Estonia Wednesday - Friday

Wednesday!
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Check out the week's photos here!

Halfway through
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The meeting chugged along again, with only one disaster: the network was down for a while (=panic!) on Wednesday because of an apparent DDos attack and so people actually had to listen to the speakers instead of tappety tapping away on their lappety tops. I was on webcast duty and so didn't even notice as I was too busy pretending I was a director and zooming around with the cameras.


Google schmoogle
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Wednesday night was the Google party. Because wandering through a tense and riot-prone city in a group of 200 plus people is not really a good idea, and given that the Estonian police have rather large batons and menacing looking cannisters of tear gas, the location of the party had to be changed at the last minute. Instead of a short walk from hotel to venue, we had to get on a bus and zoomed off to somewhere on the coast. It was a very odd-looking place...looked a bit like a swimming pool from the outside. Anyway, I snagged myself a couple of freebie t-shirts and scoffed some rather tasty wild salmon and was having a jolly old time.


Flaming heck, where are her knickers?
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Then the Cabaret showed up. At first I thought it was just a bloke singing but then out came this girl, dressed like a 1920's German hooker and it just went downhill from there, with thongs and erotic dancing all over the place.
Given the fact that at least 85% of the audience is male, I think the party organisers made a very good choice. In fact, I have never seen such concentration on so many faces in my life. And, the number of cameras and phones around was unnerving.


Sing it, baby!
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We got the first bus back to the hotel and descended upon the Karaoke bar where I proceeded to monopolise the stage and microphone as per usual when Karaoke is involved. Unfortunately, some poor Finnish bird croaked her way through MySongTM (Britney Spears hahaha) so I had to do some renditions of songs I don't normally do. Nick and I did a brilliant version of Angels and then Uptown Girl, but I Think the piece de resistance was 'summer nights' (well, you gotta do it on a karaoke haven't you?) with Chris, Jos and Random attendee. There were 342098957234723 songs in Finnish and about 15 in English, so there were some repeats during the night. Nick did a fabulous version of Elvis.

Someone fire the Karaoke man!
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We all got in trouble with Karaoke man, who was the meanest, grumpiest, most miserable pig on the planet. I'm not joking: "Stop dancing over there, my remote control won't work. I mean it, get away from there. BEHAVE YOURSELVES." He was rude and nasty when anyone asked for a song. I mean good god, he was about 65 (or maybe he was only 30 and that's what drinking too much Estonian voddy does to you) go get a less stressful job. Bah. Anyway, I didn't dare get close to him to take a picture, so the quality of this one is a bit shite. It all got pretty raucous and I left at 2am, and the dancefloor was still packed. There were more than a few bleary eyes this morning.

Thursday
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KGB Surprise!
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When the Russian's were around, the hotel we are staying in was the first (and only) hotel for foreigners.
The KGB had a listening room on the top floor. When they left, they left in a hurry, leaving all their equipment behind. The room is still left in the same state it was when they left it. The girl from the the hotel took us up there and told us that, when any 'interesting' foreigners came to stay, the hotel staff would be told which room they had to be put into and the soviets would set up camp in the room next door. Even the restaurant would be in on the deal and would give the suspects a special table...even the plates were bugged apparently.

The RIPE Dinner
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The infamous RIPE Dinner took place on Thursday night. There was a random old bloke with Albert Einstein hair from Estonia who stood up and talked for about 25 minutes. His speech was totally inaudible and after 35 seconds 99% of the audience were scrabbling around their tables for the vodka shot glasses and hoping he'd shut up very soon. By the time he did stop talking, there was much loud applause and cheering in relief that the annoying noise in the background, er I mean the really interesting history of Estonia had stopped. Then the fat swordsman came on stage and did a bit of prancing around with his sword and two skinny companions which culminated in fatty being stabbed through the armpit and pretending to die. It was pretty dire. Then there was a little traditional medieval band with a woman yowling like a cat in pain and a bloke with a very concentrated face banging a drum every now and then. The woman was totally cross eyed, poor cow.

