The United States of Europe

One of my biggest pet peeves when discussing the United States with Europeans is the tendency some have to think we are all the same. I think if you know ONE thing about American politics, it would be how polarized it is. And despite this view some have of us being gun-toting, Republican-voting cowboys, they all want to go to New York, which is NOTHING like that. When I was studying in France at the height of the Bush administration, I learned quickly that people will be MUCH nicer to you if you identify yourself as being from California instead of saying you're from the United States.

Amidst the British budget cuts and the French protests-turned-riots, I've started to notice that Americans are just as guilty when it comes to Europe. I've read a lot of smug commentary about the "European system" is failing- and most of these articles have nothing to do with the EU. Look in American newspapers, and you'll find talk about entitled Europeans who would riot when the government tries to raise the low retirement age. Yes, this happened in France and Greece... but where are the riots in the rest of Europe? We talk about how the European social welfare system is a failure, and how the tax rates destroys their economy. This is a strange assessment considering that one of the few countries that can be smug during this recession is Germany. Real Clear Politics just published this article about how Americans have a stronger work ethic than Europeans, and I find myself wanting to ask the author if he has ever been to Estonia or Germany? (Just to single out two countries I've lived in where I've found the locals to be very hard-working.)

Lumping California and Texas together in terms of culture and governance because they are both American states is ridiculous. Los Angeles and New York are NOT the same city. Even Los Angeles and San Francisco have very different cultures. The United States and Mexico differ in several respects despite being neighbors. So why are Americans so comfortable thinking that France represents the whole of Europe?

Did they teach you that in medical school?

After a twenty minute tram ride, and another twenty minutes trying to find an office that's only three minutes from the tram stop, I arrived at my most recent medical appointment. The nurse calls me in, tells me where to put my coat and shoes, then asks me to "Go inside, lay down, and open your stomach. The doctor will come looking for it shortly."

I sort of wanted to just point to my belly and say, "Oh, don't worry, here it is."

Uks kohv, palun

"One coffee, please," may well be my most-used phrase in Estonian after "hello" and "thank you."

One aspect of Estonia that I've absolutely fallen in love with is the strong, lively cafe culture here. Not a Starbucks in sight, I have had to try the various cafes one by one in order to find the one to call my own. It's an on-going process- I'll probably still be trying out new cafes as I am packing my bags to leave next summer: but here are a few contenders for "favorite."

Kehr Wieder
One of my cardinal travel rules is to avoid the cafes with terraces on a big tourist location: it will normally be twice as expensive, not as good, and the locals won't go near it. Luckily, when my friends and I discovered this gem- located on the Town Hall Square- on a trip to Tallinn in 2008, we found the side entrance and didn't know we were about to break our own rule. It is one of the more expensive cafes I frequent, but it is just as good, and there are always several locals. To tell you the influence Kehr Wieder has on the local cafe scene: its website is www.kohvik.ee, which would be the equivalent of www.cafe.com in the US.

The cafe is slightly below ground, lit mostly by the candles on the tables, and is full of comfy chairs and sofas. I've found the melted chocolate reminiscent of Madrid's Chocolateria San Gines and Angelina's in Paris. Take a bar of very rich, expensive chocolate, melt it, and dip pastry in it, and you have an idea of how good this is. Heavenly. :) My favorite drink here is "meekohv," a latte made with lots of honey and cinnamon. A coffee or tea is 32 EEK, a meekohv is 55 EEK. (1 USD is about 11.25 EEK.)

Kohvik Kompott
This bright cafe is about 60 seconds away from my apartment, so I find myself here just about every time I don't want to cook. I've written several blog posts, including this one, here. My favorite part of the cafe is its unique decorations: I'm sitting at an old sewing table. The lightbulbs on the wall above me are covered by cheese graters, and the lights which hang from the ceiling are in jars full of colored lightbulbs. My favorite item on the (very inexpensive!) menu is the potato and smoked cheese soup, which they serve with rye bread and garlic butter. Before my student discount, the soup is 39 EEK.


