures were taken. Check out my album:

Christmas in Riga!!

Hope you like the photos! I miss you all and I hope you all have a happy and a safe New Years!! My plans are to go to a place called Otepää in southern Estonia with a bunch of these international students (all of the Christmas crew and then some)...it will be about 45 of us, from what I hear!! We're renting a house and it should be a blast. I'm actually running out the door to meet up with the group right now, so I gotta jet. But don't be a stranger and send me an email or leave me a comment! :)

More updates and photos (I'm sure) when I return from Otepää. See you in 2006!!!
-J

Winter Equinox Photo Essay

I've been talking for a while now about how short the days are here, so I decided that in honor of the Winter Equinox-- the shortest day of the year-- I would try to capture just how short these days really are rather than simply talk about it.

What follows is a 14-photo 'essay' if you will, cataloguing the progression from day to night here in Tallinn-- by far the darkest place I've ever lived. On 12/21/05, the sun rose at 9:17am and set at 3:21pm. I sure these photos won't do it justice, but hopefully they give you some idea what life is like over here. Enjoy!

1:47pm


1:55pm


2:07pm


2:14pm


2:27pm


2:40pm


2:45pm


2:51pm


2:57pm


3:04pm


3:43pm (I had to take a shower, hence the break in the action) :)


3:57pm


4:22pm


4:32pm

Häid Jõulupühi!

...which means Merry Christmas in Estonian!! And to all of you out there who celebrate Chanukah or Kwanza or Chrismakkah (thank you O.C.), I wish you a very happy holiday! I'm not 100% positive, but I think the phrase in Estonian for happy holidays is something like 'Häid Pühi!' or at least that is what the translation would suggest. But if I've learned anything about the Estonian language, translations can be deceiving and words can have many different forms or cases, all of which (to the outsider...me!) seem to have no relation to one another. In any case, all of you Estonian readers out there can correct me if I'm wrong, but in the mean time, 'Häid pühi' will suffice.

Things have certainly been slowing down since the days have been getting shorter and the holidays are approaching; but this isn't all bad. I'm finally making some progress in my research, which I hope will really pick up some steam after the New Year. From my bosses at eGA, I've gotten some suggestions of people I might talk to in order to get more Estonia-specific information about technology, but I'm holding off on sending out emails to these people until the first week of January. The last thing I want to have happens is to have my email get lost in a virtual 'pile' somewhere, only to be forgotten about. I'm hoping this won't be a problem, and I don't think it will be.

It is quite apparent that it's the holiday season here in Tallinn. But the 'Christmas Spirit' is very different here than in The States. The holiday is not about 42" plasma TVs and Xbox360s and iPod Videos and hot toys, but rather, about simpler things like family and friends, good food and relaxation. Not to say that Christmas for us in the U.S. is completely devoid of these things, but we're much more focused on materialism and extravagant gifts than the Estonians. Perhaps this is because of the general disparities in wealth between Estonians and Americans, but I think it goes deeper than this. Here, family means a lot more than it does in the U.S., and it's important to remember that giving thanks and appreciating all that we do have is really what this holiday should be about. Particularly since I'll be away from my family this holiday, I'm trying to take something away from this and really appreciate all that I do have. I have my family and friends and an incredible opportunity here, and I'm going to try to make the most of it when I return to work in 2006. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm using Christmas as a springboard into my New Year's resolution.

But while activity in the malls remains normal, holiday lights have gone up all around town, which is evident in my latest batch of pictures, which you can see here:

Happy Holidays from Tallinn!

In this album there are only 16 pictures, but it gives a sampling of what I've been up to of late, and what Tallinn looks like, particularly at night.

It's strange to think that some of my Fulbright friends are already home, and the rest of them head home Wednesday through Friday. I'm the only one staying here for Christmas, and even though I'll admit I'm jealous of them, I really can't imagine what it would be like to go home right now and be back in American culture. I think overall, it would take away a lot from what I'm going through. I live here now, so to go back to the States would be culture shock, and then to have to come back here would be like culture shock all over again, not to mention the fact that it would require hours and hours of travelling (and more than a thousand dollars in travel expenses!!).

So, not only will I stay acclimated to Eastern Europe, but I'll save some of my grant money to use to travel to a few other spots around Europe. Which brings me to my Christmas plans: a 3-day trip to Riga, Latvia with a bunch of friends I've made over here!! It should be a lot of fun. These French and Italian exchange students (though all are older than me) I've met over here organized to stay at a bed and breakfast in Riga, and on Christmas, we'll prepare a big traditional feast, which should be fantastic. It will be nice to be with some friends and to do something new. I'm really looking forward to the trip, and we leave Saturday morning (12/24) EARLY (7am, AGH!) and return on Tuesday (12/27) in the evening.

As for other stuff I've been up to recently, my friend Andrew (Fulbrighter studying Estonia's choral music tradition) had a holiday concert last week at Jaani Kirik (which you can see in the aforementioned photos), which was tremendous. The music was very nice and the acoustics were fantastic. They did songs in Estonian, Russian, French, German, Latin, and even did a rendition of Jingle Bells in English, which was...well...different than I was used to, but by no means bad. Andrew blended in nicely with the group and we were all happy to be there to support him.

The evening before, we met up with Tartu (Estonia's 2nd largest city) Fulbrighter Cindy Wang, who was in Tallinn because she flew back to the U.S. the next day. We haven't seen much of her since she's 3 hours away by car/bus, but we all went out to dinner at a place called Meister Michel, which is a restaurant in the old town that has a them of "apples." Everything on the menu has apples in it, and it was very tasty (and not too pricey!) Definitely recommended for anyone coming to Tallinn.

Continuing with the themed restaurant tip, last night was eGA's Christmas dinner, which was held at St. Michael's Juusturestoran (St. Michael's Cheese Restaurant). The food was extremely good, and let's just say I was happy the bill went on eGA's tab. Thanks Ivar and Arvo!! :)

Well, that's about all I got for now. But Riga should be fun, and I'll certainly post about that when I return. As for new years plans, I'm not quite sure what I'll be doing yet, but I'm sure I'll have something fun to do. Maybe a club or something with friends, maybe have a few people over to my place. Regardless, it should be a blast!

I'll be thinking of all of you this holiday season, and I miss you a lot.

All my best, and happy holidays!!
-John

PS: this was too cute to leave off the blog. My baby niece Lindsay with Santa (I'm a proud uncle!):

It's that time again....

What time is that you ask? Say it with me now, kids: WEATHER-TIME!!



It's winter here, and believe it or not, it's a-snowin again! But the difference today is that the snow is actually expected to stick around, not blast us and then melt away, or turn to slush with the following rains like it has been doing. Initially, you might think snow is a bad thing, because it means the weather's colder and what-not. But in reality, this is a very good thing for Tallinn.

See, Tallinn's a port city; we're right on the water. As a result of the ocean and air currents, the temperatures stay warmer (again, 'warmer' being a relative term) here in Tallinn than they do in southern Estonia. Thus, snow is not as prevalent here as you might think, or is at least not as abundant as in other parts of Estonia. While it's a good thing for drivers not to have snow, Tallinnians pray for it. Why?? you ask? Believe it or not, it's because in Winter, the days are so short here, that snow gives the little bit of sunlight we have something to reflect off of, and consequently makes the days brighter!

It makes sense, but it's still bizarre in my book. Since when do people pray for snow?!?

Also of note, those little icy thermometers on the right side of the graphic signify temperatures of -4 C and -9 C, respectively. Time to bundle up!

Recap: Hot Technology for Chilly Streets in Estonia (NYT)

The New York Times had an article today on Estonia and technology, focusing on Skype and KaZaA, and I thought you might find it interesting:

Hot Technology for Chilly Streets in Estonia

For reference, Linnar Viik is my original sponsor for my Fulbright, and I see him ever so often. Also, a funny thing to note is that the picture they show in this article is actually of a bar here called "Nimega," not a public Internet hotspot...though they certainly do exist here in Tallinn. And as far as I know, Nimega didn't actually have WiFi when this article was written (my boss and I installed the WiFi about a month ago and I wrote the advertising in English for it)!

Also, Estonian WiFi made ripples elsewhere online at FreshInc's blog, in the post Estonia's Online Outpost, which comes in response to the aforementioned New York Times article.

FreshInc actually had some facts wrong and, like many, had no idea of how tech savvy Estonia is:

Innovation clearly flourishes within energetic, youthful societies that embrace technology as a means of transforming great ideas into major businesses. Take the Estonian town of Tallinn.

Tallinn?

On Tuesday, the New York Times touted this port city on Europe's eastern frontier -- home of Skype and Kazaa -- as the "Silicon Valley on the Baltic Sea." In a country of just 1.5 million people, the Times reports, one in eight have cell phones and gas stations are Wi-Fi ready.

A better comparison might be Dodge City. Tallinn, a frozen outpost between Stockholm and St. Petersburg, is taken with a kind of high-tech, frontier-town lawlessness. Both Skype and Kazaa, for instance, operate on peer-to-peer file sharing technology-- the cattle rustlers of the Internet. The city also has an upstart online gambling firm (insert saloon shootout scene here).

But then, along with the occasional gunslinger, frontier towns have always drawn plenty of true pioneers, too.

