Thread by @danieljthomason

Inspired by @devonzuegel's writings on Miami, I'm going to start a thread of observations and thoughts from living in Estonia – lähme! 🇪🇪

The winters are very long and very cold here, but that means that people are very good at finding ways to enjoy that: hiking, cross-country skiing, sledding, ice skating, and snow sculpting all seem to be common pastimes.

The winter beauty is also something I have never fully experienced before, as an Australian. Even in Berlin, the winter was mostly just cold and grey – we seldom saw the magical aspects.

It's also unfair to see the average temperatures in Estonia from the outside and think "wow, I couldn't live like that!" The secret is that you adapt your life to fit: people have sauna in their apartments, there are cheery Christmas markets, that sort of thing.

It's like saying "I could never survive Australia – it's too hot there." Sure, it's hot in the summer, but the country is built on the understanding that this is the case: there is air conditioning and water sources everywhere.

Because it is a fairly sparsely-populated place, there is beautiful nature in super close proximity wherever you go in Estonia. And the infrastructure around this is excellent – the are usually good paths and clear signposts in major forests and bogs.

Contrasting to the nature aspect, Estonia is a very car-centric place. People like walking, but not straight out of their front doors – they will drive somewhere to go for a walk.

This was an adaptation at first, coming from Berlin. Initially we wanted to walk everywhere, but we quickly learned that for the most part this involved following a major road (see how many yellow lines are on the map) – not so fun. We gave in recently and bought a car.

The cost of living here is surprisingly high. When we moved I saw an online calculator claiming that Tallinn is 22% cheaper than Berlin, but that has not been our experience. Housing is cheaper, but groceries are about the same, and services are actually more expensive.

A bit contributor to this, and an additional downside, is that a lot of the markets we took for granted in Germany don't exist here. There is no local Amazon store (meaning 15€ per delivery 🤯), no Zalando for convenient clothes shopping, no DM/Rossmann equivalent, etc.