Gourmet Coffee
As the name suggests, this is the coffee-lover's cafe in Tallinn: They must have at least twenty types of coffee beans to pick from. If you're not busy, the very helpful staff will help you pick the right blend. However, what's much more fun is to just get the "thermos coffee." Each day, they have one or two brews out, and you can get a mug for 25 EEK, and fill it as many times as you want. Sitting in this cafe feels rather like sipping coffee in the living room of your (very wealthy) grandmother. No wonder a local film crew showed up to shoot a movie scene here during my last visit.

Chocolaterie la Pierre
I took these two photos on my first visit. I don't think I need to say more. :)

Why I love the EU

For Christmas, I am flying home on Air France with a layover in Paris. As a result, I'm watching the French strikes carefully. I was particularly worried about the following headline: "France asks airlines to cut flights ahead of strikes." Do I need to buy travel insurance to come home? If my flight gets cancelled, what are my rights? As it turns out, the EU requires that flights cancelled due to strikes have to either be rebooked or fully refunded- customer's choice.

I must admit, I have issues with the French method of striking- it's impossible to NOT be affected as an innocent bystander, even if you entirely disagree with the strike to begin with. After my semester in France, I was often asked if I would ever live there. The frequency of strikes and protests that disrupted the entire city (and with which I happened to never agree) was not a small reason why my answer was always a quick "No."

Rudeness

I'm taking a course called "Intercultural Studies." It consist mainly of Estonians and Erasmus students comparing thoughts on whichever topic was given to us. Last week, we talked about what is rude. We were given a list of several things- smoking next to a person, talking loudly, eye contact, eating in public, now forming a proper line, being late. One amusing observation about lateness was that pretty much everyone could agree that it was rude, but no one could agree what constituted "late" to begin with.

So my homework this week was to conduct my own little social experiments. Do something I might consider to be rude and see what happens; alternately, go out of my way to be polite, and see if anybody says thank you.

I was deeply uncomfortable with the first half of the assignment and have put it off. I don't want to jump a line. I am NOT going to take up smoking just to see how people react. And I don't want to speak too loudly since I simply don't want to paint "foreigner" on my forehead in a public place- even though, as I have assured my mother several times, Tallinn is a perfectly safe place. I've tried leaving out "please" and "thank you," but I don't think anybody notices. I could leave out the pleasantries with the shopkeepers, but this isn't a place where you really make conversations with strangers anyways. How do you be rude in a society when you don't really know what constitutes rudeness? My only idea is to try speaking Russian to an ethnic Estonian...

The second one is a lot easier- if you continue to hold a door open, people will continue to walk through it, but no one will look at you, much less say anything. As it turns out, excessive eye contact is considered rude here, which explains why I've found so many shopkeepers to be rather shifty-eyed. Maybe my insistence on eye-contact with those with whom I was speaking... was I unwittingly completing the "be rude" portion of my assignment?

Have I Gone Native?

This last week, I think, was the first week of the permanently cold months. It's dropped ten degrees (again, Fahrenheit), and the highs hover between the high 30s and the mid 40s. We even had our first snow this weekend.

So yesterday, I was walking to the migrations bureau to pick up my residency permit (which they were kind enough to only give me for a single semester... but I digress). It was about 46°F out. I was wearing a long sleeve shirt, peacoat, and jeans tucked into boots.

"Hmm... This is actually a bit uncomfortable," I thought, as I took the jacket off.

What is happening to me??

On a side note, I also learned the word "sleet" this weekend. This is a word you never need to know when you grew up in an environment where the most common weather forecast is "mostly sunshine." I still maintain that "It's slushing" has a nicer ring to it.

Keila Falls

Keila Falls, close to Tallinn in northern Estonia, is where newlyweds go to bring luck to their marriage. They make a small ceremony of placing a lock representing their bond on the bridge and throwing the key into the water.





Check out more of my photos of Keila Falls here.