Our annual May Daze observance puts the workers back into Hauss Square -- I mean, no labor union donations for Gahan eh?

This essay is reprinted or linked yearly, attesting to my eagerness to remind you that on May Day, while the Louisville area eschews productive labor and focuses its partying proclivities on the ponies, most of the rest of the world takes a holiday amid thoughts about the nature of work itself.

Thanks to the wonders of digitalization, there's now a stand-alone post for photos of the Vienna May Day celebration in 1987.

For more vague linkages, see Hunter's Double D and Seattle Slew Kabobs, please.

Three years have passed, and still 2016 remains a tough act to follow. It may have been the finest season ever for personal May Day celebrations.

For one thing, Bernie Sanders was running for president that year. As an independent senator and avowed socialist, the fact that Sanders even exists in the American political non-spectrum is as good an introduction as any to the "real" international workers' holiday.

As an added bonus, we weren't in America at all when May 1, 2016 rolled around. Rather, it was the occasion of our Spring Break in Estonia, and two big surprises during a day trip to Helsinki: Kim Andersen's presence and a delightful though short left-wing May Day parade.

Now that Pints&union exists, and we put our first May Day to bed today, perhaps the tradition of May Day parades can be restored to eternally somnolent New Albany in 2020. One time around a city block would suffice to start. I'm sure Develop New Albany stands ready to get on board with this idea, just as long as they can promote tacos.

The Economist offers a short but entertaining briefing: Fire, flowers, fertility: summer’s here.

For many people May 1st is synonymous with Labour Day, but the date also signifies the onset of summer in the northern hemisphere.

Let the Commie festivities begin!

---

ON THE AVENUES: May Daze.

By the summer of 1987, when I first visited the geopolitical conglomeration formerly known as the Soviet Union, the country’s annual May Day parade in Moscow had long since ceased to be a showcase of international socialism.

Rather, it had reverted to the overt, and was staged as an ideological pageant of nationalistic fervor – a genuine, old-fashioned, patriotic flag-waver for Mother Russia.

For the bedrock Soviet worker, who according to prevailing mythology was the chief beneficiary of international socialism, May Day’s single biggest selling point was being able to avoid the drudgery of the factory for a few precious hours. He’d have rather been on the beach at a posh Black Sea resort in Bulgaria, but what could be done?

At least for a while he could forget about the dystopian Five Year Plan by hopping the subway from his cookie-cutter, high-rise suburb to the historic center of the city, queuing with fellow vodka-bearers, plodding behind the massive missiles through cobblestoned Red Square, and then finally passing the reviewing stand arranged atop Lenin’s Mausoleum for a fleeting glimpse of the jowly old men in furry caps, grimacing arthritically as they waved vacantly into space.

The parade was a choreographed set piece, of course, one fraught with symbolic properties, both for natives seeking clues to the direction of their country apart from the stultifying daily propaganda, and for observers elsewhere, like professional Kremlinologists in the employ of Western intelligence agencies.

These consulting spooks subsequently would examine film of the May Day parade, reshuffle their tea leaves, and strain them through a few hoary apocryphal algorithms. Passwords would be repeated, reports submitted, meetings held, and murmured decisions reached.

In appropriately clandestine fashion, money would be exchanged, and a hush briefly might descend, until suddenly, somewhere in the world, a legally elected government was overthrown – first one of the Capitalist paymasters’ choosing, then another selected by the Communists, each in its own turn, serving the dual purpose of preserving the status quo, and stimulating both full erections and full employment among participating secret agents.

---

Long before the decade of the 1980’s, the workers of the world – be they in Akron, Cape Town or Tashkent – already understood that they neither had become united, nor shed their chains in any fashion sufficient to exercise control over the means of production.

The stewards of the world’s two great economic “-isms” had divided the planet into manageable spheres of influence, with the non-aligned throngs always ripe for recruitment and exploitation. At the end of a day’s toil, the best way for just plain folks to endure the enforced pieties of a May Day parade -- or a 4th of July picnic -- was to remain under the influence.

As Ernest Hemingway reminds us, the bottle is a blessed means of sovereign action. You first drink from it, and then throw it in the direction of the oppressor. In cases of rotgut, you can drink some of it, and then set the remainder aflame just prior to tossing (see “cocktails, Molotov”).