I posted a thoughtful comment which I hope will get to readers so they have a better sense of what Estonia really is:

Posted by: John Heywood at December 13, 2005 06:58 PM

Tallinn?? Absolutely. You'd never guess it, but Tallinn is one of the world's technology hotbeds. I'm living here now for another 7 months studying the rise of networking technologies, with a specific focus on wireless communications. There are over 700 wireless hotspots here, about 2/3 of which are free (the "pay" hotspots cost only about USD$1-2 for 24 hours), and the stat you had about 1 in 8 people having a cell phone is drastically wrong. It's more like 7/8 people have cells, some even having more than one! I don't have the exact figures in front of me, but like 85% of people using e-banking, and you can pay for your parking meter or hourly/daily/weekly/monthly bus tickets with an SMS message. Estonia also just rolled out a 3G cell network for citizens, and last October was the first country in the world to use e-voting on a nationwide scale.

So yeah, to say Skype, Kazaa and Playtech are 'it' and leave it at that would be simply touching upon the very tip of the iceberg that is technology in Estonia. Expect big things.
--

Also, just wanted to give a special shoutout to Erik Bergset, Anna Hermann, Brett Gerson and Misha Leybovich for pointing me toward this article. You guys rock!! And that goes for all of you out there in blog-land: if you see something you think I might be interested in, please, please send it along!! Thanks everybody!!
-J

Extended Forecast For the Week of 12/12/05

Extended Forecast For the Week of 12/12/05

I love how they come up with different ways to tell me it'll be snowing, or it'll be cold. Like the one I feature this week: -1 Celsius: Snow of Varying Intensity. Last week my ForecastFox had the audacity to tell me that it would be "Warmer, with snow, -5." Warmer. Sounds good right? Not so much. I think that that's the first time in recorded history that "Warmer" and "-5" have been used in the same phrase.

Anyways, that's it from here. Think warm thoughts (and by warm, I don't mean sub-zero temperatures).

Thanksgiving, Culture, and My Life

Greetings after a long hiatus from the blog!

It's taken me quite a while to get back here and actually write this blog entry, so I apologize for the delay. I don't know what happened, I've sat down to do it each of the past 6 days, but for some reason things kept coming up or I found that I just didn't have the motivation to write it. In any case, if you're reading this, it means that I've finally gotten through it!

Since I last checked in, it wasn't even Thanksgiving yet and the days were MUCH longer than they are now. I was just on the phone with my sister Karen and wasn't until I put it into words that it hit me just how short these days have gotten. 18 days ago, the sun was rising at 8:34am and setting at 3:40pm (which is still abnormal, in my book!) and today, the sun rose at 9:07am and set at 3:21pm. In the last 16 days, we've lost 52 minutes of daylight! We've lost between 2 and 5 minutes PER DAY. It's nuts.

Anyways, the recap:

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun. It was 12 of us, 5 Americans with the rest of the gang from Estonia, Germany and Finland and we had a feast. Trudee was able to track down some Turkey (though instead of getting a whole bird, we ended up with 3 massive "pterodactyl" legs) and everyone brought a sidedish. Personally, I was responsible for the green beans and everything went smoothly on that front. Trudee was a lovely host and it was so great that she had us over.

A quick aside: One of my professors at Wheaton, Kersti Yllo (who herself is Estonian and has been a great resource for me) forwarded me an email from a guy named Tim King who is an American living in Estonia, a professor of anthropology. In any case, she suggested I send him an email and maybe the two of us could connect. He's got a blog: LettersFromEstonia in case you're interested. In any case, Thanksgiving rolled around and I hadn't gotten around to emailing Tim (it had only been 2 days). And who is one of the 12 at Trudee's place? None other than Tim King!! Talk about a small country, and in this case, capital city.

But back to the bird(legs). The food was really good and we introduced the non-Americans to our holiday and when they quizzed us on the history of the holiday we were forced to admit that our remembrance of the first Thanksgiving is rather idealized. In large part, the Native Americans provided the food and the land and everything and the settlers provided diseases. In any case, we explained what the holiday stands for now and it was clear that our entire group was thankful for each other, particularly those of us that are still quite new to Estonia.

The last 2+ weeks have been rather uneventful on the work front, unfortunately. The good thing is that I'm learning a lot about wireless technologies in a general sense, but I'm not learning as much as Estonia-specific information as I would like to, which, in my eyes, is the point of all this. I've also been having trouble carrying out some of the side projects I'm working on because my bosses/colleagues have their own agenda independent of my presence here. With this being said, I'm somewhat of a low priority to people, but this is understandable and comes with the territory. It's still a tad bit frustrating though.

My evenings have been much more interesting than my (shortened) days here. I got to attend a fashion show that my friends Elina and Mikko had designed clothes for, and Trudee designed some jewelry for Mikko's collection, including an elegant 'hood' that words wouldn't do justice to. I'll make sure to put a picture of it in my photo album, which you can see here: Estonia Album #9 - Thanksgiving, Fashion Show, Various Photos from around Tallinn

Some of the clothes were classy, others notsomuch. Fashion, in my eyes, is like modern art- you'll love some, you'll hate some, and the rest will just make you wonder...

Our friends' collections were some of the best in the show, which made the evening a smashing success. Trudee and Mikko's work was even featured in the "Picture of the Day" on Estonia's most visited website: http://www.delfi.ee. After the show we grabbed a bite and drinks to celebrate. Good times were had by all.

The next night, I was lucky enough to be invited to the opening of a film festival here in Tallinn, called PÖFF (forgetting at the moment what the acronym means, but it's something in Estonian you probably wouldn't get anyways, so whatever...). Anna had gotten tickets through her job at the U.S. Embassy; the Ambassador had been given complimentary passes which she kindly gave us to use (as Anna pointed out, if the Ambassador went to all of the events to which she is invited, she'll never have any time to get anything done!). So we gladly obliged and took the tickets and had a great time. We saw 9 short films that students at the media school in Tallinn had written and directed. Like the fashion show, some were better than others.

It was funny though, when we entered the theater, we got sort of an odd look from the ticket-taker. Because the tickets were addressed to the "Her Excellency" the Ambassador, they looked at Anna and me and were just kinda giving us the "YOU'RE AMBASSADORS???" look. We strolled in and enjoyed the moment.

Another highlight from the last few weeks was that my German friend Raphael and I checked out an Estonian Basketball team, where we saw the Tallinn team, Kalev BC absolutely decimate their Greek opponent, 127-76. We went out for a drink after the game and ended up running into two obviously American guys who we got talking to, and we mentioned that we'd been at the Kalev game that night. "Funny," the taller of the two says. "I play for Kalev." Turns out his name is Andre Perry, and he told me he played at Alabama back in college. Well I googled him and it turned out he was pretty good back then and played with such NBA stars as Latrell Sprewell and Robert Horry. Anyways, he's only been here a month, so I think he was glad to meet another American. We exchanged cell numbers to go out some time, but we'll see if that materializes. It'd be fun so we'll see.

Those are the major highlights of my life right now. I keep saying it but I mean it this time: I'll try to post more frequently but sometimes the motivation is hard. The increasingly bad weather and the short days just make it hard to do anything. Luckily we're through the steepest part of the curve and in less than 2 weeks the days start getting longer again.

I miss you guys and we'll be in touch soon.
-John

Fulbright Newsletter, Vol. 1

Hey guys, I just wanted to share an article I got asked to write for Volume 1 of Fulbright's Newsletter. Hope you like it!

Fulbright Grantee Newsletter Vol. 1 – John W. Heywood – Estonia: Information Systems

Project Title: Researching the Social Impact of Wireless Internet in Estonia
Host Insitutions: Estonia’s e-Governance Academy & WiFi.ee, Estonia’s Free Wireless Initiative

December 5, 2005

Tervitused Eestist! Greetings from Estonia!

I write from Tallinn—Estonia’s capital city—where I am already almost 1/3 of the way through my Fulbright grant!! I can’t believe how fast the time has been flying by, but I’m having a great time. I’m making progress in my research, seeing different parts of Estonia, meeting Estonians both on professional and personal levels, and doing my very best to learn an extremely difficult language! All in all, this is exactly what I could have hoped for when I left my home of Oakland, CA 3 months ago.

I arrived in Estonia not knowing what to expect. I mean, one can read documents about a place, but my arrival in Estonia is proof that you can only truly know a place once you have set foot on the native soil. Estonia has changed quite a bit over the past 3 months, going from the tail end of a warmer-than-average summer to full-blown winter, complete with snow, temperatures of -10 Celsius and days that have been getting shorter and shorter since I’ve been here. Needless to say, quite a change for this California boy.

On the research front, all is well, though admittedly progressing slower than I might have hoped. I’ve had the ability to attend conferences and meet some of the leaders in information technology and e-governance in this tiny technocracy, and despite making many connections early on, the policy-makers here are extremely busy with their daily goings-on, as could be expected. Thus, at this point, I’ve acquired more hard, quantitative data from websites and other public sources than qualitative data from interviews and questionnaires. Both are valuable to my research, and I am hoping to secure some interviews and distribute a detailed survey regarding wireless technologies to all types of people with whom I am connected across Estonia very soon. With this data, I expect to extent the gait of my research from steps and strides to leaps and bounds.

So far, the Estonians that I have been able to get to know despite my language constraints (many Estonians speak English, particularly the younger generations) have been extremely warm and friendly once you get past their tough exterior. I have also developed a small ex-Pat network that is always growing and changing based on who is arriving in country and who is leaving. Estonia’s size (1.4 million) makes it a country unlike anywhere else I’ve been; I’m constantly meeting new people: Estonians, Americans, Finns, Germans, Nigerians and Russians, just to name a few, who have both become my friends and in a few cases even proven useful in my research.

There is a saying that “Everyone in Estonia knows everyone else,” and whether or not it is true, if people don’t know each other (yet), they’re certainly connected with one another through the Internet and other networking technologies. Estonia’s early focus on wireless technologies sets it apart from the other former Soviet satellite countries and, in fact, many other countries in the world. To be here studying this fascinating subject at such a crossroads for the world has been an amazing experience so far, and I truly can’t wait to see what the next 7 months hold.


