estonia: week 1

estonia

As I discussed in my previous blog I have decided to move to Estonia. Now it has been roughly a week that I have found myself living in this new country and it feels like a good time to reflect on how this experience has been.

the move

I started working for Unikie a couple of weeks ago (remotely) from Belgium, however this was a temporary measure as I still needed to close the loop on some administrative tasks, such as terminating my lease for the appartment and packing up my stuff. I wanted to move as quickly as possible so the move was planned for the last weekend of January when I would pack everything into my car and drive from Belgium to Estonia. The move has been quite the adventure to say the least. The drive itself would be spread across 2 days; first from Brussels to Warsaw, and the second leg of the trip from Warsaw to Tallinn.

vw-polo

I have a relatively small car: a Volkswagen Polo. This meant that I would be packing only the essentials: clothing, a desk, a monitor; some books and some plants (those have already been with me from my university days so they have some sentimental value). The first day went reasonably well as the main part of the journey took place on the German Autobahn. I arrived in Warsaw somewhere around 11pm, slept in the cheapest hotel room I could find, woke up somewhere around 6am to continue the journey northwards to Tallinn.

The second day proved to be a lot more challenging, at this point my ass had turned to stone from the lack of ergonomics of my car seat, which probably was never meant for such lengthy road trips anyway. Despite this, I had to persevere, I still had some 12 hours of driving ahead of me. As I was driving through the Baltics the conditions took a turn for the worse. You see I didn’t anticipate on arriving in Estonia during one hell of a snow blizzard. While tanking I received the following message:

screenshot

Shit. Well by that point I had already been driving through horrible weather for quite some already, and anyway I was this close to Tallinn so it didn’t really make sense to stop now. I think you can already feel where this is going.

estonian-border

Crossing the Estonian border

Due to the weather conditions my estimated time of arrival kept being pushed forwards, as I had already realised that despite my winter tires my brakes weren’t worth much, I kept my speed limited to somewhere around 60 km/h: I would rather arrive late than not at all. Unfortunately some Estonian tractor-driver had other plans…

30 km from Tallinn. I was driving down a slippery hill slope, on the side of the road a tractor was pushing snow. Ok, I thought: no problem. I can keep driving as he isn’t in my way. As I’m driving down the hill however the tractor-driver suddenly decides that it’s a good time to reverse back onto the road thereby blocking my way: he obviously didn’t look to see if anyone was coming his way. Despite my best effort there was no way I could stop in time, my attempt to dodge him was in vain as well. I first crashed with my right side into his rear, and then with my left into the guard rail.

crash

Fuck. I had crashed and was still in the middle of the road, as I realized this I quickly reversed and drove to the side of the road to clear the way so as to not cause a chain collision (this turned out to be a mistake as the police couldn’t come to judge the situation anymore). I jumped out to check the damage and realised: I’m not getting to Tallinn in this car anymore. A lot of discussion later the tractor driver left to continue his work, and I was stranded, waiting for the towing service to come pick me up.

At 1am I arrived to my hotel in Tallinn, I was tired and went to sleep, tomorrow would be my first day working at the office. Not a great start.

the first week

Fortunately my first week seems to have gone by without any other serious accidents. I have gotten to know my colleagues, which is quite an international group: two Fins, one Russian, one Indian and one Estonian. Also I also managed to find an apartment that is super cosy and has a running track nearby (something I first discovered in Leuven and can’t do without since).

app-view

Cosy view from the appartment

I had some expectations of Estonia as a technologically advanced country, something which I already alluded to in the previous post and I haven’t been dissapointed. It’s the little things that it manifests itself in: the arangement of Ulemiste (area where I go to work) which has all the ammenities one could need for daily life right nearby: a tram station that makes going to work effortless (which is regular and free), a post box to get all your packages delivered, an international house for any questions you might have as an expat (and free language courses); there’s also Telliskivi: a supercool “hipster” area (my first reaction: this looks like Berlin, even though I’ve never been there). Something else which I’ve already been expecting but has been confirmed is the forward lookingness of all the services. One good example is my bank account with LHV. Looking at their website, it reminds me a bit of Apple in how clean it looks and how clearly everything is organised.

lhv

A small detail: you can invest in Bitcoin directly from you bank account

conclusion

So, despite my somewhat chaotic arrival, I’m still very happy about taking the jump and am looking forward to all the new experiences this place has to offer. To be continued…