On 1st July 2021, my Dutch friend in Japan sent me a postcard! We’ve known each other since we were in the university in Kyoto. I think she’s worked in Japan for a few years now. (I think I’m right because I went to her place in the Netherlands in 2018.)
In return for the postcard, I decided to send one to her, but the biggest post office in Tallinn city centre was closed a few years ago, so I was wondering about where to buy a postcard. (Maybe I could have been to some souvenir shops in the old town though.)
She made a postcard on her own, so I decided to make one by myself too.
Then there is a problem: which photo to use for a postcard.
I personally think I have been to many places in Estonia, but I didn’t have a lot of pictures. That’s why I wondered. Then eventually I chose a photo of the prison in Rummu.
I went there in summer, and this return would be done in summer too, so I thought it was a perfect choice.
Since I always take photos in a square shape, I wanted a postcard in a square too, but there was no choice. In addition, in many copy shops, massive printing is their default, so their supply didn’t match my demand.
However, I managed to find photo printing service called Minu Foto of a shop called Copy Pro, which can be shown in the top of the search results. You can easily find the service, but if you want to find it on Minu Foto’s website, follow the steps below.
Access Minu foto
Click “Photo cards” in “PHOTO PRODUCTS” in the head bar.
It’s easy to use; first of all, choose its back print which is a side you may write messages and/or receiving address.You can choose either nothing or with lines. (In my opinion, I don’t recommend the one with lines, because your card will have Minu foto’s log there…)
Then choose a set of two postcards or eight postcards. Sending one postcard to my friend was the only purpose for me, so I just chose a set of two postcards.
If you want envelopes, you can also select, but in my case I didn’t need any, so I left it blank.
Then click “Create” and go next.
This is finally the editing part of the photo side of the postcard. There is an option to have a square picture, but I didn’t choose because I wanted to have a square-sized photo and my website’s logo. (Plus, I didn’t like that the photo part was on the right side.)
I made a file on Photoshop to align the picture and the logo, but Photoshop’s postcard setting was different from MInu foto’s setting.
Also, on Minu foto’s editing page, you can see layouts on the left side, which have two similar postcard design icons. (At least it looked the same as one another on Google Chrome. It might be shown properly on Edge or Firefox.)
The send one from the below has no margins around the pictures, so if you have a single photo, you will have that picture fully on the card. Of course that wasn’t my option at all.
I chose the last option. It has margins around the picture selected. I had white margins around the pictures and the logo in Photoshop, but I edited it like below to make it fit in the postcard.
By doing so, it fitted!
Perfectly.
After editing the design, click a blue button written “Save and Go to Cart”, and go next.
Next, I chose the delivery method.
They don’t charge you if you go there to pick yours up. I always choose this method as long as the online shopping is within Estonia.
By the way, here’s a side story; currently (as of 14th of July in 2021) the shop’s address mentioned was under construction, so the address on the website was different from the one on the selection page. I emailed them, and they said that it wasn’t just updated, so now it has a correct address.
There are two card payment methods as well as bank transfer (the middle option). I chose the card payment like always, but both options didn’t work. I still don’t know why. I compromised and chose the bank transfer.
Then they sent me an email about the purchase confirmation with an invoice like below.
As the invoice had the shop’s bank account number, I thought maybe I should pay there, but it was still unclear, so I asked them again. Then they said I could pay when I pick up the postcards. It was easier so I chose it.
At the same time, they said:
Your postcards are ready!
It was literally very instant after ordering.
Since it was fast work, I planned when to pick them up.
★Going to Copy Pro
Then on the day to pick up the postcards, I was wondering about the exact location of the shop. The address certainly exists, but even the Google map didn’t show the sign board or anything.
Anyway, I came to Rävala pst 6, but still couldn’t find it. I thought of what would happen if I turned left at the corner. Then I found the shop. It was really difficult to find out.
On the Google map the pin was set in the middle of the building (which is not wrong), but the actual shop entry is where the arrow points out in the picture below. Be careful.
Then I asked one of the staff members, and paid after checking the postcards.