Overlooking Tallinn

This week's extended forecast...

New Addition to the Blog

Check out the newest addition to my blog-- a few "friendly blogs" as I call them. The section is on the right and as I meet people with blogs, they'll go there! So far I have the e-Governance Academy's News (eGANews), Tim King's Letters From Estonia (LettersFromEstonia), my eGA colleague Steven Segaert's blog (StevenSegaert), James Delaplain's TechnoHybrid (TechnoHybrid) and fellow Fulbrighter Trudee Hill's Blog (TrudeeHill). Check them out, and keep an eye out for more blogs!

-J

PS- New post coming soon...

Mõniste and Hargla

Tere tere!

The last 10 days since you've heard from me have been a nice mixture of work and play. A lot of my work has kept me out of the office, which I have to say has been a nice change from the daily grind I'd been getting accustomed to here at eGA. It's hard to believe that I've only been in the office 3 days over the past two weeks! But this isn't a bad thing, I think.

I have been working from home some of the last few days, which I've actually found often increases my productivity, believe it or not. At eGA, my well-intentioned co-workers and I often get distracted from our projects, as we'll be talking about a topic for work, and then we'll get sidetracked on related issues, or politics, or something else that might not be totally pertinent, but still has a shred of relevance to the topic. It's not a terrible thing, as I think what it reveals is that we're truly interested in what we're all researching and the surrounding issues. And it also is evidence that we get along well--also not a bad thing. But when we need to get work done, we sometimes have to try to be anti-social, which in my eyes, is ok. I'd much rather have it this way than the other way around. And for me, being social and talking about a variety of issues here in the workplace isn't so bad, as a big part of what I'm trying to accomplish on my Fulbright is to learn as much as possible about a variety of subjects. So far, so good.

Aside from simply working at home, I've gotten to do some more physical work outside of the office, taking a trip down to southern Estonia last weekend with Veljo. We went as far south and east in Estonia as possible, to a town called Mõniste, which is located in Võrumaa county (about 1km from the Latvian border), as well as town called Hargla, which is located in Valgamaa county, a bit further north. We spent the majority of our time at Metsavenna Farm (Metsavenna Talu), in Mõniste.

Metsavenna is not only a farm that grows grain, but also somewhat of an outdoor museum dedicated to Estonia's Forest Brothers. In short, the Forest Brothers (Metsavennad in Estonian, so you can tell where the Farm gets its name) opposed Soviet occupancy after World War II, and hid in the forest for over a decade in order to evade capture by Stalin's forces, and to fight against Soviet rule as guerillas. They lived in the forest in caves for around 12 years and killed Soviet forces, destroyed power lines, and did anything else they could to undercut Stalin's regime. It was quite interesting to hear about, and was certainly something I didn't know about before this past weekend. I suggest you read the Wikipedia article I linked to, as this is just fascinating stuff that I don't think most people know about.

In any case, Metsavenna Farm is run by a man named Meelis, whose grandfather was part of the Brethren of the Forest, and the farm is very near to many of the caves, so Meelis hosts groups (from Estonia and elsewhere) for an overnight at the farm, provides a tour, as well as extreme good food and music, not to mention two saunas, and WiFi Internet. This is where we come in.

Over the past year or two, Veljo and Meelis have become friends, and recently Meelis decided he wanted to expand his WiFi coverage beyond just the lodge guests stay in. So, as he is not a technical person, he called Veljo and invited him down for a weekend at the Farm in exchange for technical help. Veljo has technical contact people around Estonia, so he doesn't have to drive all around the country every time there is a problem, but this time, as he knew I would enjoy seeing Metsavenna, he decided we ought to go ourselves. I was so tickled to be included, and Veljo and I had a great time.

The drive to the Estonia-Latvia border is about 3 hours from Tallinn, and Meelis had been in northern Estonia, so we picked him up halfway down to his farm. When the three of us arrived around noon, Meelis, being a gracious host, gave us some breakfast before we started our work of setting up his WiFi hotspot and access point. The sandwiches were great, but before we ate, Veljo insisted that we try Meelis' homemade "vodka."

So Meelis busts out this gigantic bottle with a cork made out of newspaper, pours a shot for each of us, and before we toast, Veljo instructs me that Meelis must show that his drink is pure. So Meelis takes his finger, dips it in the "vodka" and sticks his hand into the lamp that is burning on the table, lighting his finger on fire with a very cool, but extremely hot, blue flame. He blows it out and then takes the shot, looks at me with a grin that says, "Your turn!" So, being the adventurous type, I follow his lead, lighting my finger on fire (and just barely avoiding burning my hand off), and take the shot. Now, I haven't had a lot of vodka per se, but in my experience, vodka is usually around 80 proof, or 40% alcohol. What we had--not vodka.

This, on the other hand, was around 140 proof, or 70% alcohol. These guys might have called it vodka, but I swear it was moonshine. Veljo took his, and I felt good, knowing that I had made it through Estonian test #1 unscathed. I was ready to eat, and then get down to business. Little did I know, however, that tests #2 and #3 were right around the corner, except sans fire this time, as we'd already proven the purity of the drink. While I might not have burnt my hand, my throat was en fuego. But it was nearly impossible to say no, for fear of being a bad guest, and less of a man than the other two. Needless to say, machismo is not dead in Estonia.

In any case, I survived the moonshine "initiation," Veljo and I chowed down, and we got to work. Our task: set up a high gain (read: long range) antenna for an access point at Meelis' residence on the opposite side of the farm from the lodge where we ate. This would pick up the existing WiFi signal from the lodge and allow us to spread it over Meelis' house. Not too hard in theory, but after 3 shots of 140 proof "vodka," climbing ladders and installing antennas is not as easy as it might seem. Luckily, however, no one was drunk and we got the job done fairly easily.

Shortly after we set up the access point, it started snowing, which was just absolutely gorgeous. These snowflakes were massive, think like 1/2 dollar coin size. One of the most beautiful snows I've ever seen; sorry Massachusetts.

In the evening, a group from the central Estonia showed up, and man, were they boisterous. Not in a bad way at all, but rather, they sang and danced like nobody's business, which was just great. Problems kept on popping up with the network, so Veljo and I had to skip dinner and tend to it, but we got it all fixed. After that, we decided (amidst heavy snow) that it was time to hit up the sauna.

So, we ventured down to the sauna, which was right next to a semi-frozen river, and changed our clothes, and enjoyed a 90 degree C (194 degrees Fahrenheit!) sauna. After about 10 minutes in the sauna, Veljo informed me that in Estonia, they like to jump into cold water in between sauna sessions, which I told him that I had done before when I went to the sauna in Tallinn with Marku. But the fundamental difference: here there was no pool of cold water to jump into, only a frozen river! So we jumped out of the sauna, ran outside and plunged into frozen oblivion, caught our breath, and got out of the 4 degree C (below 40 degrees F) water as quickly as possible and back into the sauna.

At this point, our bodies didn't know whether to be on fire or frozen, but it was actually kind of nice to return to the sauna and let our bodies achieve equilibrium. After we were sufficiently thawed, we did it all over again, and this time I ran and jumped in the water. Veljo was shocked, and told me it looked like I had done it 1000 times. It seems as if I passed Estonian test #4. While this may sound crazy (and believe me, it was), the Estonians have one thing right: this hot-to-cold-to-hot technique certainly is refreshing, despite its lunacy.

After we'd had enough of this shock therapy, we showered up and had a few beers with the Estonians in the room adjoining the sauna to warm up and relax before braving the snow and wind once again. Only a few of them spoke any English, but they quizzed me on the Estonian phrases I knew, and Veljo did his best to translate as we went along. If I had anything to impart, he translated.

We finally headed back up to the lodge and had a bite to eat, and we met up with all of the Estonians who had skipped the sauna in favor of carousing with one another after dinner. After seeing them in action earlier in the evening, it is easy to imagine how they were after another hour of food and drink. Meelis played his guitar and everyone joined in song, though I didn't know the words to most of the songs. The only ones I knew the melodies to were Estonian versions of 'My Darlin Clementine,' 'Rock Around the Clock' and a few Irish and German drinking songs.

As the evening progressed, Meelis broke out some more of his homemade alcoholic concoctions; this time it was Applewine, which Veljo warned me would hurt my head if I drank too much. So Veljo and I had just a little, and enjoyed the riotous Estonian song. Later in the evening, someone pulled out a wood-carved recorder, which is the closest thing I'd seen to a saxophone or clarinet in a few months. I didn't speak up at first, and the Estonians all tried their hand at the instrument. A few figured out how to play some basic melodies on it, and then one of the younger Estonians who spoke the most English and had been chatting with Veljo and me, suggested that I give it a try. Now, I haven't played the recorder since maybe the 2nd grade, but I miraculously remembered some of the stuff. And you should have seen the look on their faces when I busted out 'Ode to Joy' and the theme from 'Titanic.' I even played some stuff by the White Stripes for the Estonian teens, and some West Side Story for one older lady who clearly was an afficionado. Everyone had fun, though my version of "Maria" was...well...how is a nice way to say this...terrible. She didn't seem to care. And when the Estonians reverted back to their traditional songs, I even got to play along with them as best I could. It was nice, as I couldn't really interact with them with words, but the music made me feel part of the group. A few even came over afterwards and started talking to me in Estonian, and again, Veljo was there to translate. What a guy.