During the Cold War, Russians and Poles chose vodka. Cubans opted for rum. I always imagined the Czechs and Hungarians to be more fortunate than most, seeing as they possessed beer (Pilsner Urquell) and wine (Egri Bikaver) of a higher uniform quality than produced by Warsaw Pact neighbors.

For Americans, there’d be gallons of insipid ice cold light lager and a few pints of Jack Daniels. Choices from our NATO allies might have ranged from English cask bitter to ouzo in Greece, and from schnapps (Germany) to cider (Spain).

It goes to show that as opiates go, booze is vastly preferable to religion.

---

To recap, May Day takes place on May 1, and generally refers to springtime public holidays in the northern hemisphere, where the cultural tradition began long before Marx, Engels and Gus Hall.

For more than 125 years, May Day also has been considered International Workers' Day, which we Americans eventually chucked to another time on the calendar (Labor Day, at summer’s end) so as to avoid confusion with the Commies. Why? Labor and left-wing political movements first established May 1 as International Workers’ Day in memory of those who were killed and wounded during the Haymarket Massacre in 1886, which took place in Chicago.

In all my trips to Europe, only once did I find myself in position to physically attend a May Day parade. It was in Vienna, in 1987. I got up early and walked into the city center from my hostel across from Westbahnhof, finding a comfortable place to stand along the Ringstrasse near City Hall.

The various unions, workplaces and numbered districts each were represented, and at the end, after the sanctioned social elements had marched past, there were series of menacing, piggybacking trailers: Anarchists, Maoists, random radicals and even a mob of hooded Muslim extremists.

Ah yes, I remember it well. Afterwards, I splurged on schnitzel and local draft beer, reflecting on the way that America’s customarily oblivious exceptionalism has detached its labor holiday from the rest of the world’s.

It’s too bad.

For us.

Estonia's Lennart Meri cleaned house in the foreign ministry, and that's why brooms will be so important for New Albany on January 1, 2020.

It's been just shy of three years since we visited Estonia, and I think about it all the time.

All the Estonia links are here, in one place.

Since our trip I've been following Estonian World on Facebook, finding something fascinating on an almost weekly basis. This story about Lennart Meri offers lots of chewable thought morsels.

Lennart Meri, the president many loved, and everybody respected, by Sten Hankewitz (Estonian World)

... “When he became foreign minister, the most important thing he did, which was something that other countries didn’t do, was get rid of all the commies,” Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who himself was foreign minister when Lennart Meri was president, explains. “Because the so-called ESSR (the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic – editor), the ministry of foreign affairs was just a KGB outfit. That was a policy later followed by other Estonian ministries. Not all of them, but the ones who were successful, (cleaned) house.”

I found myself thinking about the transition soon to come here in New Albany. One of the first things mayoral candidate David White did when announcing his campaign was to assure rank and file city employees that they needn't fear losing their jobs -- but ranking Gahanite appointees and a department heads might be wise to peruse the want ads at our captive "local" newspaper.

That's as it should be. As Meri did with the Estonian foreign ministry, those currently helping Gahan to administer his system of pay-to-play political patronage need to be swept clean. What's more, we all know a Mayor Seabrook or Mayor Coffey would do exactly the same. I can think of one, maybe two potential exceptions, but starting from scratch remains the optimum result.

There is no more reason to defend the current occupants of the third floor in New Albany than Meri had to condone former Communist seat holders. To cite just one example, the flood control department's workers already know how to do the job. The point of a clean sweep is to de-politicize the $60k-yearly job of managing the department.

There are plenty of talented people in this community, and many of them have spent the past eight years stifled by Gahan's control-first insularity. Give them an opportunity to step forward and participate -- and listen to them, this being something White is particularly adept at doing -- then get out of the way and watch the results.

I recommend a vote for White in the Democratic Party primary. We can take back this thing, and put New Albany's people first, as opposed to an engineering company from Indianapolis.

#FireGahan2019

Our annual May Daze observance puts the workers back into Walpurgis.

This essay is reprinted or linked yearly, attesting to my eagerness to remind you that on May Day, while the Louisville area eschews work and focuses its partying proclivities on the ponies, most of the rest of the world takes a holiday amid thoughts about the nature of work itself.