Later on, I bought a stamp, and sent it to my friend. If you are thinking about creating postcards in Estonia (or Tallinn), consider this shop. (Last but not least, the stamp to other countries like Japan costs 1.90 euro, and it is a shape of an Estonian flag.)
Would you prefer a checkout with a cashier or self-checkout (SCO) when you buy groceries at a supermarket? Some of my Japanese friends don’t like the SCO thought it’s quite convenient.
(Well, as I moved to Kyoto from Wakayama, my hometown, I thought “Why don’t they have SCOs though here’s way more urban!” There is one shopping centre which was not close to my flat had some SCOs but the closest shopping centre which had an enough big supermarket didn’t have them. I don’t think I have seen SCOs anywhere but at the former shopping centre.)
On the other hand, supermarkets in Estonia seem to have both types usually. You have to go to the regular checkouts if you want to pay in cash, for example, at Rimi, Selver and Prisma but at Maxima some SCOs can accept both cash and cards.
When it comes to huge supermarkets such as Hyper Rimi, they have another type of checkouts with which it seems to possible to steal the products in addition to those two types of checkouts.
Seriously, it seems it’s possible steal products at a supermarket.
In Estonian it’s called “puldikassa”. “Pult” means “remote” and “kassa” implies “checkout” in Estonian, which are connected and became “puldikassa” (remote checkout).
As for the former term, I searched the meaning online so probably only its nuance is correct but still I believe that it’s enough understandable.
This is because the machine itself works as a checkout.
In order to use this remote checkout, you must have an account in Rimi. (If you have one, you can get discounts and get “money” that you can use at Rimi so why not register? There’s an article about it on my older website but it’s all in Japanese so just please ask me if you want to know more. The issuing fee is only 1€ as of 2018 or 2019.)
Since I have Rimi’s card, I tried the “puldikassa”! In the beginning you may wonder how to use it but once you used it, you’d get used to it. However, probably some of you don’t want to look like a foreign weirdo because of the unfamiliar system that has an introduction in a non-understandable language so I intentionallywent to the supermarket to be a weirdo who was wondering how to use it. The texts below are my outcomes of the challenge and how to.
1. Unlock the puldikassa
There is a box that keeps the remote checkouts locked at the entrance of Rimi and a small screen like a TV beside the box. First of all, you need to swipe or tap your Rimi card with the card reader attached the screen or under the screen.
It seems from time to time the screen doesn’t read the card information by swiping so I recommend you to tap it. (Yeah, I already experienced.)
2. Get your puldikassa
After tapping (swiping) your Rimi card, find the puldikassa that has your name from the box. When the puldikassa is locked it shows Rimi’s red logo and once it’s unlocked it turns a white screen having your name on. Also the individual box that unlocked the puldikassa has a green light so it’s pretty easy to find your machine.
3. Scan the products
Alright, now let’s scan what you want to buy. Take the product and scan the barcode that is attached to the product.
To read the barcode press the button of the puldikassa and light up the barcode.
Something like these but not completely the same things.
When I was working in Japan I once in a while used similar checkouts that had red lights. So I expected the same thing with the puldikassa, but it had a white light. Perhaps because that red light is actually said to be harmful for humans.
It has pictures so even though it’s in Estonian you don’t have be worried about anything.
By the way, although it is normal to buy vegetables and fruits based on their weights in Europe but in Japan everything has the same size so they have only fixed prices. If you’re unfamiliar with weighing the products, no worries. Just prepare for or take a small bag and put one type of vegetables or fruits as many as you wish in the bag.
It produced the barcode sticker.
Then, place the bag on the scale in the vegetable and fruit section at Rimi and choose the right product from the screen and then the scale gives you a barcode sticker. Finally read the barcode and that’s it.
Onions 230g 10 cents.
4. Pay for the products read with the puldikassa
If you’re done with your shopping, go to the checkout area that is not the regular checkout with a cashier or the regular SCO but the most simple checkout section. There is another box that you can place your puldikassa after scanning all the products that you want to buy.
