Estonia day 1

I couldn’t get a picture of Estonia from the air as I wasn’t by a window, but there were patches of snow everywhere and the trees were all black. Near the airport, the buildings were all old and bombed out looking. But in town, the buildings are much nicer and I started to feel better. My building is actually very nice…its one of the new buildings, and I have a very nice place….typical European apartment but with TONS of closet space. I couldn’t even begin to fill these closets, even with the two bags worth of clothes I brought with me.

Everything is fairly typical…washer but no dryer and no microwave. I went to the 24 hour market last night to pick up a sandwich, cola light (diet coke) and some pre-cooked chicken that was quite good (I saved the sandwich for breakfast this morning). I’m having one of the worst cups of coffee I’ve had in my life from the café down the street as I type this. Its very weird tasting coffee…I can’t explain exactly why except it doesn’t really taste much like coffee. But it is hot and caffeinated so it will do. I can’t figure out how to work the damn shower…I finally resorted last night to bathing under the running faucet, ducking over in the tub to wash my hair…I was quite a site, especially when I was drying myself with paper towels (the apartment has no towels and I shipped some to myself but the box is at the office…I will get it tomorrow on my first day).

I’m not really jet-lagged. I stayed up until 10pm last night so I could try to acclimate myself to Estonian time and I woke up at 8am…but then I went back to sleep until 9. So I was a little groggy from not sleeping on the flight over but not too bad. I’m waiting for Julia to come by at 1:30 to show me where the office is. I went to the bank this am but they can’t cash my travelers’ checks (the banks don’t do that here) so I have to find a travel agency and cash them before I can open an account.

I wanted to learn the word for “excuse me” but they don’t really use it here. People brush right by you (the aisles in the store are very narrow) or bump you on the street and keep going. So I’m trying to get used to being what we would consider “rude”.

Its not as cold as it was last week…in fact, I have my patio door open for a nice bit of air...it gets stuffy with the artificial heat running all the time. It is cold when you are out in it (I definitely still need a coat) but it isn’t snowing. There is only a little dirty snow near the planters in the street…I was so tempted on my way back from market to make a snowball but I didn’t want to be the goofy tourist playing in the snow. Besides, a dog probably already peed on it so I resisted.

I was a bit lonely last night…I think I called Tom 4 times from my cell phone (at $2 per minute!). I’ve kept the TV on just for noise…its so weird not having the dogs running around and everything so quiet. I start work tomorrow and then Saturday I’m going to try and see Old Town and some more of Tallinn, so hopefully then I will have some good pictures to post.