Thanks to the wonders of digitalization, there's now a stand-alone post for photos of the Vienna May Day celebration in 1987.

For more vague linkages, see Hunter's Double D and Seattle Slew Kabobs, please.

The year 2016 is a tough act to follow. It may have been the finest season ever for personal May Day celebrations.

For one thing, Bernie Sanders was running for president last year. As an independent senator and avowed socialist, the fact that Sanders even exists in the American political non-spectrum is as good an introduction as any to the "real" international workers' holiday.

As an added bonus, we weren't in America at all when May 1, 2016 rolled around. Rather, it was the occasion of our Spring Break in Estonia, and two big surprises during a day trip to Helsinki: Kim Andersen's presence and a delightful though short left-wing May Day parade.

If Ainslie's Tavern comes into being by May 1, 2018, perhaps the tradition of May Day parades can be restored to eternally somnolent New Albany. One time around a city block would suffice to start. I'm sure Develop New Albany stands ready to get on board with this idea.

The Economist offers a short but entertaining briefing: Fire, flowers, fertility: summer’s here.

For many people May 1st is synonymous with Labour Day, but the date also signifies the onset of summer in the northern hemisphere.

Let the Commie festivities begin!

---

ON THE AVENUES: May Daze.

By the summer of 1987, when I first visited the geopolitical conglomeration formerly known as the Soviet Union, the country’s annual May Day parade in Moscow had long since ceased to be a showcase of international socialism.

Rather, it had reverted to the overt, and was staged as an ideological pageant of nationalistic fervor – a genuine, old-fashioned, patriotic flag-waver for Mother Russia.

For the bedrock Soviet worker, who according to prevailing mythology was the chief beneficiary of international socialism, May Day’s single biggest selling point was being able to avoid the drudgery of the factory for a few precious hours. He’d have rather been on the beach at a posh Black Sea resort in Bulgaria, but what could be done?

At least for a while he could forget about the dystopian Five Year Plan by hopping the subway from his cookie-cutter, high-rise suburb to the historic center of the city, queuing with fellow vodka-bearers, plodding behind the massive missiles through cobblestoned Red Square, and then finally passing the reviewing stand arranged atop Lenin’s Mausoleum for a fleeting glimpse of the jowly old men in furry caps, grimacing arthritically as they waved vacantly into space.

The parade was a choreographed set piece, of course, one fraught with symbolic properties, both for natives seeking clues to the direction of their country apart from the stultifying daily propaganda, and for observers elsewhere, like professional Kremlinologists in the employ of Western intelligence agencies.

These consulting spooks subsequently would examine film of the May Day parade, reshuffle their tea leaves, and strain them through a few hoary apocryphal algorithms. Passwords would be repeated, reports submitted, meetings held, and murmured decisions reached. In appropriately clandestine fashion, money would be exchanged, and a hush briefly might descend, until suddenly, somewhere in the world, a legally elected government was overthrown – first one of the Capitalist paymasters’ choosing, then another selected by the Communists, each in its own turn, serving the dual purpose of preserving the status quo, and stimulating both full erections and full employment among participating secret agents.

---

Long before the decade of the 1980’s, the workers of the world – be they in Akron, Cape Town or Tashkent – already understood that they neither had united, nor shed their chains in any fashion sufficient to exercise control over the means of production.

The stewards of the world’s two great economic “-isms” had divided the planet into manageable spheres of influence, with the non-aligned throngs always ripe for recruitment and exploitation. At the end of a day’s toil, the best way for just plain folks to endure the enforced pieties of a May Day parade -- or a 4th of July picnic -- was to remain under the influence.

As Ernest Hemingway reminds us, the bottle is a blessed means of sovereign action. You first drink from it, and then throw it in the direction of the oppressor. In cases of rotgut, you can drink some of it, and then set the remainder aflame just prior to tossing (see “cocktails, Molotov”).

During the Cold War, Russians and Poles chose vodka. Cubans opted for rum. I always imagined the Czechs and Hungarians to be more fortunate than most, seeing as they possessed beer (Pilsner Urquell) and wine (Egri Bikaver) of a higher uniform quality than produced by Warsaw Pact neighbors.