Just put it there and the box automatically locks yours. (Any empty box is okay.)
Then go to one of the checkout point available (with green light). At the checkout point, tap your Rimi card on the credit card reader.
If you have used Rimi’s SCO machines, it may sound more familiar with you. After reading the Rimi card, the screen asks you whether you scanned all the products with the puldikassa so just go to the next step.
Then it turns the payment screen so pay by card. Be careful, you cannot use cash. If you have vouchers maybe you can use them only at the regular checkouts with the cashiers. (I’m not 100% sure about it so better to go to avoid troubles.
After the payment, keep or dispose or leave (!) the receipt and put the products that you bought in your bag. (If you don’t have your own bag you still can buy a bag with the puldikassa, no worries. I personally have never bought any bags in any occasion.) Finally you can leave Rimi with what you bought.
Easy-peasy-lemon squeezy, wasn’t it?
By the way, I recently noticed that (as far as I know) you can choose whether you will get the paper receipt or not. There is a tick box of unnecessity of the paper receipt on the right side of the screen at the regular SCO machines, so if you tick there you can dedicate to save resources.
If you’re worried about your budget management, I think it better to get the paper one. However, if you use banks such as Swedbank or N26, depending on your setting you are notified by the app when the money was used so it totally depends on your specifics and lifestyle.
In my opinion, the puldikassa is useful when I don’t have many things to buy. Given that there are lots of products in your basket, I think the regular checkouts with the cashiers or SCOs are better. In the order of my preference, I like:
the regular SCOs
the remote checkouts (puldikassa)
the regular checkouts with cashiers.
As I usually have lots of things to buy, I feel some kind of pressure from the behind if I choose the regular checkouts with cashiers and I personally don’t want to communicate strangers so I prefer the regular SCOs. (This is a very good system for those who have a communication disorder.)
Oh, but I have worked as a seller at the event merchandising for around five years in Japan. Work is work, private life is private life. I was probably just good at switching the modes in a sense.
If you come to Estonia, go to Hyper Rimi, get Rimi card and try the puldikassa. The puldikassa has English and the clerks help you if necessary.
As previously mentioned in the an article about moving to the third flat in Estonia, I have two flatmates now: one Hong Kong guy and one Lithuanian girl. In my opinion we’ve been good.
So far I don’t have any complaints (except for the fact that the Hong Kong flatmate revealed what would happen to one of the main characters in “Supernatural”). Anyways, he made a welcome dinner and we talked about ourselves and the flat on my first weekend here.
How are they like?
Humanity and personalities are very crucial since lacks of these may cause issues but I rather wanted to know more about the flat rather than the people to be honest. After introducing ourselves, we talked about the rules in the flat but
It’s an American comedy show which lasts until the 11th season (though each episode takes only 20 minutes or so). One of the protagonists of this show is named Sheldon, who is a genius physicist and shares a flat with another protagonist Leonard who is also a physicist. Leonard has concluded a roommate agreement that consists of tens of pages made by Sheldon.
Alright, let’s get back to the topic: my Hong Kong flatmate. After the talk about ourselves, he opened the Word file with his laptop and showed “Flatmate Agreement” like the “Roommate Agreement” that Sheldon made for Leonard.
The differences between ours and Sheldon’s are the volume of the agreement and unnecessity of signature.
We agreed orally and he shared the file of the flatmate agreement with us.
For those who are currently fighting with your flatmates or who are planning to share a flat with someone unknown, you may use or refer to our flatmate agreement to spend a peaceful life. I uploaded it in PDF so please find and download the file at the end of this article.
So, in terms of the flatmate agreement, what exactly did we talk about and agree to? Basically these are rules/tips to keep our flat clean and socialisation among us.
1) Secrets to keep the flat clean
Bathroom
・Avoid SLAMMING the door/toilet cover after use → I guess this is because this Hong Kong flatmate’s room is just in front of the bathroom. lol The Lithuanian flatmate and I don’t mind that much but it doesn’t mean we were resistant to do this, so we don’t slam but just close the door.