We called it a night at around 1, as we had to head out early the next morning. When we woke up, everything was covered in snow which was absolutely beautiful. We said goodbye to all of our new Estonian friends and Meelis and we hit the road. On the way back up to Tartu, we stopped at another WiFi enabled Farm, named Niidu Farm (Niidu Talu), in a tiny town that, according to Veljo, many Estonians have never heard of, called Hargla. After making sure everything was sound at this farm, we drove up through one of Estonia's national parks, Koobassaare, which was amazing. It was one of the purest, most natural places I've ever been, and with the exception of the road, seemed almost untouched. We saw 3 deer and a mink, and a few miles down the road, were even able to tap into one of Veljo's hotspots. In the middle of a national park. I was just amazed that we could be connected to the Web in one of the most remote places I've ever been, but we were! We quickly checked our email, I sent a few chat messages to friends to boast about where I was, and we were back on our way.

Veljo had to go see his dad, so he dropped me off at the bus station, and I took the EkspressBus back to Tallinn. Quite a fun adventure.

Here are some photos from the trip: Mõniste and Hargla

Some other highlights of the last 10 days:
Anna invited me to an art opening in the National Public Library, where we saw the work of Johann Christoph Brotze, a German-born artist who emigrated to Latvia and recorded in great detail, well, everything around him: people, animals, buildings, coins, etc. It was a tremendous exhibit, on loan from the Latvian Academic Library, and Anna had gotten to attend in place of the US Ambassador to Estonia, who had prior engagements. Anna brought me along, and we had a great time. We even ran into Noel Kilkenny, the Irish Ambassador to Estonia, and also, my friend Peter's dad! We chatted with him for quite a while, which was a treat.

Also in the past week, I've gotten a new assignment for work here in Estonia. Ivar, my boss at eGA, is friends with a few guys who work for Intel, and I will be writing a case study both for Intel and for eGA on Voice over IP (VoIP) communications-- most notably Skype-- and how this technology is used in a small business setting like at eGA. Should be fascinating.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so I will get together with some Americans and some-non Americans for a dinner feast, though because turkeys are scarce in Estonia, I think we're going to have to substitute some chickens for turkey. It's too bad, but not the end of the world. And then later in the evening I'm going to meet up with some other Americans to watch some traditional American Football in a bar in the old town called Nimeta Baar that broadcasts football every Sunday (and this case, Thursday). Should be a nice substitute for home, though I of course will miss my family. I'll be thinking of all of you out here, and you all have my best wishes for the holiday.

Enjoy the turkey for me, and please do stay in touch- I'd love to hear what all of you are up to.
Miss you all.
-J

PS- A special shoutout to Alex Dewar, one of my Wheaton buddies that just found out that he won a Rhodes Scholarship! Way to go buddy!!

Jon, Tallinn & St. Pete's

...And so concludes a great week.

My high school friend and fellow Fulbright scholar Jon Fougner came down from Oslo last Wednesday and we had a great time over the past week. He flew back up to Norway the following Wednesday, and we managed to do A LOT in a just a week.

Getting to and from the airport is incredibly easy here in Tallinn; there is a bus that goes from the center of town directly to and from the airport every 15 minutes, and it costs the same as any bus/trolley/tram ride in Tallinn: 5 Kroon, or about 40 cents. Talk about a good deal.

Jon flew in at about 10:00pm, so I met him at the airport, and we bussed back to my apartment. By the time we got back to my apartment and got settled in, it was about midnight, but we were excited to see each other and catch up, so we popped into one bar in the old town for a beer, and were greeted by Estonian karaoke, which included a number of American songs which had been Estonian-ized. Quite funny to us, though the Estonians made them work. After a few songs though, we decided to call it a night and see the old town the next day.

Mark, my roommate, was out of town giving a poster at a conference in Norway, of all places, so Jon and I had the apartment to ourselves. Jon crashed on the couch, and we slept in the next day. We grabbed some donuts from this amazing place down the street called Sõõrikukohvik, which literally means Donut-Coffee Cafe. After a hearty breakfast of oily donuts, we embarked on our tour of the old town. I took Jon along the route of the guided tour I had been on, imparting the wisdom that had been passed down to me from my previous guide, and we continued to catch up. It was really nice to have Jon visit, as one of the things I have been missing most here in Estonia is the ability to communicate with a friend on the level I am used to in the United States.

Jon and I caught up on all sorts of things, from how our respective projects are going to the task of keeping in touch with friends from colleges around the world, to the political goings-on in the US (Plamegate and the indictment of "Scooter" Libby, as well as the increasing realization among the American people that we were lied to as Bush & Co. made their case for war), to our travel plans to St. Petersburg, to the ways that economic models parallel our world, to the effects technology is having on society, to other stuff that is currently evading my memory.

I wanted Jon to meet some of my friends while in Tallinn, so we decided to invite Anna and Trudee over to my place for a few drinks and dinner, though we didn't really tell them what plans we actually had in store. Jon and I up stopped by the grocery store and picked out the ingredients for a tasty dinner, and Jon brought me a sampler pack of authentic Norwegian liquor called Aquavit that we decided would be nice for tasting with my friends. When it was all said and done, Jon and I prepared bacon-wrapped lamb shanks which we smothered in pesto and braised, along with a butter lettuce salad with pears, oranges and bleu cheese in a mandarin orange balsamic vinagrette dressing. Needless to say, the girls were impressed. They dashed off to a flamenco concert that Anna had tickets to, and Jon and I met up with my German friend Raphael from TTU, who had invited us to an Estonian party in a 16th century castle. Again, it goes without saying that we had fun--we were VIPs in a 16th century castle.

The following day, we slept in again and walked around the city some more, did a little browsing in galleries and shops, and met up with Trudee and Andrew, another Fulbrighter who has only been in Tallinn for a week. They had been shopping for housewares for Andrew, and the 4 of us met up for lunch.

I suggested this restaurant beneath my office, a place called Saku Sops that I often go to, as it has cheap and decent daily specials. I've been there probably 20 times already, and have never had a bad experience....UNTIL NOW.

The daily specials are listed in Estonian, and I have begun to understand some Estonian words. The ladies who run the place know me, and know that I don't speak Estonian very well, but they humor me and let me try and figure it out before caving in and asking them what it means. So this time, the menu said "Kanamaksab." I understood 'Kana,' as this means chicken, so I say to the woman, "OK, I know the dish has chicken in it, but what does 'maksab' mean? I know it's chicken-something." And usually the second part of the word (they put words together here) refers to the sauce, or the side dish or something like that. Like chicken picatta, or curry chicken, or something of the sort. So I felt like it was a relatively safe bet. The 4 of us each ordered this, and it wasn't a big deal, only about $2.50 each, but the price wasn't what worried us.

We started eating what looked harmless enough, and each of us sort of looked around and didn't really like what we were eating. Trudee bailed on the meat first and Jon and I were right behind her. I asked an Estonian friend of mine what kanamaksab is and she told me that 'maks' ('maksab' when attached to another word, like kana) means LIVER!!!! We were eating LIVER. I seriously thought I was going to be sick at the table. I felt so bad-- not because of what I ate-- but rather because I had recommended this place to my friends. Jon probably thought that all Estonian food was like this...

In the evening, we met up with a few friends of mine for a birthday party, but we couldn't stay too late, as we were heading to St. Petersburg via bus at 7am the next morning. But the party was a lot of fun, so we ended up staying until 3:30am, only to get about 2 hours of sleep before struggling to get up and make it to the bus by 7. But we made it, and were able to sleep on the bus en route to St. Pete's.

We made it to St. Petersburg at around 3:30pm, and I was just blown away at how different it was-- even from Tallinn. I remembered the feelings of arriving in Estonia two months ago, and our arrival in Russia made this feel like a vacation. Jon and I didn't have any Russian Rubles, we didn't speak the language, we didn't have a map, we couldn't read the signs, and to top it all off, we were carrying around our big backpacks, which made us stick out like sore thumbs.

After wandering around for a little bit, we got the courage up to ask a few people where the train station was. The problem, however, no one speaks any English, and all of the signs are in Russian. Finally we found someone who understood the word "Metro," and she pointed us in the general direction of where we were to go-- she pointed straight and then left with two hefty grunts.

Jon and I then mosied on back to where the bus had dropped us off, and went in the one establishment with a sign that we could decipher-- Western Union-- hoping both to get money and advice on where to go. But yet again, no one spoke English, despite the fact that Western Union is an American company. So again, we get pointed in another direction with another grunt. We then exited the building and went next door, which we have identified as a train station. Just as we entered, we found an ATM, so we got some cash. Alright, step one down!

With our newly acquired Rubles, we attempted to buy our tickets from a ticket window, but of course the attendant doesn't speak English. So, after about a minute of confusion, we tell her the name of the train stop we are trying to get to one final time: Nevsky Prospect. Something finally clicks, and she writes down on a piece of paper "METPO" (with P representing R in Cyrillic) and points us next door yet again. Apparently the train station and the Metro are two seperate things. So we go next door, find the appropriate place to buy our train tickets, and attempt to buy two tokens for the subway. The only problem: 1 metro token cost only 10 Rubles (28 Rubles to the dollar, so 10 rubles = roughly 35 cents), and the only money we had was in the form of 1000 Ruble notes that we had just gotten from the ATM. The woman was not pleased, but luckily she sold us our tokens despite the fact that we had essentially been trying to make a 35 cent purchase with a $50 bill. Maybe she just felt bad for us, but hey, I'll take it at this point.

We finally got on the subway, and man, it was intense. First, we headed underground on these monstrous escalators-- imagine the longest escalator you've been on in the US in a department store, and then multiply that by 4 or 5. St. Petersburg has the deepest subways in the world, and it was certainly apparent to us as we descended into the depths of St. Petersburg.