For Americans, there’d be gallons of insipid ice cold light lager and a few pints of Jack Daniels. Choices from our NATO allies might have ranged from English cask bitter to ouzo in Greece, and from schnapps (Germany) to cider (Spain).

It goes to show that as opiates go, booze is vastly preferable to religion.

---

To recap, May Day takes place on May 1, and generally refers to springtime public holidays in the northern hemisphere, where the cultural tradition began long before Marx, Engels and Gus Hall.

For more than 125 years, May Day also has been considered International Workers' Day, which we Americans eventually chucked to another time on the calendar (Labor Day, at summer’s end) so as to avoid confusion with the Commies. Why? Labor and left-wing political movements first established May 1 as International Workers’ Day in memory of those who were killed and wounded during the Haymarket Massacre in 1886, which took place in Chicago.

In all my trips to Europe, only once did I find myself in position to physically attend a May Day parade. It was in Vienna, in 1987. I got up early and walked into the city center from my hostel across from Westbahnhof, finding a comfortable place to stand along the Ringstrasse near City Hall.

The various unions, workplaces and numbered districts each were represented, and at the end, after the sanctioned social elements had marched past, there were series of menacing, piggybacking trailers: Anarchists, Maoists, random radicals and even a mob of hooded Muslim extremists.

Ah yes, I remember it well. Afterwards, I splurged on schnitzel and local draft beer, reflecting on the way that America’s customarily oblivious exceptionalism has detached its labor holiday from the rest of the world’s.

It’s too bad.

For us.

Our annual May Daze observance puts the workers back into Walpurgis.

This essay is reprinted or linked yearly, attesting to my eagerness to remind you that on May Day, while the Louisville area eschews work and focuses its partying proclivities on the ponies, most of the rest of the world takes a holiday amid thoughts about the nature of work itself.

For more vague linkages, see Hunter's Double D and Seattle Slew Kabobs, please.

The year 2016 is a tough act to follow. It may have been the finest season ever for personal May Day celebrations.

For one thing, Bernie Sanders was running for president last year. As an independent senator and avowed socialist, the fact that Sanders even exists in the American political non-spectrum is as good an introduction as any to the "real" international workers' holiday.

As an added bonus, we weren't in America at all when May 1, 2016 rolled around. Rather, it was the occasion of our Spring Break in Estonia, and two big surprises during a day trip to Helsinki: Kim Andersen's presence and a delightful though short left-wing May Day parade.

If Ainslie's Tavern comes into being by May 1, 2018, perhaps the tradition of May Day parades can be restored to eternally somnolent New Albany. One time around a city block would suffice to start. I'm sure Develop New Albany stands ready to get on board with this idea.

The Economist offers a short but entertaining briefing: Fire, flowers, fertility: summer’s here.

For many people May 1st is synonymous with Labour Day, but the date also signifies the onset of summer in the northern hemisphere.

Let the Commie festivities begin!

---

ON THE AVENUES: May Daze.

By the summer of 1987, when I first visited the geopolitical conglomeration formerly known as the Soviet Union, the country’s annual May Day parade in Moscow had long since ceased to be a showcase of international socialism.

Rather, it had reverted to the overt, and was staged as an ideological pageant of nationalistic fervor – a genuine, old-fashioned, patriotic flag-waver for Mother Russia.

For the bedrock Soviet worker, who according to prevailing mythology was the chief beneficiary of international socialism, May Day’s single biggest selling point was being able to avoid the drudgery of the factory for a few precious hours. He’d have rather been on the beach at a posh Black Sea resort in Bulgaria, but what could be done?

At least for a while he could forget about the dystopian Five Year Plan by hopping the subway from his cookie-cutter, high-rise suburb to the historic center of the city, queuing with fellow vodka-bearers, plodding behind the massive missiles through cobblestoned Red Square, and then finally passing the reviewing stand arranged atop Lenin’s Mausoleum for a fleeting glimpse of the jowly old men in furry caps, grimacing arthritically as they waved vacantly into space.

The parade was a choreographed set piece, of course, one fraught with symbolic properties, both for natives seeking clues to the direction of their country apart from the stultifying daily propaganda, and for observers elsewhere, like professional Kremlinologists in the employ of Western intelligence agencies.

