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FREE! Magazine and EA Music want to celebrate with you the 10th anniversary of the legendary electronic music band Ladytron!
So just send us the correct answer to the question below to free@freemagazine.fi , writing “Ladytron contest” in the subject field of your email, and you can get 1 of the 3 CDs “Ladytron – Best of 00-10” that we have to give away to our lucky winners!
A) Manchester
B) Berlin
C) London
D) Liverpool
Good luck!!!
It must be one representative of the Swedish speaking population in Finland…
Being just the proud owner of a new Canon Powershot SX210 camera, I have decided that I will start a new series of posts showing my random shoots during my walks all over the capital area (I hope to expand later to other places I will visit). So here are the first ones, taken today during this wonderful sunny sunday:
Sometimes reality is able to overcome fiction. This happened again at McDonalds restaurant in Ruoholahti a few days ago, where some people stole the statue of Ronald McDonald. I happen to know this McDonalds very well, becasue my office is just located in front of it, and often I stop by to grab something to eat (yes, I like fast food, and I am not ashamed to recognize it).
Some hours later, the kidnappers uploaded this video in Youtube. What do you think that will be the destiny of the poor Ronald?:
Very nice video that I discovered today if you like videogames history. By the way, it will open in Berlin during this month a museum dedicated just to videogames, a must see if you visit the nice German city!
Because not everybody can be Slash…
I discovered by chance this video a couple of days ago, and I cannot take it out of my mind. The photography of Scottish landscapes is amazingly beautiful, the songs by The Jezabels and Loch Lomond are superb, I have been listening to them again and again, and the tricks from Danny on his bike are amazing to watch. A must see!
FREE! Magazine, EA Trax and Surface Noise Records invite you to get to know one of the hottest bands from UK: Hadouken!!! And what better way to celebrate their recent release of the second album than offering to our readers a great prize: a pack with both the first album from Hadouken, Music for an Accelerated Culture + their newest For the Masses.
Send us the right answer for the question below to free@freemagazine.fi, indicating in the subject field “Hadouken competition”, and you can be the lucky winner of both CDs!!!
A) Finland
B) Estonia
C) Belgium
D) Holland
E) Great Britain
Good luck!!!
I have experienced it myself many times while living in Estonia (and sadly, also in Finland), and you can read the same opinion if you visit most of the expats blogs around: Estonian customer service sucks big time.
Usually, I could let it go. I would say that ok, it comes with the country, with the past history attached to Soviet Union where people did not need to be kind to the customers, with the coldness of the Estonian people… But what the fuck! This time I am going to write something about it, because everything has a limit.
Yesterday, after assisting to a wonderful housewarming party held by an American and an English friend, I visited with some of the people a bar in Tartu called Illegaard (that happens to be owned also by another Englishman). This bar is actually a wonderful place, nice to sit and talk, with a fuzzball (I am addicted to the game) table and different events through the week. I have to say clearly that this entry does not go against the bar per se, but against the attitude of some Estonian people when giving customer service.
The point is that I went close to the desk where the waitresses were serving, and I was not even going to order any drink, but just some coins to play fuzzball later. I saw some people waiting on the right side of the desk, and an empty space on the left, so I did what a normal human being would do in most of the bars in the world, to stand waiting for my turn in the empty space.
I noticed after a few minutes that the other people were served before me. I shut up my mouth and waited patiently. I know how the philosophy of the waiters and waitresses is in these countries, if they believe you arrived later, they will ignore you until they consider that it is your turn, totally different from Spain where everybody waves to them in a packed venue to catch their attention and get a drink (it is the jungle law there). But once again, I accept I am not in Spain, and that the people on the right could have preference, so I keep on waiting.
I keep on waiting and waiting, but started to realize that I was never served after 15 minutes and new people coming were served before me. One of these new people was a friend of mine. I just commented that it seemed the waitresses did not want to serve me, and one of them, because believe me, in this country you will always find a smart ass, told me that there was a queue. I did not insult her or insult anybody, but I am Spaniard and sorry, we discuss things when we do not consider them fair. I said that I did not see anywhere written to wait in the queue, and even though, I waited patiently for long minutes. Was that a kind of punishment that I should wait 1 hour for breaking the “rules” and not waiting on the other side of the desk?