Once underground, we actually navigated the subway system remarkably well. We could tell which train line we wanted, as these were delineated by color, but (as we had come to expect at this point) the signs were all in Russian, so we had to sort of guess which direction we needed to take the train. We had to take the red line one stop, then transfer to the blue line, and take it for 3 more stops. Luckily, our first guesses were correct in both instances, so we made it through the subway system unscathed. But upon exiting the subway, we were once again greeted with a massive escalator, and what seemed like millions of people. St. Petersburg has about 4.6 million people, which is 11 times the size of Tallinn, and it seriously felt as if all 4.6 million people were in the subway at this time. This was Saturday afternoon, so I can only imagine what rush hour must be like.

Once we surfaced, we found our hostel quite easily, and awaiting us was a note from the two Fulbrighters (Laura and Jennifer, as well as Jennifer's boyfriend Jacob, who was roommates with 4 of Jon and my high school friends at Harvard) that we expected to meet in St. Pete's. They were out at museums all day, but wanted to meet up with us at 7pm for dinner. They took us to a place that they had already eaten at the night before, with another Fulbrighter based in St. Petersburg. They told us that the food was so good that it warranted a second try. We had blini-- a Russian delicacy not too different from crepes-- which were fantastic. I had roast beef in mine, Jon had duck in his, and Jennifer and Jacob split some sweet ones with honey in them, as well as the traditional Russian soup, borsch. YUM!

After dinner, we all met up with another St. Petersburg Fulbrighter-- Margaret Anderson-- who I had met in Washington, D.C. and had been in touch with via email since arriving in Tallinn. She took us to a party in St. Pete's at the home of another Fulbrighter who I remembered from D.C.-- Miriam Enriquez-- so we met a bunch of other Russian Fulbrighters including one studying puppet theater and another who was basically a professional opera singer. It was quite an eclectic group, but overall very fun.

The next morning, we joined up with Jennifer, Jacob and Laura again to see the Russian Museum, which houses quite a bit of artwork, but we focused specifically on seeing the 20th century Russian art. The only artist that I had heard of was Vasily Kandinsky, though all of the art was incredible. I wish we could have seen more, but J, J, & L were heading out that afternoon, and we wanted to hang out with them some more before they left.

After the museum, we all grabbed some lunch at the famous 'Literary Café' that was one of Alexander Pushkin's-- Russia's most famous poet-- regular haunts. We were treated to an elegant atmosphere with a piano and violin duet playing throughout our lunch, and it really felt like we had been taken back in time in Russia. They even have a very realistic wax effigy to Pushkin when you enter the restaurant; it was sort of creepy, I won't lie.

After saying goodbye to the Lithuanian Fulbright Crew, Jon and I walked around Nevsky Prospect (the main street in our neighborhood), and checked out some of the sights, most notably Kazansky Cathedral, which is a HUGE Russian Orthodox Church (that absolutely dwarfs the ROC in Tallinn), as well as the Church of the Saviour on the Spilt Blood-- which could easily be mistaken for a slightly smaller version of Moscow's Kremlin. You'll just have to see the photos, which you can find here. After touring around Nevsky Prospect for a while, we found a coffee shop in which we took refuge from the increasingly bad weather and continued our awesome conversations.

After chilling at the coffee shop for about an hour, we decided to come back and have a nap before tracking down some dinner and going out for the evening. After napping, we found a place near our hostel called the City Bar, which was actually American-themed. Because it was Sunday evening for us, we thought that we might be able to catch some American football on their satellite TV, but unfortunately, when we got there, the remote was lost, and we could only manually navigate through a number of music channels. This didn't really phase us though, as we had some TASTY burgers that really seemed American (much better than other attempts I've had at 'American food'). We got talking with one of the bartenders-- a Canadian guy named Chris-- who was able to suggest a few bars/clubs for us to check out. He was a really nice guy and even though he worked there, he had a beer with us while we ate and he is going to give me a ring when he's down in Tallinn after the first of the year.

Chris' suggestions for places to see were good, but it took us a little while to find the best place he suggested, Club Datscha. Once we got there, we found a tiny 'club' that was smoke-filled (like everything in Russia and Eastern Europe) and was blasting Top-40 tunes from about 5 years ago, but this did nothing to dampen our fun. We ended up making friends with the bartender, Sasha, as well as a few locals who taught us some Russian phrases that we promptly forgot, but it was all in fun. Because we'd napped, we didn't make it back home until about 4am, but this was ok, as we felt that experiencing the nightlife in St. Petersburg was as important to our overall experience as was seeing museums and monuments.

Monday ended up being somewhat of a wash. We wanted to get out of town and see Petrovorets-- one of my dad's favorite places near St. P's-- but unfortunately, it was closed on Mondays, and the fountains for which it is known were already off for winter. So we thought that we could see the Hermitage instead, and then potentially get out to Petrovorets on Tuesday before heading home, but we soon found out that the Hermitage (and everything else in SPB!) was closed Monday. Needless to say, we were dissappointed, but we didn't let it get us down, despite the fact that it had begun to rain. We instead picked an Asian restaurant called Aquarium that was in another part of the city, and decided to walk there (despite the weather) to see a different part of the city.

Aquarium was incredibly tasty; we had 4 different courses comprising all types of Chinese and Korean food as part of a 'businessman's lunch,' so we didn't break the bank, and then after finishing lunch, we walked back from Aquarium via St. Peter and Paul's Fortress, which is one of the few things in the city that is open every day (as it is largely outside). After walking through much of the fortress, we walked back to our hostel via the beach outside the fortress, and just enjoyed talking and and sharing our sentiments about Russia. Much like I have found myself doing in Tallinn, I had to keep reminding myself I AM IN RUSSIA!! I'm sure Jon got tired of hearing me come to this realization over and over...

That evening we didn't have as late a night as Sunday. We ate dinner at a place called Spoon Café, which was much more of a restaurant than a café. In Russia, apparently, restaurants are extremely fancy and expensive, while 'café' is the heading for less expensive places that are equally as nice as anywhere I would eat in US. We were pleasantly surprised that we didn't end up eating dinner in a place like Starbucks when the head of Nord Hostel referred us to a café for dinner.

Tuesday was our last day in St. Petersburg, which was too bad. I was getting better at transliterating the alphabet so, as Jon put it, “I could be sure that we were going into a restaurant as opposed to the police station.” Since we’d sort of lost Monday, we could only go to the Hermitage/Winter Palace on Tuesday, meaning that Petrovorets will have to wait until I return to St. Petersburg in the Spring, which is my plan at this point. I suspect it will be nicer in the spring anyway.

On Tuesday, we met up with yet another Fulbrighter-- Anna Berman, a recent graduate of Brown University-- who was able to give us a guided tour of the incredible museum. I would estimate that we saw about 1,500 of 3,000,000 pieces of art in the museum, but we hit all of the ‘must-sees,’ including works by Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh, Gaugin, Monet, Da Vinci and the rest of the Ninja Turtles, Rembrant, and numerable others I am forgetting at the moment. Not only did we see paintings, but we saw incredible sculptures and artifacts from from ancient civilizations, as well as those from more recent cultures. It was truly an amazing collection, and in many ways, to borrow another phrase from Jon, it is ‘an embarrassment of riches.’ From what we are told, the Hermitage/Winter Palace is home to over 3 million works of art, although at any time, they only have 150,000-300,000 pieces on display. Only.

I felt as if I could spend a week in the museum, and I probably could have. Anna is taking an art history class devoted solely to the Hermitage, so there you have it: one really could spend a week+ in the museum. Anna was the perfect tour guide for us, and we appreciated her guidance so much. After the museum, she took us to a favorite place of hers where we got local pirogis, a Russian delicacy that is like a stuffed dumpling that can either be sweet or savory. We got a few and shared them. YUM again!

After lunch, Jon and I managed to navigate our way back to the bus station via the Metro, and we managed to make it safely back across the Russian border into Estonia on a 7-hour bus ride. When we got back my apartment, we crashed hard. I never knew sitting on a bus was so exhausting!

The next day, Wednesday, was the day Jon had to leave, but it was also his 23rd birthday! So rather than celebrate simply by sitting on a plane, I took Jon out to one of the nicest restaurants in Estonia--Pegasus--mostly to celebrate, but also to make up for the chicken liver we had eaten a few days before. We had a three course meal and a few drinks, and it was just a great conclusion to our trip, as we were able to debrief a bit and have our final philosophical and political discussions that I enjoyed so much since while Jon was in Estonia.

We had a great time, and I was sorry to see him go, but Jon is insistent that I come up to Oslo and stay with him, so I think I’ll just have to take him up on it sometime after January 1, 2006. In the meantime, it's back to work for me after an extremely fun week.

Until next time,

J

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Since I last posted, I have been, well, for lack of a better word, BUSY.

I've been in and out of eGA, where I have been researching the variety of e-Services offered in Estonia, as well as doing more general research on the overall state of WiFi and other wireless technologies--both those that currently exist (and have existed for some time), and those that are on the horizon--in Estonia.

My research sort of slowed this week, though, as my boss Ivar has been extraordinarily busy trying to secure funding for eGA-- so that this organization can continue to function next year and into the future. So while it's been frustrating that I haven't been able to interact with him as much as I might like, I also understand that the health of this organization is much more important at the present time than is my research. The idea is that both work together and are mutually beneficial, so I've been relegated to a backseat for the past week or so, and I'm OK with this (so long as it doesn't continue for the next 8 months!!).