These consulting spooks subsequently would examine film of the May Day parade, reshuffle their tea leaves, and strain them through a few hoary apocryphal algorithms. Passwords would be repeated, reports submitted, meetings held, and murmured decisions reached. In appropriately clandestine fashion, money would be exchanged, and a hush briefly might descend, until suddenly, somewhere in the world, a legally elected government was overthrown – first one of the Capitalist paymasters’ choosing, then another selected by the Communists, each in its own turn, serving the dual purpose of preserving the status quo, and stimulating both full erections and full employment among participating secret agents.

---

Long before the decade of the 1980’s, the workers of the world – be they in Akron, Cape Town or Tashkent – already understood that they neither had united, nor shed their chains in any fashion sufficient to exercise control over the means of production.

The stewards of the world’s two great economic “-isms” had divided the planet into manageable spheres of influence, with the non-aligned throngs always ripe for recruitment and exploitation. At the end of a day’s toil, the best way for just plain folks to endure the enforced pieties of a May Day parade -- or a 4th of July picnic -- was to remain under the influence.

As Ernest Hemingway reminds us, the bottle is a blessed means of sovereign action. You first drink from it, and then throw it in the direction of the oppressor. In cases of rotgut, you can drink some of it, and then set the remainder aflame just prior to tossing (see “cocktails, Molotov”).

During the Cold War, Russians and Poles chose vodka. Cubans opted for rum. I always imagined the Czechs and Hungarians to be more fortunate than most, seeing as they possessed beer (Pilsner Urquell) and wine (Egri Bikaver) of a higher uniform quality than produced by Warsaw Pact neighbors.

For Americans, there’d be gallons of insipid ice cold light lager and a few pints of Jack Daniels. Choices from our NATO allies might have ranged from English cask bitter to ouzo in Greece, and from schnapps (Germany) to cider (Spain).

It goes to show that as opiates go, booze is vastly preferable to religion.

---

To recap, May Day takes place on May 1, and generally refers to springtime public holidays in the northern hemisphere, where the cultural tradition began long before Marx, Engels and Gus Hall.

For more than 125 years, May Day also has been considered International Workers' Day, which we Americans eventually chucked to another time on the calendar (Labor Day, at summer’s end) so as to avoid confusion with the Commies. Why? Labor and left-wing political movements first established May 1 as International Workers’ Day in memory of those who were killed and wounded during the Haymarket Massacre in 1886, which took place in Chicago.

In all my trips to Europe, only once did I find myself in position to physically attend a May Day parade. It was in Vienna, in 1987. I got up early and walked into the city center from my hostel across from Westbahnhof, finding a comfortable place to stand along the Ringstrasse near City Hall.

The various unions, workplaces and numbered districts each were represented, and at the end, after the sanctioned social elements had marched past, there were series of menacing, piggybacking trailers: Anarchists, Maoists, random radicals and even a mob of hooded Muslim extremists.

Ah yes, I remember it well. Afterwards, I splurged on schnitzel and local draft beer, reflecting on the way that America’s customarily oblivious exceptionalism has detached its labor holiday from the rest of the world’s.

It’s too bad.

For us.

All the Estonia links are here, in one place.

All the Estonia links are here, in one place. The photo was taken on the Baltic beach in Tallinn. I just looked outside, and it appears to be New Albany. This apparently means vacation is over, and with it the coffee break.

We're back on our heads.

Estonia Spring Break 2016: Day One, and the joys of steerage class.

Estonia Spring Break 2016: Day Two, and an orientation walk through Tallinn's Old Town.

Estonia Spring Break 2016: Day Three, with a thrift store visit and the Museum of the Occupations.

Let's have a look at "The Singing Revolution" and Estonia's historical experience.

Estonia Spring Break 2016: Day Four ... the old and the new; the beach and the beer.

Estonia Spring Break 2016: Day Five (1 of 2) ... a fish market and the exceedingly bizarre Linnahall.

Estonia Spring Break 2016: Day Five (2 of 2), featuring a bus ride to the 'burbs and two Old Town pubs.

Estonia Spring Break 2016: Day Six, and a big surprise in Helsinki.

Estonia Spring Break 2016: Day Seven -- odds, ends, kelders and kvass.

Estonia Spring Break 2016: Day Eight, and home, though not before a few reflections.

Old and new in Tallinn, Estonia, 2016.