It’s written “Be careful, the inside is hot!” or something like that in Russian (according to the Hong Kong flatmate).
・Use it (the bathroom) for maximum 30 mins → This one was made considering the “congestion” of the shower use but both the Hong Kong flatmate and Lithuanian flatmate take showers in the morning and I do before going to bed so it wasn’t problematic. (Besides the Hong Kong flatmate wakes up at 5.30 every morning and the Lithuanian flatmate does at 9 am. After that they seem to take showers so it’s also not problematic even for them.)
It’s also a rule to open the washing machine for at least one hour after the use because of the humidity inside.
・Clean the toilet bowl THOROUGHLY after use every time → Actually this doesn’t happen that often. I just flush normally as long as there is no significant dirt. However, it is true that we can always keep the clean toilet if we deal with our own dirts right after the use.
How to flush: pull the silver thing on the toilet.
・Take away personal items after use EVERY TIME (except towels) → There are shelves in the bathroom so I keep mine such as a toothbrush there. Also there are towel hooks on the wall. That’s why this item says “except for towels” but I personally have one face wash headband that I bought in Disney Sea last October. My previous one was Elmo from USJ where my mam bought for me. I’d used it for a quite long time.
・Clean all the hairs of the tub after showering → This a common sense and yet there are the certain number of people who do not have the ability to do this. (Yeah, I experienced already. It happened in the first flat in Estonia, and everytime after the German or Italian girls used the showers their hair was literally everywhere. It was disgusting and shocking even though I’m a girl too.)
It’s exceptional if there are spaces to place the stuff. In other words, don’t put personal belongings anywhere which are not racks or shelves.
Kitchen
・Clean all areas (stove, sink, table) IMMEDIATELY after use except emergencies (flatmates must be alerted) → There is also no wonder but what I personally do is to put my stuff aside not to bother the flatmates’ cooking.
There are stoves on the left of this area and the kitchen is quite spacious. It’s really pleasant for me like a person who likes cooking.
・Never switch the stove to the maximum heat for a long time → This rule was made because they experienced to have a pot with too boiled stuff but I believe that it’s because the one who cooked was just not good at the kitchen management/cooking rather than the heating system was too strong… I agreed though, because still I can cook with lower heat.
・Store leftover properly with a cover →
Wait, if we store foods without any cover in the fridge, they would get super dry.
Corridor
・Both inner and outer doors must always be closed → Our house entrance has two doors and if we keep the inside door open, there’s no space for the Hong Kong flatmate when he leaves his room. So this is also irrelevant for my and the Lithuanian flatmate’s lives but keeping it close would not cause any annoys among us.
・Boots must be put on the upper side of the shoe rack →
First of all, boots cannot be fitted in the lower case.
・Other shoes (e.g. slippers, sneakers etc.) must be placed on the lower side → We concluded this flatmate agreement quite recently, that is, in winter. We also agreed that it’d be better to keep the shoes on the rack depending on the season. Come to think of it, where did I put my other shoes…
・Always empty the corridor → My room slippers are not exceptional but it doesn’t mean that I have complaints about it. I just take them off in my room as I leave. That’s it.
Weekly cleaning
・Everyone takes turn per week → Someone has to be in charge of cleaning the flat once three weeks (obviously because we are three of us here). It may sound like something big since one tenant has to clean the whole flat but also it’s confusing and troublesome to manage the cleaning schedule if all of us clean the flat dividing into three parts, which may get more troublesome when someone cannot handle it for some reasons (as far as I experienced) so this is actually the best way.
・The person-in-charge has to buy all necessary detergents → Well, we have different time tables every day so it’s not always possible for someone in charge of cleaning the flat to buy necessary things. Therefore, actually someone who has time to go shopping buys and later on the rest of us pay back. I think this is the best way so that we can be financially equal.
This sink is really small so I always use water from the shower when washing the face in the morning.
