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!!
23 November 2005
13 November 2005
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
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
01 November 2005
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
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
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