Estonia Spring Break 2016: Day Eight, and home, though not before a few reflections.

(As is my custom when posting trip summaries, I'm backdating them to the actual day of occurrence. Previously: Day Seven)

You know the drill: Cram the suitcase extra full, flag a taxi to the airport, and relish a day filled with shoe, belts and sanity removed for scrutiny. We were on a KLM flight from Amsterdam to Atlanta. The cans of Heineken were free, and so I drank way too many. In other words, in spite of airBaltic on the opening leg, it was routine.

So, Estonia.

Perhaps an offbeat choice for a trip -- neither Cancun nor Disney World, just daily reality in a nation of relatively recent vintage, filled with people who've been speaking that "devilishly difficult" language for thousands of years.

"Their biggest problem," says Mailis Sutiste, "is the letter 'Õ.'" " Õ" as in " Õun" (apple). " Õ" like "Õde" (sister), or "Õnn" (happiness). In fact, Sutiste's profession - " Õpetaja" (teacher) is even a difficulty for her students to pronounce in a way that is mutually understood amon Estonians to be the true "Õ ."Sure her Estonian class at Tallinna Keeltekool can reshape their "O's" - cut them down, swallow them whole - but they still can't get that "Õ" sound - though they get very close.

Regardless of the " "s - for Sutiste, as well as for other teachers of Estonian, the fact that people are trying to learn their language - and not only Russian-speakers studying to pass the state examination to get full citizenship - is a bit flattering. There is an interest in learning Estonian in Estonia that has never really existed before.

The Baltic Germans spoke German, the Soviets Russian. Estonian was always a "native" or "peasant" tongue. Now it stands alone as the official language of Estonia, and that has created an interest in learning it, an interest that Sutiste says is increasing as Estonia gets closer to becoming an official language of Europe - that is, a European Union language.

Never mind that English is the de facto second tongue, and Estonians tend to speak our language better than we do. The history of the country is aptly summarized by these three paragraphs, highlighting Estonians, Baltic Germans, Russians -- and now, Europeans.

In 1991, Estonia regained its independence, only to be presented with a thorny problem. Exactly how does one recover from 50 years of Sovietization? In broad terms, Estonia's answer was avoid shortcuts and endure whatever pain was necessary in the short term in order to gain a long-term objective of inclusion in the European project. Consequently, it took only 13 years to gain membership in the EU.

In contrast, it's been ten years of recovery in New Albany, and the streets still run one way.

The usual disclaimers apply: But of course Estonia could achieve this. Emerging from communism, the country remained culturally and linguistically homogeneous in spite of an alien (read: Russian) minority. Estonia's cousins in Finland stood by, ready to invest. It was in the EU's (and NATO's) best interest to transform Estonia into a buffer against bordering Russia. And so on.

But the ditches still need to be dug and fiber optic lines buried. Speaking for myself, this American saw something in Estonia rarely witnessed back home: A remote semblance of shared values and purpose. If we're the most powerful country in the world, can't we have an encrypted on-line passport?

Perhaps the memory of oppression remains sufficiently fresh, and by oppression I mean the genuine article, not the ludicrous suffocation purely imagined by so many of my fellow white males in the States.

I'm also aware of that 20-odd percent of Estonians who are Russian. It's sometimes hard to separate national characteristics of Russia from the lives of ordinary Russians, who are warm, passionate and welcoming people. In fact, the same might be said of Americans, which is why I persist in thinking that Russians and Americans have much in common if their governments might only leave the room and allow us to communicate with each other.

In Estonia, it's more complicated, although arguably less so for the young. In the Estonian context, reasons for Russian immigration differ markedly from those bringing Mexicans to the United States, because the Soviet Union shifted its own people from place to place for cynical political reasons, not in response to market forces.

I'm not sure any of it matters. Whether Russian or Mexican, if you've lived in a place long enough to consider it home and follow the rules, isn't it home?

Yes, I know. The devil resides in the details. It's why we have barrooms.

Next up for the Confidentials: A touch of Sicily in the fall. Mt. Etna's on my bucket list, and the eating and drinking ...

Estonia Spring Break 2016: Day Seven -- odds, ends, kelders and kvass.