2) Socialising
Active hours
・Be quiet before 7am & after 11pm → I don’t think this is our flat-specific rule. In Estonia (or in Europe? in Ireland where it may have been the same), there are active hours. (It might be 7 am to 10 pm in public like a supermarket.) This is to avoid the neighbour issues. It didn’t surprise me but because of my work I once in a while have to make calls in the early morning to New Zealand which has a 10 or 11-hour time difference with Estonia. (I try to tell my flatmates beforehand but it’s not always possible so I apologise in my mind.)
・Family calls can be made not more than 30 mins agreed by other flatmates → Our Lithuanian flatmate often talks with her husband who is in Lithuania but I’ve never been bothered due to this so I really don’t mind. I can sleep anywhere and don’t talk with my family. If I talk with my friends in Japan, it takes at least one hour though.
Internal
・Everyone takes turn to cook for the rest twice a month to ensure sufficient internal communication on a regular basis → The aim is to communicate with three of us. (I would have disagreed if the flatmates had been like the tenants in my previous flat.) It may sound too much for some people but the frequency is low and is nearly once a month. The other day was my turn and I was lazy to think of what to cook so I cooked onigiri (rice balls) and nikujaga (like a stew with meat and potatoes and vegetables). Then I swore to myself: I would never ever buy Rimi’s soy sauce again. It just made the food in black without enough taste of soy sauce. Rimi has Kikkoman’s soy sauce, which is a proper Japanese brand and not cheap but it ensures that we can have the proper taste of soy sauce.
External
・Individual guests must stay at the host’s own room without interrupting shared area → Common sense, isn’t it. However I do know that there are some number of people who do not, again, have any ability to do this. Can you guess how many times the Indian tenant’s guest in the previous flat took my food from the fridge and use my stuff even though I kept them separately or marked as mine?
・The presence of individual guests of the opposite sex (of the host) must be informed in this flat prior to his/her arrival → This item was made in case one of us brought their date or partner. lol However we actually let the others know when same-sex friends or someone will come to visit. It’s still better than nothing.
・The presence of groups (>1 person) should only be accepted when there is an unanimous agreement in the flat → Yeah it’s gonna be noisy when there are too many people in the small place… In the first flat in Estonia when there was a huge party which around 50 guests came, I was just shutting myself in my room, being annoyed.
…Okay, that’s it. Does it seem too much for you? Some items (or maybe all?) of this flatmate agreement have my comments but so far we have lived peacefully. It may be kind of sad for my flatmates because having my own time is really important to me but they may learn that the world has such a person.
Besides, my room has a balcony, ya hoooo!
If you want to see or get our flatmate agreement, you can download below.
Do you have anything like a medicine handbook in yoru country? In Japan, more specifically as in Wakayama (my hometown) I didn’t have such a thing but I got one when I started my college life and got prescription in Kyoto.
So far I didn’t even think that it was a convenient or incovenient thing but whenever my doctors asked my medicines that I was taking I couldn’t answer at all.
When I got my first medical handbook/notebook it was literally sometihng physical with papers. Of course in Estonia you won’t get such a thing. Then, would they make a card like a consultation ticket (the hospitals in Japan usually make this for you)? Of course not. Here is Estonia, mate. I have once written about the use of this Estonian ID card as a library card in Japanese and the logic is the same; if the Estonian ID card works as a library card, it works as a medical handbook/notebook.
This time the article is about the prescriptions.
My Japanese medical notebook.
Don’t get surprised even though you didn’t know but I stayed in the hospital for a month. (Maybe I’ll write this story in the future.) On the 31st of December 2019, at around 10am I had the final talk with my doctor and my nurse.
We talked about the side effects of the medicines, the minimum period of taking them and the next appointment with another nurse and doctor. My doctor told me to take two kinds of medicines that I had been taking since I was in the hospital as well as vitamin D. He also said that I could buy the medicines not in the hospital but in a pharmacy though I didn’t know anything so he gave me a printed-out document of the prescription. Besides, I was told to keep taking them for at least six months.
Before leaving the hospital, I asked my nurse and she said I could buy the medicines in any pharmacy – like a normal one that you go to when you want to buy, for example, plasters.
Is it really okay to sell such medicines that need prescriptions?
