Hey, I am a 20 year old Political Science student (BA) from Vienna, who is currently enjoying his Erasmus stay at Tallinna Ülikool. I have been in Tallinn since the end of August and recently decided to prolong my stay for the spring semester. Which means, I obviously like it here. I will give you a little insight to my Erasmus life. What brought me here? First things first: the main question is “Why Tallinn?” The reason why I chose Tallinn were mostly related to my subject. The possibility to study in a post-Soviet country, which made a drastic economical and political transformation during the last 25 years would probably provide me with a lot of insight information. Furthermore Estonia’s untouched nature, challenging climate and Tallinn’s location at the seaside strengthened my aim to come here (seaside is always highly exciting for someone who is from a landlocked country). And last but not least I thought that also TU is a warm, modern and dynamic place to spend my Erasmus period. The University just turned 10 years old in 2015, so it is quite a contrast to the University of Vienna’s 650 years of tradition. So, let me describe Estonia from my perspective so far. How is this country and how are it’s people? I recently scrolled through some online travel forums about Estonia and suddenly I stuck to a comment, where a obviously very disappointed traveller moaned, that Estonians were the most unfriendly people he had ever met in his life. This made me smile – this poor guy must have had really bad experiences here . First of all: Estonians are not unfriendly! Don’t believe what people write on the internet! To be fair: yes, to some extent the Estonian culture may seem a bit strange at the beginning. Estonians are not talkative. They sometimes need a little bit of a warm-up at the beginning of a conversation. But after a couple of minutes it is usually perfectly fine and you will have interesting and inspiring conversations. It is true that there are some behaviour commons that may be irritating for foreigners (they were for me as well). One of these things for example is, that people don’t greet random people in the stairwell. They just don’t do it. But that does not mean that they don’t like the other one, they just don’t start random conversation about nothing. But when you manage to break the ice (which is not that difficult, as you may have imagined), then you can talk for hours. Estonians are furthermore very willing to help. When I was struggling to find the right bus to the dormitory during my first days, an old woman realised my need for help and guided me to the right directions. She did not speak English and I did not speak Estonian, but with hands and feet we managed. All in all, Estonians are as helpful and friendly as other European citizens. I don’t see a major difference. You should not expect having long chats with random people on the street (well I would not do that in my home country neither) or having jokes with the waiter or waitress in a café. That is not their thing. How is the living, accommodation and price? Accommodation is of course a big topic among foreign students at TU. I heard from many people that it was a bit hard to find a place to stay. For me it was not that difficult. So there is hope :). During the first three month I was living at the G4S dormitory, which is run by the security company of the same name. The university offers the possibility to apply online for the university’s student dormitories. Having been completely without knowledge about accommodation in Tallinn, I kindly appreciated this service. Eventually I was lucky and got a place in the G4S. The G4S dormitory has advantages and disadvantages. It is inexpensive (180 euros/month including utilities) compared to a room in a shared flat. It is close to a big Selver supermarket and the bus stop. Furthermore the neighbourhood is green, secure suburban area, away from the business of the centre. The landlord is very nice and has his office in the building. The notice period is just 30 days. The dormitory is a bit far away though. To get to TU it takes about 30 minutes. The bus is punctual and leaves every 15 to 20 minutes. The last bus from the city centre to G4S leaves at midnight, both during workdays and on weekends. You share a room with another person and two rooms share a small kitchen, a bathroom and a toilet. The room itself has a big window, a wardrobe (big enough), two beds, a shelf and a shoe rack and one desk. The room’s atmosphere is pretty spartan. The kitchen contains two hotplates, a washing machine, a table with four stools, some cupboards and a small fridge. If you are lucky some of the cooking utilities, plates and cutlery is already there, because former inhabitants left it. Otherwise it is very easy to buy all kitchen utilities at the Selver supermarket for a cheap price. Now I have found a single room in a shared flat, just 5 minutes walk to the university and 10 minutes to the Old Town. I really appreciate the fact that I don’t have to spend so much time on the bus anymore. The months at G4S were perfect to get used to the new country and to gather knowledge how things work here. Everything was faultlessly organised at G4S and I had no worries about finding a shelter when I arrived. This was really helpful at the beginning! What to do in Estonia? Let’s talk about your free time in Estonia. What will you do here? You have many, many possibilities, always depending on what you like. I like doing music so I didn’t hesitate to sign up for the auditions of the TU's Symphony Orchestra and the TU Men’s Choir. They accepted me into both groups. Foreigners are quite rare in those groups, so I had my first “okay-I-am-the-only-foreigner-in-here” experience and a short “I-don’t-understand-a-word-in-here” panic attack. Obviously. But it turned out, that the conductors are really nice and translate the more important things exclusively for me into English. If they forget there is always somebody next to me, who can help me. They really care! Now I consider it as my weekly Estonian challenge as well. As I am taking language courses this is the perfect possibility to see how successfully I have studied. Well… Estonian is hard… it is true what they say. As my instrument is this insane heavy thing called piano, it is impossible to travel with it. But lucky me, the university lets me practice on one of the university’s pianos. It is a real concert grand. Quite extravagant. If you are interested in joining a musical group at TU don’t hesitate! New faces are always welcome! We will have a couple of concerts in Tallinn and around Estonia during the year and then a big concert tour to the Netherlands in July. Wild nature and sports Spending time in the Estonian nature is another great thing. The country offers a variety of nature and national parks for hiking and cross country skiing in winter. The bogs and woods are wonderful for extensive walks, sometimes combined with a refreshing sauna time afterwards. There are also cabins and fireplaces in the forest, where you can spend the night. But it is more fun when it is warmer. I guess this will be my project for spring: visiting as many nice places in the woods as possible. Most of the spots are reachable from Tallinn by bus or train, but hitchhiking is often a good option as well. When it is too cold outside or already too dark (yes winter is really dark in the North…REALLY!) it is good to do some workout at the university’s gym. It is for free. Most of the sports courses are held bilingual and are great fun. I can strongly recommend the Outdoor Activities course for example! And last but not least: nightlife Tallinn is a small city, everything is in a walking distance, which makes it a welcoming spot for intense pub crawls through the night. The nightlife concentrates almost exclusively on the Old Town. There you will find a lot of pubs, bars, clubs and these spots, that are something in between. Some of them are very international, as most of the Erasmus students go there a lot. The karaoke night at Red Emperor (every Monday) for example is pretty popular among Erasmus students currently. It has always been great fun so far. There is no night line public transport in Tallinn, but the taxis have a reasonable price. What helps a lot is an app called Taxify, which shows you the cheapest taxi offers around your location. Otherwise you will always find cheap taxis waiting at Vabaduse väljak (the biggest square in Tallinn). They have different prices, that are written on the windows. You can just walk by and check out which one suits you best. No worries, you will get home anyway! I will continue this blog soon, when I am attending the Tallinn Winter School in January. Until then I will keep it with the TU philosophy: “If you have any questions -> just email me (tobmayr@tlu.ee)!” Text and photos by Tobias Mayr (Erasmus student).  

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