Today was the most productive day I have had while I have been here. I woke up at 10 am today-that is really early here! Sean and I had to go to the migration office to apply for our residency permits for living in Estonia. You do not have to have a visa to come to Estonia if you are staying in the country up to 90 days. Since that is not the case for me, we have to apply for a permit, which takes a couple months to receive. No one at the migration office speaks english so we are encouraged to take an Estonian student with us. We have met the most helpful student-Helen, and she has answered every question we have and helped us at the migration office today. It took us about 2 hours to apply for the permit because these ladies type with their index fingers and push one key at a time. There were 4 forms for them to enter into the computer, so naturally, it took forever.
We then went to go pay our rent. We have tried paying our rent the past 3 days but every time we go to the housing office, it has been closed. Now if we could read Estonian we would have been able to read the sign on the door that gives the time and days that they are open, but clearly we know NO Estonian so we had no idea what days they were open.
After we payed our rent, we went Ergo, an insurance company to buy insurance. We are required to have insurance here in Estonia in order to apply for a residency permit. We had a very helpful lady to work with, however she was also very slow at filling out the paperwork. But, nevertheless, we bought our insurance. As part of buying insurance, we have to set up an appointment with a doctor to check our health. I am quite terrified to go to a doctor because I have no idea what they need to check. I will let him check my blood pressure, my ear, nose, throat, but the minute he asks me to take off my shirt, I'm out of there. The lady at the insurance office was kind enough-you don't find many kind people here- to walk us to the doctor's office and help us set up an appointment. The doctor's offices are very interesting here. It was a long hallway-kind of looked like a hospital wing- with many many doors. As we continued walking, I noticed that each door has a different doctor in it. I discovered that every doctor has their own personal room and you have to wait outside the door of your doctor's room when you come for an appointment. We ended up setting up appointments on March 2. Each appointment is 30 minutes. That is a little too long if you ask me for checking just ear, nose, and throat.
Sean's debit card has not been working since we have been in Estonia and he is now trying his second debit card. So after the insurance office, we went to 2 different banks to try to get is card to work. We did not have any success, however, we did find a very helpful, caring person to answer our questions about the debit cards. She was kind enough to make phone calls to figure out why the card wasn't working. Again, we had no success with the card, but I count finding a kind person a huge success. Sean's banker thought that maybe the card had somehow been de-magnetized by his ipod headphones in his desk. So I took my ipod headphones and blasted music into the magnetic strip of my debit card and then tested it by buying some food tonight. Playing loud music into the magentic strip of a debit card does not de-magnetize the card.
Now this may not sound like very many errands, but when you are in Estonia and you have to walk 5 miles to get to all these different building, we accomplished a ton. If today was like a normal day, we typically would have accomplished all these errands in a week, not a day. But the day doesn't end there.
We came back at 3 and at a late lunch and lounged around for a few hours and they we got ready for our Archeaology class at 6:15. I can't really tell you much about the class because I have a hard time paying attention because I get so bored. The teacher is German. My mind get so lost with all of my professors and their accents. I have French, German, British and Estonian teachers. But, all of the classes are lectures so it is just a lot of note taking and listening which gets boring. We don't have any textbooks or pictures to look at or read.
We then went to go pay our rent. We have tried paying our rent the past 3 days but every time we go to the housing office, it has been closed. Now if we could read Estonian we would have been able to read the sign on the door that gives the time and days that they are open, but clearly we know NO Estonian so we had no idea what days they were open.
After we payed our rent, we went Ergo, an insurance company to buy insurance. We are required to have insurance here in Estonia in order to apply for a residency permit. We had a very helpful lady to work with, however she was also very slow at filling out the paperwork. But, nevertheless, we bought our insurance. As part of buying insurance, we have to set up an appointment with a doctor to check our health. I am quite terrified to go to a doctor because I have no idea what they need to check. I will let him check my blood pressure, my ear, nose, throat, but the minute he asks me to take off my shirt, I'm out of there. The lady at the insurance office was kind enough-you don't find many kind people here- to walk us to the doctor's office and help us set up an appointment. The doctor's offices are very interesting here. It was a long hallway-kind of looked like a hospital wing- with many many doors. As we continued walking, I noticed that each door has a different doctor in it. I discovered that every doctor has their own personal room and you have to wait outside the door of your doctor's room when you come for an appointment. We ended up setting up appointments on March 2. Each appointment is 30 minutes. That is a little too long if you ask me for checking just ear, nose, and throat.
Sean's debit card has not been working since we have been in Estonia and he is now trying his second debit card. So after the insurance office, we went to 2 different banks to try to get is card to work. We did not have any success, however, we did find a very helpful, caring person to answer our questions about the debit cards. She was kind enough to make phone calls to figure out why the card wasn't working. Again, we had no success with the card, but I count finding a kind person a huge success. Sean's banker thought that maybe the card had somehow been de-magnetized by his ipod headphones in his desk. So I took my ipod headphones and blasted music into the magnetic strip of my debit card and then tested it by buying some food tonight. Playing loud music into the magentic strip of a debit card does not de-magnetize the card.
Now this may not sound like very many errands, but when you are in Estonia and you have to walk 5 miles to get to all these different building, we accomplished a ton. If today was like a normal day, we typically would have accomplished all these errands in a week, not a day. But the day doesn't end there.
We came back at 3 and at a late lunch and lounged around for a few hours and they we got ready for our Archeaology class at 6:15. I can't really tell you much about the class because I have a hard time paying attention because I get so bored. The teacher is German. My mind get so lost with all of my professors and their accents. I have French, German, British and Estonian teachers. But, all of the classes are lectures so it is just a lot of note taking and listening which gets boring. We don't have any textbooks or pictures to look at or read.
Here are some pictures of me trying to blare music into the magnetic strip of my ATM card.
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