I thought. However, it doesn’t mean you can “pick up” from the shelf in the pharmacy and buy them.
Anyway, I went home and headed to the closest pharmacy. In Estonia a supermarket that is more than medium-size tends to have a pharmacy. (It doesn’t mean that the pharmacy is in the supermarket but it is in the same building.)
I had no idea how to buy the medicines so I made a queue in front of the casher. Then I showed the paper that the doctor gave me and the shop clerk asked me:
Do you have a prescription?
What?
To be honest, I had no idea that my Estonian ID card worked as a medical handbook/notebook at all so I said:
I was staying in the hospital and my doctor gave it to me.
Then the shop clerk asked me if I had the Estonian ID card. I just passed him my card without even wondering about anything. He read the card with a reader and just started picking the medicines from the withdraws behind the casher.
I have used this pharmacy and thought that he was just a shop clerk but (probably) a proper pharmacist. He seemed a polite person and always told me how to take although I always knew it.
Oh, as for the vitamin D, he just got one of the bottles displayed in the shop.
In total I purchased a bottle of 100 tablets of vitamin D, one type of the medicines for 28 days and another one for 30 days, which cost less than 26€.
It’s cheap, isn’t it…?
Usually mental medicines cost more than general medicines like pollen allergy medicines. When I had prescriptions in Japan for something mental, until I applied to the Kyoto city for the special discount, I spent around 80€ (10,000 yen) for two medicines every month. After getting approval of the special discount from Kyoto city, I spent only 10% of the full cost of the medicines, meaning that it reduced 2/3 of the cost that I paid so eventually the total cost was around 28€ (3,000 yen).
From such a experience, I thought “the medicines are cheap in Estonia, aren’t they?” The vitamin would last approximately for three months so I don’t have to pay for it from the next time, meaning that the medical fee wouldn’t exceed 26€.
This made me happy.
After all I got the medicines and the vitamin D and I restarted taking them according to the rule. In order not to forget, I set the alarm that ring at 9 pm every day for the one that I need to take in the evening.
Also at the final talk with the doctor and the nurse, they made the next appointment (as mentioned above) but my new nurse figured out that this initial nurse couldn’t speak English that much so we changed the appointment date and time but I still had the medicines so there was no problem. From my experience I knew how to buy the medicines so there was nothing difficult either. (Additionally, after this appointment I bought the medicines and figured out two medicines for about one month cost only 9€….)
Besides, you can see your prescription on State Portal. The image below is mine.
There is clearly the doctor’s name who prescribed the medicies on the most right and the names of the medicines in the third colum from the left of the table in the picture.
The second image shows the detail after clicking “ID of prescription”. Still cheap isn’t it?
This is the Estonian medical notebook. Huh!
Of course you can buy general medicines at pharmacy without prescriptions. (My Japanese article about it is here.)
That’s all about the story of the prescription in Estonia and the Estonian medical notebook.
This is actually the third time to chage the flat since I came here. (I mean, this includes my first flat because I spent one night or two in the hostel when I arrived in Tallinn.)
My friends know my first place. It was a hostel-like flat which had 11 rooms shared by 12 people. I met many types of people/students: self-centred German girls, a Ukranian girl who loves Sailor Moon, some Italians, Czech, French, Iranian and Japanese who played games and drink together. It was a really international flat. (Sometimes there were also some Hungarians, Cyprusian, Spanish, Estonians, Thai, American as well as Georgian.) Usually I had meals with some of them and talked with them instead of frequent nights out since my programme gave me and my coursemates too many readings every time.
However, in Autumn in 2018, I started working at part-time being a student as well so I had to go to both school and the office. It wasn’t easy to change the class timetables and I had a lot of readings as assignments as mentioned so even though my working time was 20 hours per week, it was tough to spend 40 minutes including one connection for one way every time I worked.
For this reason I moved to a flat close to the office.
Oh, this is not what I want to talk about this time but the event after this.
The flat which I moved in was a shared one by two other people, had no living room but a small kitchen, a toilet and a shower room. Although my room’s size was spacious – 15㎡ having a double bed, it was weird for me to have meals by myself.