(As is my custom when posting trip summaries, I'm backdating them to the actual day of occurrence. Previously: Day Six)

Everything we'd read about Estonia prior to arrival indicated that it has become one of the most pervasively "wired" countries in Europe. Estonians have an encrypted on-line passport; they vote and pay taxes on line, and the entire country is a WiFi hotspot.

Consequently, the Baylors being a cantankerous duo, we resolved to honor tradition and remain off the grid for the duration of our stay -- no cell phones, laptops or e-mail checks. Photos would be taken the old-fashioned way, with a stand-alone camera. I left the hotel phone number with selected folks back home, and off we went.

Predictably, on Monday morning, this Luddite determination came back to spite us. Being so close to the airport, and with public transit passes still valid, it seemed to make perfect sense to check in there for Tuesday's flight, physically and "in person" -- except that even in Tallinn, which airBaltic (a Latvian carrier) classifies as a secondary hub, public terminals and available staff were of almost no help.

Finally we were told that in-person, physical Tallinn Airport check-in for airBaltic was theoretically possible, albeit it for a 30 Euro fee per person. Incredulous, we rode the bus back to the hotel and checked in quickly and easily via the hotel's lobby laptop.

My consolation was this: While airBaltic might have been a bizarre experience, during Soviet times we'd have been dealing with Aeroflot, an experience likely to have pole-vaulted over merely weird, all the way to terrifying. Perspective matters.

The remainder of the day was spent in a sort of valedictory rambling, with periodic bouts of cafe hopping. The weather was perfect (again), and Tallinn's core Old Town couldn't be better for strolling. A highlight was the Estonian History Museum in the Great Guild Hall.

Monday had started in the Baieri Kelder, the Hotell St. Barbara's Bavarian-style restaurant and taproom in the basement, which doubles as the (bountiful) buffet breakfast area. Both hotel and restaurant date from 1997, just after Estonian independence, and the Baieri Kelder is safely above average for a hotel restaurant and bar. Here are a few photos to illustrate the point.

The coffee machine is a commercial model very much like the "home" model we have in the kitchen.

As a final hotel note, one of the minor fascinations I've accrued from 30 years of European travel is the typical Central and Northern European window. It makes so much sense that I want to scream.

Basically, it's an insulated window with a handle movable to three positions: Locked, opening outward (hinges on the side) and opening upward (hinges on the bottom). It's entirely sensible, as well as potentially compatible with screens, although there were no screens in place at the St. Barbara.

Do we even have such options in America?

For our final meal in Tallinn, we opted for Kuldse Notsu Kõrts, or the Golden Piglet Inn. On the Old Town side of the underground pedestrian passage to Freedom Square, the skateboarders were coming together. Do architects realize what they're building?

The Golden Piglet Inn is not the type of restaurant most amenable to those in the habit of counting calories.

Using recipes that have been passed down from our grandmothers and our grandmothers’ grandmothers, this authentic restaurant is popular with locals as well as tourists. All meals are prepared with fresh products from local farms, accompanied by a variety of Estonian drinks.

My bill of fare included sauerkraut soup, salted herring and two very regional drinks, mead (in this instance, a fermented combination of malt and honey) and kvass.

Kvass is a lightly fermented soft drink made from dark bread and yeast, with a myriad of other additional ingredients, as befits a product traditionally made at home. We think of kvass as Russian, though many Baltic and Eastern European countries have their own versions (in Estonian it's called kali).

To create that tangy fermented flavor, kvas makers start with Russian brown bread. You soak it in water, and then add some yeast (other additions — raisins, honey, mint — vary from recipe to recipe). The whole mixture ferments for a few days, a process that creates a natural carbonation, as well as a distinctive sour flavor.

According to Russian writer Alexander Genis, that sourness is beloved in the region. "The sour is the taste of Russia — everything is supposed to be sour for Russian taste. Like sour cream, for example, or pickled cucumber. Cabbage, mushroom."

Given that one of the glories of Estonia is its dense, moist black bread, kvass/kali is a natural. The commercial version available at Golden Piglet actually lacked the tang of what I remembered at a street stand in Moscow, circa 1999. It was sweeter, but no less delicious, and would be an apt thirst quencher in summertime.

With dusk making its long approach, there was a final glimpse of  Freedom Square.

Well, you simply don't always see brick statuary like this.

At the Baieri Kelder, and an inevitable nightcap.