Needless to say, I've still been busy as ever. The work I've been doing mostly is to gather data from a variety of public sources so as to gauge Estonia's exact levels of connectivity. There has been some research done on connectivity in years past, but what I am focusing on doing is creating an up-to-date snapshot of what Estonia is doing now. Often times this is difficult because different people have different statistics, or only have some of the statistics available. It seems as if most people here either look at cellular technologies, or they look at networking technologies, but they don't look at both, or at least they don't incorporate the two sets of research data into one body of work. This is extremely apparent in the interviews and talks I have been having.

I have found a few people here who believe what I believe: that eventually these two types of networks will become one. Citizens will be at times be connected to the Internet via the networks that cell/mobile phones currently use, and at other times will use their cell phones to make calls via a WiFi network. Needless to say, I envision a world where connectivity is comprehensive and we can always be connected (if we want to be). Soon enough, it won't matter what type of connection we are using, just that we are connected.

Yesterday I met with a radio engineer at Tallinn Technical University (TTU) named Avo Ots, who served on the board of Estonia's largest mobile phone provider--EMT--for six years. He now teaches at TTU, and has offered to help me bring together a lot of the most current statistics that exist on Internet connectivity, both in public and private forums. Even though he is focused primarily on the technical aspects of networking technologies (as opposed to the social impacts, which concern me most), he has given me some interesting insight into the "why?" question of Estonia and wireless technologies.

The short answer is that during the Soviet era, Finnish TV broadcasts covered the top half of Estonia (geographically speaking), so Estonians were exposed to different and new ways of thinking, as opposed to remaining ideologically stagnant in Communism. Thus, as Finnish innovation was taking place (both technically and ideologically), there was a trickle-down effect occurring in Estonia. Estonians were able to see potential that technology held because the Fins were putting it into practice (see: Nokia), so when the USSR collapsed, the Estonians embraced all types of technology with open arms. The analogy that comes to mind is one of water gathering against a dam; eventually the pressure from the water will break the dam and all of the water will come rushing through.

How interesting that the Estonian infatuation with wireless traces all the way back to one of the first mainstream wireless technologies: TV! Is this just a coincidence? Maybe so, but then again, maybe not...

I've also been meeting a lot with my initial contact here in Estonia, Veljo Haamer who--to refresh your memory--is the founder and editor of WiFi.ee. We've been having really interesting conversations about wireless in general, and we've also been brainstorming about how best to expand upon his website. Not only will the new site be more interactive, but we've talked about adding a blog to the site where both Veljo and I can write opinions as well as facts. Part of what I will contribute to the site will be biweekly articles (or stories) about various types of hotspots around the country. It will be as much to promote Estonian WiFi use as to give practical examples of how this technology works in day-to-day life. It goes without saying that this will be quite beneficial to my research as well.

Veljo also has invited me every Tuesday to play pool with him and some of his college buddies, one of whom set up an online poker site called poker24h.com, and another one who is a Physicist, so that has been fun the last few weeks. I unfortunately am working late tonight, so I can't join them.

Tomorrow evening my buddy Jon is flying down to Tallinn from Oslo, Norway, so I've been working extra hard to get some stuff done before he arrives (and I'll subsequently be out of the office for a week!). He gets in at around 10:30 tomorrow night, we'll see how we feel and may grab a beer in the old town, and then Thursday will be our main sight-seeing day in Tallinn and night on the town, and then Friday we'll take it easier, as we have a 7am bus to St. Petersburg on Saturday morning.

In St. Pete's, we're staying a place called the Nord Hostel, and our stay will actually overlap with 2 fellow Fulbrighters from Lithuania, so we'll meet up with them on Saturday night before they come to Tallinn on the 6th. The craziest thing about this overlap is that the boyfriend of one of the Lithuanian Fulbrighters (who will be in St. P's as well) went to Harvard and was roommates with 4 of my middle school and high school buddies, and also knows Jon!! So it's a small world, and it will be fun to connect with a friend of friends.

On our trip we'll definitely go to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, and my dad is also insistent upon the fact that we go to the fountains outside of town at Petrovorets. I secured my Russian visa and bus tickets today, so it means we're actually going to Russia, and I am really looking forward to the trip. Think of us on Saturday!!

My week hasn't only been work, though. Last Thursday I went out to a German bar called "Beerhouse" where I saw my friend John's band called 'Payback,' perform. John is an American professor at a local universities called Concordia Audentes. Payback played Rock 'n' Roll tunes from a number of different decades, and lot of people turned up and danced. It was a blast.

On Friday, my friend Trudee threw a house party which was fun, and a very random mix of nationalities showed up: American, Estonian, Spanish, German, Finnish, and probably more. It was cool to meet a bunch of new people, most of whom are art students with Trudee at the Art Academy here in Tallinn. Then on Saturday a friend of my roommate named Marlene had a housewarming party early in the evening, and then I went out with some Estonian friends of mine to a few bars and pubs, for drinking and dancing, and we had a blast. I called it an "early" night at 2am. :)

We got an extra hour of sleep that night, and on Sunday, Trudee and I went to a Sauna with her friends Daniella and Marku. Let me just say that it was quite an experience. When you go in, the men and women split off and go to their own respective saunas, and basically everyone inside is naked. I know, I know, not quite the thing one really wants to see: a bunch of naked men of all ages shapes and sizes, but people are comfortable with it, as it's just the way things are in the sauna. They've been this way in Estonia forever and aren't gonna change, so we went with it.

Marku had been before, so he prepared me for what to expect, and I had heard some things about sauna culture from Veljo, who is an avid sauna-goer. But basically what you do is you strip down, shower off, and then go into the sauna, which is H-O-T hot. There wasn't a temperature gauge (it would just make you cringe to know how hot it actually is in there), but Marku estimated it was about 80-85 degrees Celsius, which, for the Americans in the audience, is between 176 and 185 degrees!!

I could only stay in the Sauna for like 10 minutes at a time, and that might even be generous. Maybe it was only like 5 minutes at a time, but that's not bad. People don't just sit in the sauna for an extended period of time, they go in and out as they please. The sauna, contrary to what I might have expected, is for relaxation, not necessarily a test of 'manliness.' So we went in an out as we pleased.

Now, there are different ways you can sauna, and Marku and I tried a number of them. The first is just to go in and come out and rinse off in the shower and go back in. We even threw some water on the heating rocks to get the temperature even hotter, which was pretty intense. Now, if you want to spice things up, you can go into the sauna and then when you come out, jump directly into this big pool of ice cold water. They say not to do this if you have any heart problems, which, luckily for me, I don't. After adjusting to the cold water, you go back in the sauna and heat up quite nicely.

The third way to sauna is to purchase (or bring with you if you've planned ahead) these bunches of Birch or Oak leaves (little saplings from a birch or Oak tree, bound together by some string), which are soaked before going into the sauna, for around 30 minutes. So we got some of these small birch branches, soaked them before we went in, and after our third 5-minute sauna session, we brought them back in. Now, in the sauna, you let the birch leaves heat up (by the heat in the air) and then you basically smack yourself all over your body with the leaves. Apparently, this stimulates blood flow within the body, and cleanses the skin. After doing this for a few minutes, Marku and I jumped into the ice cold pool again and worked up our courage to go back into the sauna.

And the last type of sauna experience you can have is to apply honey all over the body when you're in the sauna for the last time of the day. Apparently this is extremely good for the skin, as it is an exfoliant as well as an agent which softens the skin. Whether or not this really is true is a mystery to me, but I just went with the flow, and then we rinsed off and showered up and met back up with Trudee and Daniella, who had a very relaxing time as well. I was totally drained, and just passed out that night after a BIG meal and an ice cold beer at a local Russian place Marku and Daniella took us to.

In short, the nudity was at first weird but you get over it, the heat was hot, and the experience was definitely worth it. This is all part of my Estonian initiation, I guess.

I'm sure there will be plenty more adventures, and I'm glad you guys can follow along with me on this blog. Sorry again for the length, but I figure if you made it this far, you really don't mind too much. :)

I miss you all, and love hearing from you! You know what to do.

-J

Winter is here...

Hey guys!

It’s been a while since I last wrote, but not too much is new with me.

This past weekend was fun; I met up with a varied group of friends and we went out to a few bars and a dance club on Saturday night, and then on Sunday I just took it easy and did some shopping with my friend Anna. I got a new pair of jeans (which I needed badly!) and a few nice button-down shirts and a sweater. It wasn't cheap per se, but comparable to US prices.

In other news, the first snow arrived in Tallinn today, I am told! It didn't snow for long, and it certainly didn't stick, but it's on its way. They say it might snow later today and if not today, then on Wednesday. The temperature is hovering between 1 and 4 degrees Celsius (34-40 degress Fahrenheit, about), so if any moisture exists, it will come in the "Wintry Mix" variety....but I would much rather have just snow though, since you don't really get wet in the same way as with rain or wintry mix.

Up until now, Tallinn had been unseasonably warm with only a few rainy days. Since I’ve gotten here it’s been between 12-18 degrees Celsius most days, which is between 53 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit, so not bad! There had only been a few cold days and nights, and overall it had been quite pleasant. I was beginning to think that this whole “winter” thing was only a myth to keep people away from Tallinn, but today has changed my mind; it’s 2 degrees C outside as I type…

It seems that Fall has come and gone in about 2 weeks; the leaves turned color very quickly and are now mostly gone from the trees, so that was a bit of a surprise. But as I may have said before, Estonians have all been amazed that the weather has been good for this long, so everyone is bracing for a brutal winter to "make up" for the warm spell we've had. I hope they're all wrong about the severity of this winter, but it appears Winter (in whatever form it takes) is here.

