User talk:Urmas

You're in 59 24. Don't put 59 -24 on your pictures.

Got it. That said, is there a way to edit that, without deleting and reuploaing? nwm, Images have edit button too, </wikinoob>

And I think I edited them already too. At first I thought it was a new graticule, in Iceland, but then I realized Iceland doesn't go that far south. -Robyn 17:55, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks -Urmas 17:59, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

P.S. The quick way to sign your name is -~~~~. That automatically puts your name and date if you're logged in.

Already did that, when I said thanks. :P Urmas 18:03, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

It looks like you're typing [[~~~~]]. That's why you have so many brackets around your name. Or do you just like brackets. -Robyn 18:05, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I see. I guess it takes a while to get used to. Urmas 18:07, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, also, welcome to the wiki. I have travelled in Estonia and used to be able to have a very small conversation in Estonian. It was along the lines of "Hello, my name is Robyn. I am from Canada. Sorry, I do not speak Estonian. Please, I speak English. I speak Russian. I speak French." I would then look hopefully at the person and they would tell me, in either Russian or English, depending on how old they were, that the Russians had been in Estonia for forty years and had never bothered to learn as much Estonian as I had. Or else they wouldn't realize that I was now pretty much out of Estonian, and they would talk to me in Estonian, but the conversation probably went about the same. I could also do "Please where hotel/restaurant/toilet," but I must have got the last one slightly wrong because I remember people laughing at me before giving directions. I got there, though! (No, I couldn't understand the directions. I just went where they pointed, and asked someone else if I couldn't find it). -Robyn 18:19, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, about that Russians living there for 20~40 years and not learning the language thing: The common, and quite true, stereotype about us, Estonians is that when talking to foreigners, no matter how insignificant the conversation, we somehow manage to derail the conversation to the last 20 years of Estonian history. Thanks again for the wiki tips and the welcome. Urmas 18:30, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I thought Estonian history was amazing, so I was happy to hear about it, in any language. It does make me laugh to learn that it is still the stereotype. It was relevant at the time: this was in about 1989, so the Soviets had only just left. The mailboxes and trains still had the hammer and sickle on them. (The mailboxes were painted yellow over the red, and I think some had the symbol drilled out and patched over). Official forms, like the one I had to fill out to ship a package at the train station, were still in Russian. The phonebooths still took kopecks. Shopkeepers sold kopecks as telephone tokens,if I recall correctly. No one was fixing the payphones anymore, but some still worked. Hardly anyone had home telephones because the Soviets were so slow at installing them, but almost everyone had a new Nokia cellphone. This was before *I* had a cellphone in Canada, so it was a strange clash of futuristic with old-Soviet. The people were very modern but uniquely Estonian. I was impressed that the culture and language had withstood the occupation so brilliantly. The other thing that stands out in my mind: roads with birch trees. -Robyn 18:48, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I was two years old in 1989, so I'm fuzzy on the details, but I'm pretty sure that cellphones became the big thing here in the nineties. You're spot on, on everything else though, as far as I can tell. Urmas 20:47, 7 May 2009 (UTC)