But that doesn’t mean I wanted to eat with the flatmates.
There was one Ukranian guy and one Indian guy. Both graduated universities in Estonia and were working.
The Ukranian was okay. He wasn’t an interesting or fun guy but he wasn’t a bad guy either and he actually kept everything clean. The problem was this Indian one.
It’s not about dirtiness (as the common topic that is raised when it comes to a flatmate issue). When there was a problem or something, he always put (his own reasons and) the cause aside pretending that he was completely innocent and thought that the causes were all lack of communication. If you don’t want to read the followings and skip this and some paragraph beyond and read the next fourth paragraph. In more detail, he always kept 1.5L plastic bottle in the toilet to wash his butt, his “cleaning the toilet” is only to wipe the floor (that is, he didn’t clean the inside of the toilet), used my stuff even though I marked them told him not to do, said that the chopsticks in the dryer basket next to the sink hurt him (I didn’t understand), etc.
But the ultimate thing was that I couldn’t accpet him as a human right after moving in. Imagine, would you be happy when an unknown guy or stranger suddenly said “oh your hair is beautiful”. Creepy. (If you don’t get it then maybe you have never experienced to be hit on by strangers. This is the same thing.) Also my personal space is as small as what the Estonians have – possibly even smaller than theirs.
For this reason I didn’t want to talk with him and he never leant even though I repeated saying something such as not to use my stuff. Such a waste of time.
In addition, while he was in the flat there was always loud sounds of TV, video games and music (I could hear even when I closed the door and sit the furthest position from his room), and after he used the shower room in the morning I hated his spray smell.
Initially I told our flat managers to kick him out, he was one of the causes that I had to stay in the hospital, I gradually felt that it was troublesome to fight again and that this type of self-centred person eventually would be deserted by the societies and people. Then I started looking for a new place. As of Novemeber 2019, my flat manager didn’t have any vacancy in any flats so I also asked one of the teachers at TLU, who contacted her friends. Of ourse I was searching the new one on my own as well. (I checked the websited every day when I was in the hospital.)
Sorry my premise was too long.
Here are finally the main things: there are 3 websites (?) to look for a place to live and the result of my case.
1) City24.ee
First of all, it is a website called City24.ee. I used this website when I was looking for the flat in Estonia while being in Japan. You can change the language but some places lack the information. In such a case I recommend you to change the language into Estonian and use Google translate by copying and pasting the texts written in the website. Mostly it says “only Estonian speakers” or something like that.
If the description says “only Estonian speakers” it is better than “only the Estonians” because it seems there are. Why I used “it seems” is because I just have heard and not experienced. However, if you contact the manager or broker who have described like that and there are no response, just try to think that they just cannot understand English. Don’t say or think that they are racists or something – English is not their mother tongue. If you really want to live in that place, then it is better to make a phone call. In Estonia, it doen’t matter whether the business is toC or toB, normally they don’t reply. (The sad fact for those who have communication disorder 😦 )
2) KV.ee
The next one is KV.ee. I used this website for the first time this time. They have almost the same information as what City24 has but really occasionally they have what City24 doen’t have so it can be your option to check. There is nothing to compare in my opinion and the advice is the same as the above. (I noticed that this website is number one in terms of searching places to live when I got the link.)
3) Facebook
The third thing is not a website but a social media. These days it sees there are a number of people who look for places to live on SNS. It is true that groups like Expats have brokers and flat managers and they posts something to get new tenants, but I personally don’t recommend.
This is becasue the websites are more secure and have higher possiblities that there are actual physical houses or flats, meaning that they mostly don’t lie. (If not, I think that the website stops that company, broker or manager to implement sales there.)
Besides this is not anything about those who want tenants but those who look for places to live, I often see something like “Hi! I’m looking for a place to live! My budget is XX euro! Thanks!”.
Honestly it just looks miserable.
Why do you have such a mentality that “it is natual that people should help me” though you come in other people’s country with your own will?
