Category: Blog Posts
A short visit to Estonia
Last weekend, my sister and I went on a trip to Estonia. Unfortunately we didn’t travel for fun, we had a meeting in Tartu (2,5 hours away from Tallinn by bus). We left around noon Wednesday and returned on Friday morning. It was intense. We had about fourteen different connections to make, by train, bus, air and taxi and for instance spent about seven hours on the bus to Stockholm and as many on the way back. That was apart from the five hours on buses in Estonia.
The impressive building where we had our appointment
The view
It was only my second time flying and my sister’s first time. Fortunately, the trip only took about forty-five minutes one way.
From the airplane
In Tallinn many people speak English and in fact, some even Swedish. In Tartu many older people don’t even speak English. For instance, the taxi driver on the way back to the bus station couldn’t understand a word of English. He had to call back to his employers (I think) and let her talk to me on the phone to be able to understand, but at least he was polite.
The plane
We travelled on so called Express buses. On the one to Tartu there were little computer screens on the back of the chair in front, where the Estonians could watch movies, music videos, play games, get info about weather etc. On the other hand, those buses drove so slowly I was surprised they were called Express buses. The driver on the way back was rude and apparently felt threatened by the fact that we didn’t speak Estonian. If it hadn’t been for the kindness of students (there’s a university in Tartu), we wouldn’t have known if the bus would stop at the airport. Fortunately the students speak very good English, but they probably never get any practice speaking to foreigners because they actually looked surprised at themselves for being able to communicate with non-Estonians.
The hotel room
The very very old bus that took us to our hotel
Estonia is a very high tech country. For instance I’d never seen buses with computer screens before. Estonia is, as we were reminded of by huge signs in the airport, the birthplace of Skype. Actually, that’s not the whole truth. Skype was born in Estonia and Sweden. Another high tech feature is the free wifi hotspots, that you can find ‘everywhere’. On the airport, on buses and in various establishments all over the country. In Sweden we have some hotspots, but they’re few and far between, except in Stockholm. The hotel where we were staying for a few hours before getting on the plane to Tallinn had one. That hotel was actually located in a shopping mall, where again, there was a free wifi hotspot with a free charging area. A very nice idea, that I wish shopping malls closer to home had one.
A Swedish phone company was sponsoring the free wifi spot and charging station at the Tallinn airport
Estonian is very similar to Finnish and the Swedish-speaking Estonians speak with an accent that is more or less identical to the one used by Finnish speakers. In fact, Estonia is very similar to Sweden in many ways. They have some of the same phone providers, internet providers, at least one bank that is the same and one of the gas stations. There’s probably more, but we were just passing through very quickly and didn’t have time to do any sightseeing. Fortunately, we’ve been to Estonia three times before and then we had time for a lot of sightseeing.
An interesting building in Tartu. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to get any closer for a better photo
I finally got a car of my own
The last couple of days I’ve been walking around with a big grin on my face. The reason for that is that my new car has arrived. It was delivered to work. Several of my collegues came out to look at it. The guy that delivered it must have thought it was a strange place when all those people came to watch one little moped car.
When it was time to go home, I was able to drive home. It felt wonderful and scary at the same time since it was the first time I ever drove a car like that. I had to drive a moped on my driving lesson, The last couple of days I’ve been driving around trying to get enough driving experience to feel safe.
The floating cat
Quote – Night Vale
“Silence is golden. Words are vibrations. Thoughts are magic.”
― Night Vale Radio
I have a driver’s license!!!
I never took the time to get a driver’s license when everyone else did. For a long time now, it’s been far too expensive and time consuming for me. In Sweden it’s extremely expensive. I wouldn’t be able to have private lessons so I would have needed to take a lot of paid lessons. So even though I have desperately needed one, I have had to postpone it. Then one day I had this idea about a shortcut.
I would get a license for an EU moped. That means I would only be able to drive a vehicle that can go up to 45 km/h, but then you can’t drive any faster than 50 in a town here anyway. The problem is that I wouldn’t like to ride around on a bike. Then there are these super cool moped cars. They look like a car and work like a care, but can only be driven at up to 45 km/h. Now I’m halfway there. I got the license this friday. Felt really good. Now all I need is the car. :). I want something like this:
It costs about the same as a regular small car, but the difference is this one costs very little to use. I’m still trying to find out where to get one though. They aren’t that common here yet, but are getting more popular. When I get it, I’ll use it to practice my driving for the “real” license, and of course do the shopping and for our little outings.
The Phantom of the Opera
On Thursday night, my sister and I, went to an outdoor movie performance of The Phantom of the Opera. It’s not quite as exciting as it sounds, it was a recording of a live performance from The Royal Albert Hall in London, but still. I’ve never seen such an enormous movie screen. And it was right beside the lake.
Things didn’t start out very well. The show was to begin at 8 pm, but the people running the projector claimed there was too much daylight so they decided to wait. In the end, they started around twenty past. It was a three hour performance, so by the time it was all over, it was pitch dark out there.
Despite all that, it was an awesome performance. I’d heard the soundtrack before, but I’d never seen the actual show.
Afterwards, it was so dark my sister and I actually took the wrong way and ended up wandering through an empty industrial area.
The iPad mini as e-reader
I have had an iPad for a while now. It’s an iPad 2. That worked ok as an e-reader, but now I finally got my hands on an iPad mini.
The obvious difference between the bigger iPad and the mini version is the size and weight. The iPad 2 didn’t feel heavy at all until I started to play with this smaller one. There’s a really big difference. The reading experience is so much better and you can read for a longer time.
I can imagine that the smaller screen might be a problem for some people, but it’s easy enough to change the font size in your preferred app. I mostly read in iBooks (bought and free ebooks) and BlueFire (library books).