I won’t lie though, it is getting quite cold here, and I think I'll have to bust out the long underwear soon. The snow today wasn't much, but it shows where we're headed. From what I hear, though, Tallinn is generally warmer ("warm" being relative) than southern Estonia in Winter, as we're on the water. Thus, the amount of snow that sticks around can limited, and we do get a lot of rain in the winters. But it's all year-to-year, people tell me, so I really don't know what quite to expect. So for now, I'll have to be vague with all of you, since that's what I'm getting from people here. :)

The days have also been getting shorter; but it's not as bad yet as it will be. A big difference will come on October 30th, though, when daylight savings time ends. Instead of setting at 5:30, the sun will set at around 4:30....yikes. The days will only get shorter, as on November 30th the sunrise is at 8:49am and sunset is at only 3:30!!! That is crazy, I think. December 23rd is the worst though, sunrise at 9:18am and sunset at 3:22pm. So basically I have 2 more months where the days will only be getting shorter, and then it will be nice to have them get longer and longer and longer until I leave in July.

Now that I've sufficiently dwelled on the weather, I can tell you what I have been doing. Last week, my boss Ivar was in Jordan, giving lectures to Jordanians about the role Information and Communications technology can play for their government, so I was on my own. Also, Steven, another colleague of ours, was in his home country of Belgium, where he was advising the Belgian government on Public Policy. On top of these two guys being gone, we had a delegation of Moldavian civil-servants in the eGA office, attending the same lectures given by top Estonia experts, so the office was still quite full of people despite the two guys that I share an office with being gone. The difference with this group was that they didn't speak English or Estonian, so all of the presentations were in Russian, which meant I couldn't attend any of them, unlike the week before with the Albanians.

I'm finding that even though my research is taking different directionst than I might have originally expected, eGA is a cool place to work out of. I get along with all of my colleagues, and Ivar is one of only a few world experts in his field, so it's very nice to be as close to him as I am. I'm trying to learn as much as I can from him while I'm here. He arrived back from Jordan on Friday, and tomorrow we will meet to further clarify my first research project, which, as of now, will be to put together a seminar on the variety of e-services offered in Estonia, and the best channels through which to deploy these services.

The services I speak of include paying for your parking meter with your cell phone, voting online in elections, turning on household devices with a text message, and paying for items in stores via text messaging. I will write up a brief on the technology and the available channels through which these services can be delivered, and then I will invite 10-20 thought leaders in these fields together to debate over 3-5 questions I'll write. Then, I'll record the seminar and formulate the thoughts into a paper that (assuming all goes well with this) will be done before Christmas.

So mostly my week kept me in the office, but a few days ago I got the chance to go to the Tallinn Zoo with my Estonian friend Triinu. It was a beautiful day, and the zoo was actually pretty neat! We saw animals I'd never seen before, like a ton of Yaks, and some really cool tiny monkeys that were just swinging around on vines and stuff. We also saw some toucans (which made me think back to actually seeing them on the Amazon River in Peru!) and an alligator, not to mention a bengal tiger, a rhinocerous, two African elephants and some very active gorillas! It was fun. Check out the pictures here and make sure to keep an eye out for the picture of the sign near the alligator...too funny.

I've also been in the process of finalizing my trip to St. Petersburg with my friend Jon (pronounced "Yun"), who is actually studying in Norway on a Fulbright at the moment. He will come down to Tallinn on November 3rd, and we'll spend 2 days here, and then take a 7am bus to St. Petersburg where we've already made hostel arrangements. We'll stay in St. Pete's until the afternoon of November 8th, when we'll head back to Tallinn and spend a day before Jon heads back to Norway. It should be a great time, as it will be really fun to hook up with an old buddy of mine.

I've definitely missed hanging out with all of my friends since being over here, and while the Estonians I've met are very cool, it is just hard to interact on the same level that I can interact with Americans on. My friends Trudee and Anna have made this a lot easier, but I still miss all of my Wheaton and Bay Area friends. Luckily, being so connected to the Internet while over here makes it at least a little easier to keep tabs on what everyone is up to. I can't imagine being this far away without the Internet, which just shows how spoiled technology has made me. But at the same time, this just goes to show that our world will never be the same. Each day, we innovate and move forward with technology, irreparably changing the world-- sometimes for good and sometimes for bad. That's exactly what I love to look at though, and it's what I'm trying to understand over here in Estonia. How has our world changed, and more importantly, how is our world changing. Something to think about.

1 month!

It's hard to believe, but I've been here for a month already!!! 1/10 done with my grant, wow!

It's been a month of transition and it certainly hasn't been easy. But all in all, things are going very well in Estonia; as well as I could have possibly hoped when i embarked on this crazy adventure.

I haven't been able to write much because I've been extremely busy these past 2 weeks or so since I last wrote. At the beginning of October, I got to take a walking tour of Tallinn, and even though I had already seen a lot of the sights, it was nice to have a guide who could explain everything and tell us little anecdotes about the history of the country and in particular, the old city.

Click here to see some pictures from the tour, as well as a few other random pictures from the past 2 weeks or so.

The highlights of the tour were the oldest buildings, particularly the Russian Orthodox church, which has magnificent "onion" domes like you would see on the Kremlin, but smaller. We got to go inside, which was an experience in itself, though unfortunately, they don't allow you to take photos. But to describe it for you, everything is adorned in gold, and there are no pews; worshippers walk around from icon to icon, lighting candles and saying prayers at each. Also, there is no direct communication between the priest and the worshippers, and there is no sermon given. The priest conducts his activities behind a partition where a choir sings (so you also don't see them), and the music was just beautiful. There were many people actively participating in the service when we were there, and it was interesting to be able to be a fly on the wall.

We also checked out two amazing lookout points over all of Tallinn, which were just spectacular. We had views of the whole city, and heard stories of the various occupations of Tallinn. Estonia has quite an interesting history, and it's amazing that the buildings we stood between have existed for 800 years in some cases, and still remain. There are few places in the world that are like this.

A few other pictures in this album include some shots from a jazz club my roommate Mark and I went to, which is housed in the basement of a theater called "No. 99" and is actually just about a block from our apartment. It is only 40 kroon for student tickets (roughly $3.00), and the show was great!! We're definitely going back, as the shows are every Friday.

Last saturday, my friend Anna and I decided that it would be fun to just pop on over to Finland, so we did!! We weren't sure of the specifics but we knew pretty much where the ferry terminal was, so we got up at 8 or so (early on Saturday!) and mosied on down to the port, and we found that same day tickets for the ferry to Finland were only $30 roundtrip! Talk about the price being right! So we took a 10 o'clock ferry to Helsinki, and arrived in Finland at about 11:40am or so.

We had acquired a map of Helsinki on board the ferry, so we had a general sense of where we wanted to head-- the older part of the city, which ended up being about a 30-40 minute walk from the part of the port we had arrived in. This was no big deal at all for us, as we weren't totally positive of what we wanted to see, and a lot of what we wanted to do was get a general sense of what Finland is like.

After trekking across Helsinki, we arrived at an open-air market which was just fantastic. The prices were very high, as this was a main tourist destination (the market was on the water, but at the port where all of the cruise ships arrive, not ferries from Tallinn), so Anna and I just walked around and there are some (I think at least!) very cool photos from this market in my Finland album, which you can see here:

Pictures from Finland!

After checking out the market we attempted to find a big flea market that Anna had heard about from a co-worker, but it was nowhere to be found. When we first arrived in the city, we found one small flea market (which had some crazy stuff; I wish I had the expertise of some of those antiques roadshow guys!!!), but we weren't sure if this was the one Anna had heard about. In any case, finding the big flea market ended up being somewhat of a wild goose chase, but since we had mapped out our path through the city, we ended up near Helsinki's modern art museum.

The museum was crazy, as I guess I should have expected Modern Art to be. I have to wrestle with Modern Art, as some of it is very impressive to me, and other pieces make me say "This is art?!?!" It was a cool place to go, and after we left the museum, I found myself looking around me in the 'real world' asking "is this art?" I like the fact that this genre bridges the gap between art and every day existence, even though I might not like all types of modern art, or feel totally comfortable looking at some of the pieces. To each his own, I guess.

After the art museum, Anna and I checked out some cathedrals and churches (the oldest buildings in the city), and one surprising highlight was at Tuomiokirkko Cathedral, a Lutheran cathedral fairly close to the open-air market I spoke about before.

Now I don't know if I mentioned this in a prior blog post, but I have been thinking about trying to go to Germany in June to visit my Wheaton friend (and fellow Fulbrighter) Karin Seeber, and to check out a few world cup games. The problem was, however, that we realized we wanted to go to the World Cup kind of late in the game, so all of the teams that were sure-fire bets to make the cup (US, Brazil, Italy, etc.) had sold out. So our only option was to try and get tickets for a team that wasn't a lock to qualify, but still could get in (as we had to reserve the tickets a few weeks back). So our choice was Romania, and without getting into specifics, a lot of things had to go right for them to get in the cup.

So at Tuomiokirkko, we passed these three guys who were wearing matching warmup suits that looked like they said Romania Football. I kind of did a double take, and kept walking. The jackets looked pretty legit, so as we're walking, I explain my interest in Romania soccer to Anna, and then it clicked: Romania was playing Finland that day as part of the World Cup qualifying matches in Helsinki!! "Could those guys possibly play for Romania?" I asked Anna? The more I thought about it, the more it seemed they were there for the game.

So we went back to them and I asked if they played on the team, and somewhat bashfully they said yes. I wished them good luck against Finland and in general, and told them that I had tickets to see them in Germany, so I was really hoping they'd make the World Cup. I'm not totally sure if they completely understood what I was saying, but they said thank you and Anna and I went on our way. When I got home, I looked online and discovered that these were two of the guys I met: Mugurel Buga and Daniel Niculae. These guys aren't bad players at all. And what are the odds of this happening, honestly?!? It was pretty cool.