If the texts were “I’m looking for a place to live! Please let me know if there are any vacant room!”, it is better though. (But I think this kind of people would contact brokers or managers rather than write a post on facebook.) Also I think there is no problem when the brokers or managers say “we are looking for tenants!”.
For those reasons based on my self-judgement and bias, the use of Facebook to look for a place is just one option but not my recommendation. Just consider what is better for you by yourself.
4) Eventually I’m always blessed with good people.
Lastly concerning my new place, as described in this section header, I am really blessed with people in the end even if I have troubles. My flat managers offered me a place in the same district in Tallinn.
Gods.
Saviours.
The flat is located 15 to 20 minutes by walk or 2 bus stops away from the closest stop to the office and has 9 floors, in the middle of which in terms of the height and width they had a shared house.
The house is shared with three people, although the toilet and the shower are in the one room, the kitchen was more spacious having a couter table with three bar stools, has a storage space with many shelves and has my room with a balcony. At that time a German girl, Hong Kong guy and a Lithuanian girl (who I didn’t see) lived there. Since the German girl was leaving, I’ve got an opportunity to move in there. I also talked with the Hong Kong guy, who didn’t seem annoying but nice. They said they lived peacefully. The kitchen and shower room were both clean as well (possible they cleaned because they might have known that I would visit to see there :P)
The rest half of the room was still messy so only the bedding area.
The building itself is beisde the huge road and my room has a balcony but the house was quite away from the road so it is quiet inside. The rent got 10 euro more expensive and my room is a bit smaller but it was actually hard to find negative points.
My flat manager told me that he was too busy to give me the keys for the new flat on the day that I was moving in so he gave them to me in the previous day, helping me carry the stuff by his car. Nevertheless I repreated going there and coming back to the previous flat FOUR times.
Super exhausting.
Also whenever he said he would come to check or fix the stuff in the previous flat, I tried remembering to ask him to take of “stars” on the celing but I always forgot. (I asked my friend when moving in there but he was for sure working at that time as it was Thursday.) Then I asked one of my colleagues to come and take of the “stars”, but
listen, he changed the history.
Whenever I invited my friends I told them the address (the position of hallway and the floor as well) and the door code. They always successfully opened the door and came to my floor. However, my colleague couldn’t enter the door code and instead rang the bell and called me so I opened the hallway door but still he couldn’t get in so I eventually had to go downstairs – from the third floor to the first floor.
AFTER the FOUR round trips. (Though it was really appreciating to come and take off my “stars”.)
Then he helped me taking of another decoration as well as the “stars”.
However!
This is not the end of the story.
★How to Change the Address
When you moved out you old place and moved in your new one, of course you need to change your address. As I moved in the second flat, nonetheless I experienced changing the places in Japan, I completely forgot and the got an email from the Estonian population registry.
Then, how to do?
You can access from State Portal but I put the link here so that you can easily access. The website is called e-population register. There is one thing you should be careful. When it comes to online shopping or asking your family or friends to send something, you may write “StreetName BuildingNumber-(hyphen) FlatNumber, Tallinn, Estonia, Postal Code” (e.g. Jakobsoni 21-4, Tallinn, Estonia, 10120). However, on this registeration, don’t include the flat number (and the postal code). In the case of the example above, type “Jakobsoni 21, Tallinn, Estonia”. (If you start typing, it shows the expectation having the area so no worries about some details. Just start typing the street name.) On the right of the address entry box, you need to type only the flat number. Easy Peasy.
After the entry of all the information, go to the next step, choose the contract type and wait for the approval. (It doesn’t accpet Digi doc files so in case you signed digitally, ask your flat manager their full name and personal ID, enter those, ask them again to approve what you entered and wait for the final approval from the population registry.)
That’s all.
Your Estonian ID card and number are used for the population registry, prescription, family doctor and bank account so once you changed the residential address online and got approved, such information, for instance, the bank account gets the same information so no need to go here and there in the whole town.
I wish Japan would have this system asap.
Surprisingly I haven’t done anything bad so I should be able to get approval. If there’s nothing renewed in this article please consider that I successfully registered my residential address.
zooks.ee 