Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

I can tell its going to be a good Christmas this year because first of all; being in a country where you don’t under stand a word around you makes you sort of immune the Christmas Craze which tries to grab at you back ready in mid-November back in Denmark. As in so many other many ways the Estonians are very pragmatic when it comes to celebrating jõulud! In the start of December you could still see people beginning to decorate Tallinn with lights and Christmas stuff, something that would have been finished weeks ago in Denmark. Often when it’s finally Christmas Eve in Denmark, yours Christmas spirit is already used up and diluted beyond its prime.

Secondly, for the first time in five years I have no exams in December or January. Hallelujah, it’s almost surreal! Nothing can distract me from building up and nurture that jolly Christmas spirit.

Thirdly, Tallinn is an excellent place to wrap that jolly Christmas spirit up into a good old fashioned Christmas mood, which everybody secretly longs for, and many people tries to kick-start with their rampart shopping sprees. The Old Town itself sets a picturesque frame for a romantic and nostalgic Christmas, far removed from the flashy consumerism, which seems to be a large part of the soul of Christmas back in the Kingdom. The snow is of course always whither on the neighbours lawn, but Christmas just seems less hysterical and more dignified here. Of course there are the throngs of Christmas tourists and the Town Hall Square marked here in Tallinn, but even their many eager herds cannot such up that Harry Potter atmosphere which saturates Old Town.

And of course fourthly and not to forget, I’m looking very much forward to get home to Kasper, my family and my friends.

Merry X-mas everybody

The Estonian Experience

And so it became that I started a blog as a part of my new strategy to strengthen my online presence. Actually I’m personally against involvements in online communities such as blogs, My Space and Face Book because they are too time consuming. I mean, if there is not enough time to have a life in the real world, there is certainly no time for a virtual life.

But I give in because this blog will be an opportunity for me to stay in touch with old friends at home and new friends in Tallinn. It also seems suitable that I start my new blog now after this eventful summer which has seen a lot of changes for me personally with the movement from Århus to Copenhagen, the journey to China, and now the stay in Estonia for the next six months working as an intern at the Royal Danish Embassy.

Tallinn is fantastic, but my first impression was a mixed experience. When I landed in the airport last Tuesday with a jetlag from China it was very cold and windy, and I had been told that Estonian summers were hot and sunny. The two interns, Rosa and Rune, whose positions we were taking over picked me and my fellow intern Laura up in one of the embassy’s cars and drove us to our new apartment. Build in the Soviet era, the drap functionalism and worn down interior and exterior of this concrete silo will warm the hearth and moist the eye of any remaining fans of communism. But it’s situated a five minutes walk from the embassy and ten minutes from the centre of Tallinn. Sweet.

But as I said, Tallinn is fantastic. This city centre is an almost intact hanseatic merchant town from the middle ages, complete with a city wall, picturesque gothic towers, red tile roofs, steep and twisting alleyways with cobbled stone pavings which is lined with cosy and cheap bars, cafes and restaurants. Denmark may be called a fairytale country, but enchanting Tallinn is the real fairytale city. It feels centuries older than Copenhagen. The tourist economy is evident everywhere, but because of the Estonian Statue Crisis and the rising prices there are not so many tourists as there used to be. A good thing for me and a very bad thing for Tallinn and Estonia.

The embassy is still in holiday mode, so half of my colleagues including the ambassador are still on leave. But the rest of the employees seems nice, and the work interesting, although it’s all very new. The expat diplomat network also seems very good; I have already met people from the Norwegian, Swedish, British, French, Italian, American, and Russian embassies. So until now the Estonian Experience has been great!

Sunset and cocktails at Radisson hotel