I love cheese
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Fortunately, there was enough cheese on the buffet to keep me occupied and I wolfed down copious amounts of smoked cheese. Yum, washed down with some shots of voddy for good measure. I liked this tradition of putting bottles of voddy on the tables at the beginning of the night. After drinking nothing but water for the next three hours, I simply couldn't understand why I felt like a combine harvester had driven over me a few times in my sleep...until I remembered that actually, all that water was interspersed with several shots of rough-as-you-like local vodka. hmmm.


IPv6 forever!
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Being someone who carries an enormous bag full of crap everywhere I go, I decided that tonight was the night to travel light and I didn't take my bag or my camera. Oh how I wish I had. Once the dinner and 'funny' entertainment was over (thank gawd Sandra cancelled half of the entertainment at the last minute, notably "host will entertain guests with humourous activities that guests can participate in". I shudder at the thought of what that could be.) The dancefloor got rocking as per usual at these events. My favourite memory of the evening was Jordi Palet jumping up and down like the energiser bunny shouting, in his wonderful Spanish accent, "IPv6 Forever!!!!". ARF ARF ARF.

WE go to nightclub, oh yes, we go drink and dance
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So, after the vodka had run out, we clomped back to the hotel and decided to hit the nightclub in the basement along with the Russian whores, the drunken Fins and some random meeting attendees. My god what a meat market! Filiz and I managed to sneak out after half an hour...got halfway up the stairs when we heard a song that we simply had to run back to dance to...I won't tell you what that song was for fear of reprisals and the tarnishing of my already impeccable reputation. Anyway, I got to bed at 3am: most people were still going strong.


Friday
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Do you know the way to "eooough"
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The meeting closed at lunchtime without a hitch and so it's over for another 6 months. All the RIPE NCC-ers left over met up for dinner and some of us decided to go to restaurant "eoooogh" ('o' with an umlaut) which we'd heard was the best in town. After trying very unsuccesfully to find it, we finally got directions from someone who actually knew where it was, arrived, and found they didn't have room for us. So we went to the Garlic restaurant, which was the original plan anyway, and scoffed lots of garlic. Om Yom. Chris had garlic ice cream which was, hmmm, an acquired taste.

GaAa rruaAAAGRH uunhhgh RAAAAG (that's Finnish thrash metal band)
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So, as we are eating our lovely civilized meal with live violin and guitar music playing in the background, we were rudely interrupted by the most amazing bass I've ever heard. A rock band has set up a stage on the main square and is playing a free gig. By all accounts, these blokes are popular with young and old alike. One was dressed in a medieval sack dress and was playing bag pipes. The rest looked like typical long haired thugs. The music was actually pretty ok. I used to like a bit of a headbang in my distant youth and, as it was a bit chilly, Laura suggested we go into the mosh pit to warm up. Didn't fancy getting covered in Estonian sweat and hair from the great unwashed though, so we stood and shivered on the sidelines. I got some great video of a six year old girl absolutely loving it and dancing her heart out. aaaaah.

"I love Peeing"
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At the dinner on Thursday, De-Cix, the sponsors, gave out stickers that said "I love peering" [note for non-geeks and geeklings: it's a techy thing, not a synonym of the word 'look'].

It didn't take long for the comedians among us to rip up the stickers and make hilarious new stickers, saying "I love pee" and "I love peeing" etc etc. As I was wandering around the town on Friday, what should I see on a random lamppost?

Hello Kitty ... #2!
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So, as always, I try to find a supermarket and peruse the shelves for UEO (unidentified edible objects) to take back for the ganets, er I mean lovely colleagues. I only found one unidentifiable thing (pictured - my guess is that it's some sort of Turkish Delight) but I also found some funny named chocolate. I absolutely LOVE the one with kitty on the front. Mmmmm, the "creamy pomade candy" is going to be a hit at work. Let's hope it really is candy and not actually cat food..


Interesting observations #3
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1. Eheheh, saw this cafe and thought the name was dead funny, as it sounds like Dr Evil doing his silly laugh. Mmuuuuuah.

2. Check out these flags.



First step Estonia...next step the UN....then....THE WORLD!

3. Look, look, look, LOOK! I found MOOMIN chewing gum :):

Words of Silence...

Two days down...
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So, I have two days' worth of reporting to do. The meeting started yesterday and everything went well. The welcome drinks got off to a flying start, and I've never seen so many attendees supping their ales on the first day of the meeting. Obviously, the lure of cheap voddy has not overshadowed the 'domestic disturbances' here in Elbonia and put people off coming.

Big big piece of meat!
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Then the 'entertainment' arrived and things went a bit wrong. Poor entertainment bloke, bless him, tried his hardest but no one was really into what he was saying. He kept screaming about "In Estonia, we eat big piece of meat, big big piece of meat, but before that we drink big big glass of wodka!" SO, all of us had to down a shot of vodka and waited in anticipation for our big big Estonian meal, which never arrived. Then some quite alarming, er I mean charming, traditional Estonian dancing ensued and then came the audience participation. And of course, one of the dancer blokes came up to me to try to drag me to the dance floor (curses, curses, must remember not to sit near the front in future). Anyway, he was quite insistent and even when I told him I couldn't possibly dance because "I have concussion" he said, in perfect English, "Concussion or not, you're coming to dance, it will only take 2 minutes". Listen sonny Jim I thought, I don't DO audience participation and after an awkward stony silence with me looking at him with arched eyebrows, he got the message and moved on.


Chubby chick
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The poor entertainment bloke carried on, though, with good spirit and introduced a young lady dressed in traditional Estonian costume by saying "In Estonia we have beautiful young ladies...er, although this one is a bit fat". I am serious. Poor cow was smiling serenely and obviously didn't understand a word, which is strange, because every where here seems to speak exceedingly good English. Check out the bloke's jumper: it's hilarious!


Look at those lips!
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After a while Nick, Sandra, Chris and I went off to find some nosh. Nick was in tour guide mode and gave us all a nice tour of the medieval walls and showed us round the city. I don't know how he does it; he only arrived 12 hours before me and yet he's giving me a guided tour. Hmmm. Off we trotted in the rain (yeah, the weather has turned wet and nasty after such beautiful sun on Sunday) and found a really nice restaurant. Nick took a shine to the waiter, who was about 12, and even Chris (happily married) had to admit that the boy had the most amazing lips. He shoulda been a lipstick model...because he's er, worth it. Maybe it really is mabeline. Hmm. Losing my touch aren't I?

Must...play....Scrabble
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I was almost asleep in my dinner so we wandered back to the hotel and one last drink in bar Amigo. Ran into Arno and Alex and some young first time attendees they'd, er, 'picked up' and had a final drink. Saw the hardcore drinkers among my colleagues going downstairs into the nightclub and poked my head in to find out what was going on. Seemed a bit dead so I went off to bed to, er, play scrabble, yes yes I know, I know, no comments about my habit please but I hadn't played for at least 48 hours and I was getting a bit itchy, kept on counting the number of letters in all the long words I was reading to see if I could add them to my repertoire...but the crappy connection in the room is really crapola with a capital C and so I couldn't connect. Grrrr.

Simon, you're green!
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Apparently though, it turned into a raucous night in the club. This morning I had breakfast quite late. Simon Jan came to sit at my table. My god, I said, what the F happened to you. The poor boy just groaned. You're looking a bit green dear, I said. He moaned, it's my green shirt. Oh no, dear, it's your skin. HA HAH. I've honestly never seen anyone look as hungover as he did. In fact, I couldn't even see his eyes, the skin around them was so puffy. The deal was sealed when after a few minutes of laboured chewing of bacon, he muttered "I woke up this morning, and found a beer glass in my toilet". AH AHA HA AH AHA AH HAHAHAAH.

The rest of Tuesday
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So Tuesday rolled on and I had a couple of hours spare in the afternoon. I went to the mall (and didn't buy anything. I'm still too enamoured with my lovely new shoes, I think, that nothing else can compare to such lovely leathery specimens. Yes Nichola, I'm bringing them to work on Monday for you to stoke, lovingly...) and then went exploring for about an hour. I tried. Honestly I tried to find something that I hadn't seen, and I really did walk miles but there's just nothing else to this city. It's so cute and tiny, I'm quite sure I now know every knook and cranny there is.

Broken Glass
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Off we went to the Tuesday social, which was in a really old building. It was quite a nice evening and we all wished that the caterers would give the hotel chef some tips. There was a corridor in the building with a children's art exposition. There I saw the most disturbing piece of art I have ever witnessed: check out that frighting 'sculpture' in the picture and remember, it was made by children! Yes, it really is two very scary dolls on massive shards of glass. Shudder. Nothing much happened there, except they ran out of booze far too early and so we had to leave.

I just can't get enough
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Off we trotted to the DM bar. It's the Depeche Mode bar. Yes, really, it is a bar devoted to Depeche Mode and all you can hear there is Depeche mode, not surprisingly. Anyway, this bar is located way down in a cellar and is actually quite quaint, if not a little claustrophobic for a "where the hell are the exits? Oh my god there's no windows and only one way out and if there's a fire in the doorway (like, cos that happens ALL THE TIME) I'm never going to get out)" person like moi. But it turned into a really good night, with loads of ncc-ers and attendees alike. Left around 12 because my (not so comfortable) bed was beckoning and I was gagging for a game of Scrab...but there's something going on with my connection at night because every time I've tried to log on after about 22:00, I just can't. Grrrrowl.

Practical jokes
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On the way home Erik and Franz (my favourite geeklings) got up to mischief and thought of a funny prank to play on one of our colleagues. I'm not quite sure how funny it actually is, but they seemed to think it was hilarious and their giggling made me laugh on the short walk home. They had to enlist my help to ask for the room number because they thought that it would be better coming from a lady arf arf snort (the bloke behind the reception didn't even question why I was asking for someone's room number with several rather intoxicated blokes behind me sniggering into their jackets like naughty schoolboys) - aah, to be young and easy amused!

Interesting observations #2
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1. The streets are some of the cleanest streets I have ever seen. I challenge anyone here to take a picture of rubbish on the street. There just isn't any.

2. The no-smoking laws here really are anal (as mentioned in my previous post). I took this funny picture of the smoking 'cabin-tje' at the hotel. look at 'em all crammed in there, HAHAHAHAHA.

3. Outside the hotel there is the cutest thing: a mobile burrito shop. It's called the "Burrito Buss". Everytime I see it I chuckle. It's painted red and I think I might die of laughter if I saw the Burrito Buss chugging away down the motorway. I'd simply have to shout..."BURRITO CON SOMBRERO" at it.

4. I've eaten the nicest, creamiest oh -my-god-straight-from-the-udder feta I've ever tasted here in Estonia. Top tip: avoid all other food (really, believe me, avoid all other food) and go straight for the feta. Om yhom yhom . I knows my cheese.

5. There's a coffee bar in the mall called "Wayne's coffee". Doesn't quite have the same ring as "Enrico's coffee" or "Francesco's coffee".

6. At the coffee break today there were these enormous balls of something...oooh, I thought, another UEO (unidentified edible object) of which I am very fond. Turns out they were GIANT rum balls. Yummy. I snarfed three in a row and felt quite dizzy but they were good. I even wrapped one up in a napkin and took it to my room ("for later") and now I can't remember what I did with the F-ing thing. :s. I hope it's not mashed up in my bag...