The answer of the waitress was that I should relax or go out of the bar. Yeah… she threatened me to be kicked out of the bar, ladies and gentlemen! I was not wasted, not insulting, not creating trouble, but because I opened my mouth and said that it was not the way things should be done, I became a “persona non grata”… I suppose that if you are a Latino person, you could understand my pain. We come from a culture where we TALK and gesticulate to make our point. In Estonia, that seems to be the land of the smart ass people, because everybody seemed to know better than you about everything, you can die of frustration while they talk to you in a cold tone like if you would be a little child who has behaved bad for opening the mouth and telling your view on things…
I have experienced awful customer service when buying a bus ticket in a R-Kioski, when they returned very late my lost suitcase after a flight and they phoned me in a tone that seemed like it would almost be my fault to have it lost, when waiting for a meal to arrive in a restaurant for hours… but everything has a limit. I have news for you, Estonian people who attend clients with an angry face like if you would be sucking a lemon, you are in European Union nowadays, and foreign people expect more of a human behaviour from you. And if you do not like it, go and quit your job. You can always go to a farm to masturbate animals, that surely will be much more grateful clients.
My dear waitress, I honestly do not care about your low or high wages, the drunkards who disturb you every night, if you split up with your boyfriend or girlfriend the previous night or if you did not pass an exam. As a youngster, I did a lot of shitty jobs myself to pay my studies where I had to deal with customers face to face, and a smile and politeness were the rule nr. 1. Maybe the sentence “The client is always right” does not apply in Estonia, but it happens to be true in most of the other European countries. I happen to be an editor of a small online magazine who writes here just part time as a hobby, but I could perfectly have been the editor of Lonely Planet looking for the coolest places in Tartu, and after you fucked up my mood that night, my dear waitress, your establishment would have lost hundreds of potential customers. Would your boss be happy about it?
Taking advantage of the long Easter weekend (yes, miracle, Friday was a national holiday in Estonia. Not that you have many chances through the year of enjoying long week ends in Estonia…) I decided to visit Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, and the only country in the Baltic-Scandinavian region where I had not been yet.
The trip was long, 4 hours by bus to Riga and another 4 from Riga to Vilnius, but worthy. My Finnish friend Ilkka flew from Helsinki to join me, and there we met at Old Town Hostel. I must say that the double room we had was excellent. Actually, one could feel like having a hotel room, because it was separated from the rest of the hostel, and we had our own key to go in and out whenever we wanted withouth disturbing anybody. The price was fair, so I reccommend it.
We wandered during the weekend mostly around the old town, so I cannot say much of the rest of the city. But I liked a lot what I saw there. The city is clean, the buildings are in good shape, and the atmosphere is charming. The nightlife was sadly quite dead, due to many people having escaped from the city for the holidays, but even though, we found a couple of bars where to have fun. We settled our operational base for the night especially at the University Pub. But during those days there, most probably there were more people going to church than to bars. And it is amazing the amount of churches you can find in a few square metres! In every corner there is a church in old Vilnius! Even if you are not a religious person, you cannot less than admire the special atmosphere that this gives to the city.
About Lithuanian people, I must say that in general they were pretty friendly, even better than expected. Girls actually smile you easily at the bars, and are very eager to have a conversation (I would say that maybe more friendly than Estonian girls, who usually give you the look of “do not disturb me foreigner, I prefer to talk with the local guy who looks like a retired boxer” when going out at night. But also Lithuanian guys (ok, those who are not 2 metres high and look like serial killers) were quite friendly, and we had the chance to chat with quite many of them while sharing some beers.
As a final remark, do not make the mistake to confuse Lithuanian language with Russian language (It happened to me once, sorry!!!). In Vilnius, only around 9% of the population is Russian speaker, and the local Lithuanians do not take very well the comparisons. In that sense, they are probably less welcoming than in the other Baltic capitals, where Russian speakers are more widely spread among the local population.
If you still have not visited Vilnius and are thinking about a possible weekend destination, do not think it twice. Prices are affordable, the city looks good and pretty safe, the people are friendly… and the women pretty ;)
For those of you who are Spanish speakers, here I send you a link from a Spanish website called “El Blog del Becario” that has a section where they feature Spanish people living around the world. It was my turn some weeks ago, so you can see some pictures of Tartu, the city where I live at the present moment, and get to know a bit more about Estonia and my life there. Enjoy it!
http://blogs.20minutos.es/becario/post/2010/01/11/un-espaaaol-perdido-en-tartu
My Finnish friend Ilkka visited me last week to drive to Riga to see Rammstein concert, and when we were back in Tartu, he showed me the most hilarious German video I have ever seen! (Ok, actually it is made by Swedish).
I introduce you the almighty Schlangemann!!!
Advisory: It contains explicit sexual content.