Today it rained in unpredictable and torrential bursts in between blue skies, and I bought loads of really cheap kale. Estonia is basically Scotland.

🏷 travel Tallinn, Estonia

Day 2 in Tallinn

I went to Tallinn City library this afternoon. It's small, but a nice place, good fancy ceilings, some nice rooms with nice chairs and old books, the wifi is good, lots of power sockets, very quiet. I hung out with my laptop for about an hour and a half. Just before 5.30pm I realised I had thought the library closes at 5, but hey I guess not. A short while later I packed up my stuff and went downstairs.

The front door was locked. All the lights were off. Not a soul was in sight.

I went back upstairs to ask the other person sitting on her laptop there if she this was normal and she knew another way out. She did not. We wandered around and tried a few doors.

Haha. We were locked in the library. It didn't open again until Monday.

We proceeded to call and email every contact number on the library webpage we could find. She also called the 24h Tallinn city general helpline, and they promised to call back. She called her mother, who called someone she knew who worked at a different library, who also promised to call back.

Meanwhile we found a window that was big enough to climb through and not too far off the ground to jump out if necessary. We decided this or calling the police would be an absolute last resort.

We made an effort to get through to the pub next door, in case they either happened to have a spare key or the library employees had gone there after work.. but no answer.

M and I introduced ourselves, and bonded over veganism (<3!) and travel and chocolate and the small art display in the library we would not have bothered to look at if we weren't trapped there.

M's family members turned up outside the window, and went to see if anyone was in the pub who could help.

The city helpline called back and said the director had been contacted and was on her way, but lived 30 minutes away.

She eventually showed up, and turned out to be a distant relative of M, and the daughter of the person M's mother had called earlier! It's a small country. She was accompanied by a surly security guard who took photos of our IDs. Apparently we'd set of a silent alarm when we opened the window earlier and security were already quietly surrounding the building.

Then they let us out and I had dinner with M and her family at a nearby veg*n buffet.

Just another day..

(Also this morning I went on a walking tour and found a SPECTACULAR vegan chocolate shop, really enjoying Tallinn so far.)

🏷 library life travel Tallinn, Estonia

11 Aug 2018, 20:34 (+03:00)

JESUS airbnb freaks out every time I log in from a different country LIKE A COUNTRY WHERE I HAVE BOOKED ACCOMMODATION THROUGH AIRBNB put 2 and 2 together christ

One time it absolutely refused to send me a confirmation code by any other means than SMS to a number which I couldn't get reception on where I was and I had to jump through hours of support hoops when trying to deal with a time-sensitive host-contacting issue which was definitely not in any way stressful. At least now it seems to be consistently offering me the email confirmation option.

although right now I just get a 500 every time I try to log in did i mention i hate computers

🏷 airbnb travel

10 Aug 2018, 19:40 (+03:00)

Re: #FlyingLess

In reply to: https://mobile.twitter.com/ClimateHuman/status/1027240444936089601

... testimonials about flying less..."

I'm a perpetual digital nomad, but committed to not flying at the beginning of 2018.

I'm not a climate scientist, but as a recent academic I took major advantage of the international conference circuit to travel as much as possible during my PhD. I never liked flying, but I wanted to see the world and that just seemed like what you had to do. In retrospect the sheer volume of academic travel is quite obscene - especially given the number of people I meet who complain about having to do it so much!

In 2014 I found myself four events in continental Europe a week apart each, and persuaded my institute to pay for a three week Interrail pass instead of a bunch of flights. I took a bus from Edinburgh to Paris (W3C Working Group meeting), hitchhiked from Paris to Dusseldorf (IndieWebCamp hackathon), then a train to Innsbruck (tourism), train to Florence (World Wide Web Conf), trains to the coast and a ferry to Croatia (tourism, chillin'), buses and trains through Croatia to Slovenia (Extended Semantic Web Conf). Then one flight back to Edinburgh.

Since then I dreamed of slow-moving ongoing travel with no date I had to be back by. Now I find myself with all the time in the world, no ties or dependents, and a remote job, and can finally live it.

It's a great way to discover new places, get a better grip on international geography, and have diverse experiences.

In short if you can swing it, finding alternative ways to travel without flying is the bomb. Learn how to sleep and/or work on buses, make some time, and give it a shot. Academics with flexible schedules and hours (by which I mean, you tend to work all the time and mostly it doesn't matter where from) are in a superb position. If you're in a position to fund (time-rich, schedule- and location-flexible) students to travel, persuade them to look at alternatives before jumping on a plane.

I always start investigating a new route with Rome2Rio. Sometimes finding connections can be daunting and time consuming, and I'm also happy if anyone wants to ping me overland/sea travel questions I can try to help based on my experiences so far.

Disclaimer! I know many people, academics or otherwise, are not in a position to devote days to getting from A to B! I know many people are not physically or mentally able to spend long durations on buses. I know sometimes flying is just the only option if you don't want to miss out altogether! Consider this post aimed at those who can, and just need a bit of a nudge to step out of their comfort zone.

🏷 #FlyingLess travel

10 Aug 2018, 15:52 (+03:00)

My kingdom for restaurant websites which have a text-only one page version of the menu without so much javascript that google translate can't even parse it and nothing is copypastable.

🏷 food ux

10 Aug 2018, 13:10 (+03:00)

Day 2 in Tallinn

Re: #FlyingLess

The 64 things I write about most are: