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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
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 :):
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