Hacker's life in Tallinn, Estonia, end of week 1.

http://skepticalphoenix.blogspot.com/2010/02/tallinn-end-of-week-1.html

by etherael • 16 years ago

38 16 16 years ago

skepticalphoenix.blogspot.com

cromulent2• 16 years ago

Tallinn is a great place. I worked there for a week last month. Nice people. I stayed in Parnu last summer briefly, that seemed nice as well. However, as the OP says, it's a very different place to Sydney.

I'd watch out for those icicles though.

ShabbyDoo2• 16 years ago

How was the Aussie able to converse with the customer service people with the state-run telcom? He didn't mention any knowledge of Estonian or even Russian.

plaes2• 16 years ago

Because we can also speak English here...

Although, as an Estonian, I'm a bit disappointed he chose Tallinn as a city to live in... :S

herdrick• 16 years ago

Oh? Because you live elsewhere in Estonia and would rather he moved there? Or because you don't want the secret to get out and be flooded by itinerate programmers?

ShabbyDoo2• 16 years ago

How hard would it be for me to live in, say, Tallinn as an Ugly American (joking, I hope) who speaks and reads only English?

etherael4• 16 years ago

I chose Tallinn because of two primary reasons, firstly Rob lives there, and although I'm kind of an isolated person myself, I didn't feel comfortable living in a city where I didn't have at least one person extremely close to me, and two I went with the assumption that there'd be better quality of life in the larger city. I have since arriving however heard a few times that Tartu is quite a bit more peaceful and still has all the important stuff that Tallinn does so YMMV.

cromulent2• 16 years ago

Most likely in English. Plenty of people speak English in Tallinn.

viraptor• 16 years ago

Most of the telecom and multimedia companies that I know in eastern Europe have someone ready to take your call in either English or one of the neighbour country languages. Same with banks. A bit worse as far as other services go (electricity, etc.)

cubix• 16 years ago

I'm curious what the red tape was like. Did you require a visa or work permit? How long/painful was the process? I take it you had a job lined up before you went, did the employer assist you?

etherael4• 16 years ago

Both Australia and Estonia are party to the Schengen agreement, what this means is that you are automatically granted a visa upon arrival in Estonia for a period of three months, I lined up professional contacts ahead of time with a view to work, but nothing has been nailed down in terms of work yet.

I'm not concerned by this because with my final paycheque from Sydney at the end of this month I have enough funds to finish my experiment entirely, so worst case scenario I have to go, but I'm ok. It would leave me two months to work on my personal projects which I've wanted for a while, and an unobtrusive, peaceful and friendly environment to do so.

That said, I'm totally open to working with people over here and in fact looking forward to it if it comes to pass, I'm just not staking my game on it.

rue• 16 years ago

Tallinn is definitely a nice place nowadays! If it does not work out for you, Helsinki is just a short ferry ride away and Stockholm is not too far either...but unfortunately both are quite a bit more expensive :)

Edit: That is, it is relatively simple to check for jobs in either location and even go to interviews while still stationed in .ee

sushi• 16 years ago

"I strongly believe that religion and respect for religion breeds ignorance and mental decrepitude."

If only everyone in the world understood that. Loved the post. Have been considering to move to Northern Europe temporarily myself.

Hacker's life in Tallinn, Estonia, end of week 1.

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