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.
24 October 2005
13 October 2005
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
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
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