Blogathon, Day 22: Small Step For Mankind, Giant Leap For An Expatriate

Few days ago I was sitting at a cafe writing. It's a small place in the centre of Tallinn with huge windows facing one of the most important ceremonial squares of Estonia.

It's not a fancy cafe, a cup of coffee (not served in paper cups) costs like one dollar, wifi works (as it does everywhere in the country) and I have a good place to work in peace and look at people coming and going. A salty slice of rye bread with herring and egg wakes me up.

It was an early morning, I was at the cafe all by myself, the waitress was doing her chores in the kitchen.

Suddenly she came to me and asked if I was going to stay at the cafe for 15 minutes or so. I said yes.

The waitress apologized and said that she needed to leave me alone for a second and lock the cafeteria door. She had to go outside to get some things.

Sure, fine for me, I said.

And there I sat, alone at the cafe with locked doors. It was a funny moment. In the very centre of the capital of this little country you can trust your client so much that you leave her alone in the cafe. I felt amused and honored.

I told this story to our Estonian babysitter. She started to laugh. She said that I've reached the point when I'm considered as part of the team. "Oh Silja, now you have lived long enough in Estonia", he said.

An expatriate usually always feels her/himself an outsider. In that sense I think this was a very good thing indeed.

Blogathon, Day 18: Moments When You Hate Estonia

I like living in Estonia. Otherwise me and my family wouldn't have been here this long.

But there is no perfect place in the world and I sometimes sure hate my country of living.

In Estonia, customer service usually sucks. Unfortunately there's no prettier word to describe it.

We got friends from Finland for visit and went to a restaurant to have dinner. Four adults, four children. The oldest kid was five years old.

We placed our orders. We got our appetizers and drinks fast. Everything looked promising even though the waitress didn't bother to smile or show any kind of friendliness. She was just working.

Pretty soon us adults got our main dishes. We were happy: we didn't need to wait very long and we were sure that kids would get their meals at the same time. Of course it would have been better if the children would get their meals first, but well, sometimes restaurants just can't make it.

After this our blood pressure just continued rising. There was no sign of kids' meals. My husband asked the waitress for the first time. The response was, with a stone-faced look on her face: "they are not ready yet".

Well no shit, Sherlock!

We adults were already finished with our meals. Still nothing for kids.

My husband asked the waitress for the second time. She gave no clear explanation for the situation but asked colleague of hers to come to talk with us.

The colleague came and said that the portions we had ordered for our children couldn't be made. Dear Lord I was about to get a heart attack because of anger! They could have said this like, ummm, half an hour earlier!

The waitress said that they could prepare something else in few minutes. Would it be ok for us? Even though we felt we just want to run out from the restaurant cursing we decided to take the risk. What can we do, kids were hungry.

Finally kids got something to eat.

Needless to say there wasn't much tips left on the table nor nice words said to the personnel. We didn't heard any apology from the waitresses' side.

How terribly, unbelievably wrong you can do your job? How totally you can forget all the basic things of friendly human behaviour?

Blogathon, 11. päivä: Purkkapaperi - Sticky Fingers

Arvostan kyllä sitä, että tuottajat keksivät ratkaisuja ongelmiin, joita en tiennyt itselläni edes olevankaan.

Mutta silti tätä Jenkin purkkapakettia katsellessani en voi olla miettimättä, onko pakkaus mielettömän nerokas vai vahva ehdokas vuoden turhakkeeksi.

Xylitol-jäystön purkissa on mukana nippu pieniä papereita, joihin purkan voi jauhamisen jälkeen kääriä.

Nyt on kysyttävä kuten olen tyyliblogeista oppinut: hot or not?

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There's Finnish chewing gum in this little box. In addition to the gum, there's a bunch of little paper sheets. After you've chewed enough you can wrap your bubbly stuff into a paper.

As a consumer, I can not decide whether this is pure geniousity or the most ridiculous invention for a long time. Depending on the point of view the tiny paper sheets are great customer service or an irritating way to underestimate customer's ability to think independently.