Do I miss my home country?
The first question I am asked whenever meeting someone new in Estonia is almost unanimously: “Why Estonia?” Coming from Canada, one of the top destinations of choice for international students, I can understand why many people are surprised I didn’t stay there. Having recently returned from my two-week Christmas break in Toronto, I wanted to do a short comparison.
What I wish I could bring from Canada to Estonia:
Toronto’s multicultural community means that the selection of food available to eat is much wider and more international than most restaurants in Tallinn. While I have no complaints about Estonian food, I missed the ease of being able to find a variety of food just walking down the street.
My favourite thing I discovered during my trip was that the Art Gallery of Ontario (one of North America’s largest art museums) is free for ages 25 and under. As a student, this is great news. While there is no single museum in Tallinn that has year-round free entry, there are some where admission is occasionally free or only costs one euro (you can check out our previous blog post about museums in Tallinn).
What I missed about Estonia:
Public transit in Tallinn is free for residents and (almost) always comes on time. I also find it convenient that bus schedules are posted at every stop. While in Toronto, there were many times I found myself standing at a bus stop for half an hour not being able to tell when the next bus would come or if it was coming at all. The one plus to Toronto’s public transit system is that you can buy a 12-month pass for 95.50€ (around 8 euros a month), which is much cheaper than the 30€ a month that non-residents pay in Tallinn. Staying on the topic of transport, I found Canada’s size to be a downside — from Tallinn, I can travel to another country for a weekend without much planning, but I have still not visited most major Canadian cities simply due to the amount of time it takes to get there.
I also prefer Tallinn to Toronto just because it is a smaller city: while there is lots to do in Toronto, many events are often overcrowded (like New Years Eve) and it is easy to waste half a day trying to get somewhere in the city that is out of the range of the metro system. I appreciate that Tallinn is easy to navigate and I don’t feel like I need to rush anywhere here.
Which country is better?
Other than the obvious points such as population size, I can say that I don’t feel many differences between living in Canada and living in Estonia — there are many similarities for me such as education quality, weather, people’s attitudes and so on. While I enjoyed my time spent in Canada, I don’t regret my choice to move to Estonia — and I hope that any new TalTech students will enjoy it here as much as I do!