Mine was a straight and tasty golden lager from A. Le Coq -- common, but still "the beer from here."

The clock on the wall read: "Time for packing and some sleep before you fly home."

Next: Tuesday (Day Eight), and the flight back to America.

Estonia Spring Break 2016: Day Six, and a big surprise in Helsinki.

(As is my custom when posting trip summaries, I'm backdating them to the actual day of occurrence. Previously: Day Five)

A few days before the trip to Tallinn, Diana began selling me on the wisdom of visiting Helsinki on Sunday, May 1. We'd already talked about doing it. The two cities lie only 50 miles apart, with the Gulf of Finland's waters lying between them. It's a two-hour ferry trip, and a plush ride at that.

What's more, May 1 offered a chance to see Finns at play.

In Finland, the May Day celebration has developed from its pagan origin as a feast of spring into a nationwide urban carnival.

Worldwide, May 1st is celebrated as an international working class holiday. In addition to this, in Finland, it is also a traditional spring feast of university students, and the name day of the catholic saint Walburga, commemorated in former times, when Finland still was a catholic country.

Being a mixture of these traditions, the custom of celebrating May Day has spread throughout the country with many people taking part in it, if only to welcome the long awaited spring.

In Finland, May Day is a noisy urban festival, mainly celebrated in towns and cities. In Helsinki, the capital of Finland, the celebration starts on May Day Eve, as the downtown streets, pubs and restaurants start to fill with people in party mood.

The carnival atmosphere is enhanced by people wearing funny or frightening masks, hats, wigs and other party accessories. Colourful balloons, pompoms, party blowouts, serpentine throws and sprays, noisemakers and horns of various kinds are also popular, especially among children. For some people, the festivities also include a rather heavy consumption of alcohol, in the true Nordic fashion.

My wife's insistence on Sunday made perfect sense, and so the tickets were booked, and we boarded the Tallink ferry at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday. Pastries and espresso were available for purchase, and a benevolent staffer gave me a free booze-filled chocolate egg.

The ferry docked in Helsinki right on time, and nature of Diana's urgency became readily evident in the person of this guy waiting to greet us.

Yes, it's Kim Andersen, card-carrying partner in the famous Three Danes of the Apocalypse act on stage and screen. He knew he was to be in Helsinki on business, and when I mentioned the Estonia trip on social media, he contacted Diana for the sake of connivance -- and boy, did they connive.

Good. My day in Helsinki just got far better.

Amid requisite pleasantries, Kim explained the significance of the weekend's various parties, emphasizing the importance of Sunday for Finland's university students -- in fact, anyone who'd ever been a university student. Hence, these views at a public park as people of all ages celebrated.

Note the nautical-style caps. Everyone was wearing them.

We walked to the city center and found seats at a cafe just in time to witness a local May Day parade. It was fully interactive, with songs, applause and heckling from the crowd.

Grasping the spirit of the day, Diana bought a balloon.

Kim's boss joined us for a while, and a leisurely day unfolded in picture perfect spring weather. It was not to be a time for sightseeing in any conventional sense. Helsinki's streets were thronged, and folks were festive. Kim and I hadn't seen each other in person for many years, and there was much catching up to do. We wandered downtown, having beers and snacks, and talking.

I didn't bother keeping beer notes, or caring where we were. It was too much fun. By 5-ish, we'd arrived at the final stop on Kim's orientation tour: The historic Hotel Torni, a compelling 1930s-era with rooftop bar and a view comparable to Lounge 24 in Helsinki. Here's an internet view.

Naturally, Kim already knew that the bar at the top of the Hotel Torni stocks Sinebrychoff Porter, still one of the finest regional beers, and so our final round was special in more ways than one. Diana had the camera, and captured the scene.

The two-hour return to Tallinn was uneventful apart from eating far too much at an expensive buffet, though food was necessary after a day spent drinking from place to place.

Had we gone to Helsinki for a day trip and Kim not been there to surprise me, it's likely we'd have found a tram, a neighborhood and learned more about Helsinki and the people who live there.

But who cares?

I wouldn't trade this wonderful afternoon with Kim for anything in the world, and I'm grateful to Diana for slyly arranging it. It's a memory to be cherished.   

Next: Monday (Day Seven), and the winding down process begins.