The variety of file formats is a great asset. You can read html, txt, pdf, mobi (with the kindle app), and of course epub, which is really important. I also have a Kindle which has e-ink and has a brilliant screen, but doesn’t use epub.
Battery time isn’t all that good compared to dedicated e-readers. I have to charge mine every day, but of course I use it for much more than just reading. And the fact that you can use it for other things like email, texting, chat, surfing, blogging etc makes it a very useful tool.
Summary:
+ size and weight
+ many formats especially epub
+ other functions except ebook reading
– battery time/+ excellent battery time for a backlit device though
A little outing
Yesterday, my sister and I went on a little outing. We were going to look at some land we were thinking about buying. We thought it would be a fun outing and that there would be no complications. After all, we’d just get on a train and get off after about an hour. In a way, things worked out fine. We got off on the right station, only to find that there was no actual station – just an old station building that was closed. That meant we’d have no way of buying our return tickets.
Since there was nothing else we could do, we set off to take a look at the land. Unfortunately, it didn’t suit us all. It was just a slope, no flat land anywhere. Building a house there would be difficult, if not impossible. On the bright side, it was far closer to the railway than we’d thought. It took us five minutes to get there, at the most
The village itself was eerie. We saw a very odd cat walking some distance away. At least we think it was a cat. In fact, in the half hour we were there, we hardly saw any people at all. There were two girls going to a bus stop – probably going to school. It was eight in the morning. We saw a woman on a bike who almost fell off, when she caught sight of two strangers. There was another woman, walking her two very odd dogs. We’ve never seen any dogs like that before. They were sort of like border collies except much smaller and thinner. About the size of miniature schnauzers or pinschers.
Then we walked back, and noticed that the tiny store was open (not ‘open’ for customers – just open).
I went inside and talked to a very nice guy who was putting out produce and setting things in order before the store opened. He was very polite and sympathetic but there was nowhere in that tiny village/town where we could buy our return tickets. Which was discouraging. How on earth would we get back without tickets? The staff on the train have taken to turning unpaying travellers out at the first possible stop, even they’d have no way of getting home on their own. Children, old people, anyone.
Fortunately, for us, that never happened. We discovered that since we only stayed barely half an hour, we could ride back for the same fare. It was good for three hours. So we managed to get home, but apart from that we were back to square one.
Why you can’t argue with an meat eater!
Of course, I could just as well have substituted meat eater for religious, racist, misogynist… Why, do you say? In short, it comes down to values.
Let me give you a few examples. If you want to discuss whether or not God exists – do you think it would be a good idea to list proof that God doesn’t exists? Probably not, because if you’re a faithful believer proof isn’t part of the equation. Either you believe or you don’t, as simple as that.
Let me give a similar example with another belief system – racism. The racists in this example truly believe that black people have less intelligence than white people. They even provide proof that they have smaller brains. Would that matter? Probably not, because in your belief system there isn’t any difference in intelligence between these two groups. And the racists believe that it’s true. Would you two have a fruitful discussion? The most likely outcome is that at least one of you will walk away in anger and no one would have changed their minds.
Now, I’ll go back to where I started, with the meat eater – or omnivore which is a better description, since no human is a carnivore like, for instance, a lion. In this example this omnivore will discuss the matter about eating meat with a vegan. The omnivore truly believes it’s ok to eat the flesh of another living creature as long as it’s one of the animals that is classified as a provider of meat. Where this line goes is a bit blurry, but it could be cows and pigs, but not dogs. The vegan truly believes that it’s not right to eat the flesh of any other living creature. Would a discussion about veganism be fruitful between these two? Would either of them change their minds after the discussion? Probably not.
I realize that there are different kinds of vegans, but in this case I’m talking about ethical vegans (which is the normal definition of vegan – ethical strict vegetarian). I’m sure an omnivore would have a fair shot in the discussion with someone who is vegan only for health reasons, providing facts about health issues. And the vegan might have a shot if the omnivore has mixed feelings of eating meat, but perhaps believes it might not be healthy to change or s/he might be afraid that his/her knowledge wouldn’t be enough for a change.
In any case, take a look at yourself. Why do you want to engage in a discussion with someone whose values are completely different from yours? If the reason is to learn about how other people think, then go for it. That’s usually why I discuss with religious people (about religion). To understand them better. Their belief system is so far removed from my own.
If the reason is that you’re frustrated with how things are – that’s usually why I engage in discussions with omnivores (about meat eating) – then think twice. Do you really think you can change their values? If not, perhaps you should step away. You’ll only end up even more frustrated.
If the reason is that you want to ridicule the other person, think again. One day you’ll meet someone that’s better at it.
Values is the key here. They are so much harder to change, both for yourself and for the one you are talking with. Accept them as they are. At least for the time being. Not because you think they are doing the right thing. In my case, there are days when I just want to shake some sense into them, to make them see that they are eating sentient beings that have just as much right to live as they do. And there are days when I still cry over all the poor animals that suffer and die because some people want to eat their flesh. I still wish for a peaceful world where animals and humans can live in peace side by side. But that Utopia is so far away. No matter how much I want it to happen, arguments won’t change the values of other people. At least not in the short run. In time, I hope that things will change.
Instead, try just showing them a good example. Show them that it’s alright to hang out with people from another country. They are just like you and me. Show them that it’s perfectly healthy to eat vegan food, that it’s just as tasty and tell them about how individual your pets are. That they get sad and happy just as you do. Show them that gay people are no different from others.
Unfortunately, at the moment, that’s all you can do. Just do what’s right, set a good example and hope for the best.