7. I really am the worst photographer in the world. I've only ever taken one nice photo in my life and that was of the Turkish flag on a boat in Istanbul. I mean how hard can it be? My camera is advanced enough to boil a bloody egg if it wanted too...:(

8. Adrian noticed that the Fanta in this country is the most orange Fanta he has ever seen and made me take a photo of it for the obvious hilarious factor that it looks like it was bottled in Chenobyl. Geiger counter anyone?

Estonia here I come!

Off to Elbonia
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So here I find myself on the 9th floor of a non descript tower block hotel in Estonia.

Flight over was uneventful and made slightly better only by the fact that I had cleverly downloaded Friday's Eastenders. On arrival, we sought out a taxi and sped off towards the old town. Only then did I read the helpful handy hints on the taxi window that told us we should have agreed on a price before we set off. Hmmm. Anyway, what was supposed to be a 5 minute, 4 Euro trip was doubled on both counts, but was still cheap as old chips compared to Amsterdam prices.

Shoes Galore
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After dumping my stuff and then helping out with some last minute meeting preparations, Rumy, Filiz and I trotted off to the mall which is located below the hotel. Within 30 seconds we were in the biggest shoe shop I had ever seen. It was huge and was loaded with, er not surprisingly, shoes. Anyway, within 2 minutes I'd scouted out about 50 pairs that I wanted. Within 3 minutes I'd realised that actually bying 50 pairs of shoes is a little extreme and quite impractical given that my little old faithful suitcase is bursting at the seams already (I couldn't even fit my travel scrabble set in) and so I narrowed down my choice a bit. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I left with only one pair but will probably be back to see what other leathery delights I can get my grubby paws on by the end of the week.


Sparrow-sized portion
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We were getting a bit hungry and went into the old town for some grub. All was quiet after the recent riots, although there were a lot of policemen milling around. There were a couple of groups of English-blokes-on-stagnights milling about, one group was dressed as startrek characters which was quite amusing (although never having actually ever seen an episode, I only know they were dressed as startrek because someone told me).

We found a really nice bar off the main square with lovely comfy red armchairs and settled in for some cocktails. After a couple of coffee flavoured white Russians, I was well on the way to the land of nod (something in the back of my mind was nagging me that people with head injuries shouldn't be driking alcahol but I ignored my sensible nagging and quaffed some more. Dinner was nice but, after having not eaten all day, it just wasn't enough so we went off to another bar and had dinner number two. There was a giant aquarium in the restaurant with a very bored shark swimming round and round in circles, which reminded me of my poor ugliest-fish-in-the-world starving to death at home...hold on for a few more days fishkins! Arf arf arf.

The Private Life of Chairman Mao
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So, the Estonians are a bit anal about their smoking laws and in most places, smoking is only permitted when a designated room is available for smokers. In the second restuarant we went to, there was a little smoking room set up...it looked like a sort of gentlemans' club, with a couple of armchairs, cigar cabinet and bookshelves. I was rifling through the books, most of which were not in English, and found the Private Life of Chairman Mao which made me laugh my ass off. It was HUGE!!! How on earth could they have written a volume that large about his private life. eheheh. The other English book on the shelf was Sherlock Holmes, incase you're interested.

Sweating
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After laughing at Chairman Mao for a while, we went back to the hotel and got an early night. I couldn't get the bloody airconditioning to work and was sweating all night as if I Was kipping in a sauna. Anyway, now I realise that there's underfloor heating in the bathroom which belts out continiously. Once I shut the door, the rest of the room became suitably frosty.


Interesting Observations
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1. The local girls in one of the bars last night were drinking pints of beer through a straw!

2. Yes, yes, I am obsessed with toilet, but the flushes on the toilets here are always located behind the toiletseat so you have to close the seat before you can get to the flush. Gnuuuuuuurgh.