Anyways, Romania ended up winning that game in Finland, but thanks to a Czech Republic victory 2 nights ago, Romania was edged out of the World Cup qualification. So, after what I thought might have been a fateful encounter, I won't get to see Romania play after all. Too bad, but hey, I still met three pro soccer players, and to have them play for Romania was still very cool and exciting since I had somewhat of a stake in that team to begin with. I suspect I'll always pay attention to what they're doing from here on out, so that's fun. And even though I don't have tickets to any World Cup matches, I still very likely will go to Germany to see Karin and check out a few games in the local bars. It will be a lot cheaper that way, that's for sure... :)

After a fun day in Finland, it was time to return to the real world. This past week, eGA has had a delegation from the Albanian government visiting Tallinn and learning all about e-Governance through a series of speakers here in our offices. Since the common language between Albania and Estonia is English, I've been able to sit in on a number of these talks and use the information I've been gathering for my own research. I've also met all of the speakers (from the Deputy Mayor of Tartu-- Estonia's 2nd biggest city-- to Information and Communications Technology experts to one of directors on the board of Estonia's biggest mobile phone company, EMT), and for the most part, these guys have all offered to work with me in the future if I need their assistance. These are important connections that I am making, which will hopefully be useful in terms of collecting information and synthesizing this information as I move forward.

Figuring out how all of the information I have gathered (and am always actively gathering) fits together is a very difficult process. I think this will prove to be the toughest task, but not one that is insurmountable. After all, I have only been here for 1 month, even though in many ways it seems like much longer. I have to keep this in mind as I move forward, as I am making progress every day. I have no doubt that eventually these little bits and pieces of progress will add up to something big, but as of now, all I have are bits and pieces.

I miss you all, and am really enjoying the emails I have been getting from you all. Please continue to keep in touch and know that I miss you all. I'll try not to wait 2 weeks before my next post.

Until next time,
J

Rural Estonia

Monday and Tuesday of this week were relatively slow. Monday I went to Tallinn Technical University (TTU) to try and secure that one last piece of paper for my residency permit application, and I also found that there is an Estonian language course for English speakers that my roommate Mark is involved in. So, I tagged along with Mark and checked out the course, and it seems like it will be just what I need for formal instruction, in addition to the less formal Estonian lessons I am hoping to get with Estonian friends. So, I registered for the class which will meet every Monday at TTU.

While at TTU, I put another name with a face, and met Kairi Õun, who is the coordinator of international students. She told me that apparently none of the faculty that I had thought were affiliated with TTU actually were (urp!), so I needed to find another professor who would be able to meet me and serve as my affiliate with the university. Luckily, she told me, this would not be hard to do, and I already had their support, so it would work. Kairi told me today that she found a man, named Avo Ots, who I believe will actually be able to help me with my studies on WiFi. So the fact that I didn’t have a formal advisor to begin with is actually helping me, as I now have discovered another expert in the field. So I am hoping to meet Dr. Ots on Monday after my language course. Also, I can now pick up my paper showing my affiliation with the university tomorrow, so I can finally get my residency permit application out of the way! WOO-HOO, bureaucracy!

After this long ordeal at TTU, I was feeling a bit under the weather (sore throat, which is still hanging around a bit, but is manageable) so I just took care of some business around the apartment, did some offline work (We have yet to get Internet in my apartment…STILL! But that should change tonight, I hope.), and took it easy.

On Tuesday I went into the office and didn’t get much ‘real’ work accomplished, but I did take care of a lot of communication and other odds and ends online, which is almost as important as furthering my research.

After work, I met up with Veljo and his buddy Ivo, who is another IT guru here in Estonia, to play some pool at a local pool hall. Pool is their normal Tuesday night activity, and I was glad to be invited to join. I had moderate success, and could feel the beer catching up to me as the night went on. But that didn’t end up being a big factor, as I held my own, winning 2 of the games I played.

More importantly, Veljo mentioned to me that he was going to the southern part of Estonia the next day—today, Wednesday—and he asked if I would like to join him. I didn’t quite know what to expect, but I was eager to see more of Estonia, so I said yes. All Veljo told me is that he had some meetings and we would see a museum about Estonian roads, as well as a farm that he had set up with WiFi in January.

So we rose at 5:30am this morning so that we could make the journey down to Tartu. Veljo picked me up at 6ish, and we began the 2 and half hour trip. Estonia is truly beautiful, and the rural areas are complete with thick forests, serene lakes and rivers, and just a general untouched beauty that is hard to find (if even possible at all) in the States.

When we arrived in Tartu, which is Estonia’s 2nd biggest city (to Tallinn), we dropped Veljo’s car off at his buddy’s house, and then caught a taxi down to the main square area, near the university. We boarded this 70’s-style bus that I wish I had a picture of (I’ll try to get one) and Veljo informed me that we were going on a “small tour” of Põlvamaa County, designed for journalists by the local governments.

Perhaps I did not understand Veljo when he had told me a bit about what we would be doing today, but this “small tour” was anything but small, and the government officials that it was put on by were actually the Governer of all of Põlvamaa County, Urmas Klaas, as well as 5 mayors of local townships. This may not sound like a big deal, as this is rural Estonia, but it actually was quite important.

They wined us and they dined us, and everything was planned out to a T. There were speakers on a number of different topics (including Veljo), highlighting what is being done in rural Estonia, and even though I didn’t understand exactly what was said, I picked out various words, and Veljo was there to translate…for the most part. The problems came when Veljo told me that he too couldn’t understand, as the dialect of Estonian that was spoken was too different than the Estonian he speaks, or that the discussion was too technical for him. At this point, I felt like it didn’t even matter that I don’t speak the language—I would have been lost anyway. But all in all, it was a success, and I saw some very different sides of Estonia.

According to Veljo, this whole excursion was apparently all part of a plan by the local government to wow the journalists (newspaper and radio) into providing good press for the incumbents before the upcoming election on October 16, but hey, that’s politics, I guess. And I certainly didn’t mind tagging along, enjoying the delicious food and seeing the sights on the government’s dime (or should I say “on the government’s kroon?”).

But I am getting ahead of myself (and I realize this is a very long post already, so I will try to wind it up shortly!). First, we saw Estonia’s national museum of roads, which was very informative about how trade routes progressed throughout the years, and how the different countries and regimes that have occupied Estonia throughout history affected the roads, and in turn, how different cities have emerged. It was actually quite interesting, and in my eyes it’s something that is often overlooked when considering how countries have changed over the years. Perhaps our current modes of transportation (roads, etc.) are having impacts on future societies that we cannot yet understand. Something to chew on…

After this, we traveled to a very rural farm in a township called Kenapi (prounounced like Canopy), and we saw Veljo’s work first-hand, in the form of a 20-meter WiFi tower that receives and rebroadcasts the signal from the center of town over an 8 kilometer radius. This farm is a bed and breakfast as well, so the presence of WiFi not only has allowed them to advertise themselves on the Internet, but it also attracts guests who might not otherwise pursue such a rural retreat. Apparently it’s really helped business!

At this farm, we tried the homemade honey, cheese, bread, and butter, and it was extremely tasty. We got a tour of the farm and talked with journalists and politicians about a number of topics, but for Veljo and me, it was pretty much all WiFi talk. Veljo also presented about his work here, and it was very well received.

After the WiFi-Farm, our bus headed to a sport center in a town called Põlva, and after this, we toured a factory that makes children’s furniture. I was under the impression that this would all be based around WiFi, but apparently this was something else that was lost in translation with Veljo. When I asked again, Veljo explained that the theme of this trip was to highlight all aspects of Põlvamaa County and its towns, and WiFi was just one of these highlights. This made a lot of sense, and unfortunately to say, the factory was pretty boring for me, not because they didn’t use WiFi, but because I had no idea what was going on, and Veljo had a hard time translating, as many technical terms were used, he said.

So, after the factory, we grabbed lunch at a place whose name translates to “Tina’s Kitchen,” and had some traditional Estonia food—chicken soup, cabbage salad, mashed potatoes and pork gravy, and for dessert, some pudding with jam. After Tina’s, our next stop was at a paper mill in a town called Rapima. But Veljo and I skipped this, as we found a WiFi hotspot we could use, and we both needed to get back in touch with the outside world, after a long WiFi-free span at the factory and at lunch. So we just hung out in the bus and took a much needed break from what was turning into a long tour.

Our last stop was at a manor way the heck out in the middle of nowhere. But, man, this place was gorgeous. It was built in 1903—“very recent” according to Veljo—by the Germans, though they only occupied it for 10 years or so, as World War I “changed everything” in Estonia. But the manor remains, and after a tour of the outside and surrounding buildings, we went inside what was a majestic building.

We were served piping hot fresh bread with freshly homemade butter, and were shown all around the main building, which now serves as an elementary school for about 125 local children. I can’t imagine what it must be like to go to school in this old fort-like manor; it must be pretty cool. After the tour (on which I spotted on of Veljo’s WiFi.ee stickers inside the main building!), we had a light dinner and some wine, and the various politicians, journalists, Veljo and myself chatted a bit before heading back to Tartu, where I caught a bus that I am currently on, heading back to Tallinn.

Check out my photos from our expedition in Põlvamaa County

Thanks for sticking with me through this long post. I’ll try to post more regularly so they don’t get this long! I miss you all and have loved hearing from those of you who have written me. It makes you all feel a lot closer, so please keep them coming!!

All my best, and let’s talk soon.
-J