Birthday Presents 2009

Friday the 13th

Party Starts - TG's 90th Anniversary - Saturday, 17.00

Click here to see the official pictures of the Saturday afternoon gala concert. They include some of Tapa's own beautiful people, including one whole family of musicians. The MC Tanel Saar is a graduate of Tapa Gümnaasium and a relatively successful stage actor. Later in the evening, I drank Russian vodka with the guy on the right.

Registration - TG's 90th Anniversary - Saturday, 15.00

The Friday night concert was repeated Saturday afternoon. Click here for the official pictures. All of the concerts were masterfully organized by Sirie Sell, who is director of Tapa's youth folk dance troupe and adult folk dance troupe (and one of my drinking buddies).

Opening Consert - TG's 90th Anniversary - Friday, 18.00

Click here for the official photographs of the Friday evening concert. This 2nd grader, the son of a math teacher, had the initiative to write and the spunk to recite a poem about Tapa Gümnaasium. We all applauded; his mother cried. After the consert, there was a reception for retired teachers. God bless them.

Final Preparations - TG's 90th Anniversary - Friday, 8.30

90th Anniversary - Tapa Gümnaasium - Thursday, 20.00

Tapa Gümnaasium began its 90th anniversary celebration tonight with a disco in the school auditorium. Clap off. Clap on. The strobe light, that is. I was on the verge of an epileptic seizure sitting in the auditorium, near an open window, watching the kids dance. It makes everyone look like they are moving really fast. Turn it off and it looks like everyone is stuck in some vortex the crew of the Enterprise encountered. Add trance music loud enough that it drowns out passing freight trains less than a block away and you know why it is difficult for 15-year-olds to sit quietly through seven classes a day five days in a row.

One of Tapa Gümnaasium's - dare I say - most famous alumni is Priit Pärn, who drew a cartoon characteristic of his style for the commemorative t-shirts that will be sold during the anniversary. Pärn's recent film Life without Gabriella Ferri won the Scottish Leader Estonian Film Award at the 2008 Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. Pärn was there in the Russian Theatre to accept the award with co-director Olga Pärn. I was there, too, and I was struck by how short Pärn is. He appeared to be sort of a Truman Capote-like character.

Estonian Trifecta 2009

Täna Eestis on: 1) Eesti iseseisvuspäev, 2) Vastlapäev, ning ka 3) Madisepäev.

In other words, today in Estonia it is 1) Independence Day, 2) Fat - Shrove (Br.) - Tuesday, and also 3) Matthew's Day.

Under the Ilves Administration, Estonia's official Independence Day military parade has moved around the country. Last year, it was on the coast of the Baltic Sea in Pärnu, the summertime capital of Estonia. This year it was on the Russian border in Narva, the country's third largest city (first pic, from the Postimees). Even though a reported 90-95% of the population in Narva speaks Russian, the city is really not quite a visa-free replica of its big bad neighbor to the east. To me, Chinatown in Chicago is more Chinese than Narva is Russian. That may be a good thing based on reports from Ivangorod.

America's beautiful people walk the red carpet at the Academy Awards. Estonia's beautiful people do the same at the President's Independence Day reception. After the parade in Narva, the festivities moved to the concert hall in Jõhvi for the President's (long and glum) Independence Day address, an (artistically uneven) Independence Day concert, and the President's (traditionally subdued) Independence Day reception (Presidendi vastuvõtt) and ball. It was broadcast live on Estonian public television.

Back to the beautiful people. Yes, Estonian women are naturally strong, but First Lady Evelin (b. 1968) looked a little too buff and a little too broad-shouldered in her whimsy-flimsy, crepe paper-like, sort of powder blue gown. Similarly, former First Lady Ingrid looked down right mean and wicked even though she was in her colorful folk costume with a cotton apron, a lace collar, and billowly sleeves.

Kalle Palling (b. 1985) is a relatively new member of the Estonian Parliament and apparently hasn't earned enough money to buy a nice suit for the red carpet. Yet I really liked his unnamed date's gold, softly crumpled, sleeveless dress with a plunging neckline that flashed a delicious peach border.

I thought Evelyn Sepp (b. 1972), another member of Parliament, and her date Peeter Rebane (b. 1973), chairman of the board of the entertainment company BDG, looked absolutely elegant. It is difficult to say which is more stunning: Sepp's pink gown or her height and boney, bronzed shoulders. (Rebane reportedly graduated from Harvard University cum laude.)

I'm not sure, though, if pink is the best color for a grand evening out at the end of February in slush-covered Estonia. So my favorite gown of the President's reception was the on/off the shoulder, harvest gold one that Keit Pentus (b. 1976) wore. I think the red shoes really lit up the dress's bejewelled top. Ms. Pentus is a member of Parliament, too, and was accompanied by fellow MP Rain Rosimannus.

The Postimees has photos of all of the beautiful Estonian people who attended the President's ball, from the prime minister to the chief of police to the 2008 woman of the year.

Although Vastlapäev and Iseseisvuspäev fell on the same day in 1998 and 2004, it won't happen again until after 2050. Thank goodness. You see, on Vastlapäev you have to eat a fresh vastlakukkel (pea soup, too, but that's not quite as fattening) but bakeries are closed on Iseseisvuspäev so this year you couldn't get a fresh vastlakukkel on Vastlapäev, which threw Estonians into a dither much like a December with no snow on the ground. The appeal of vastlakuklid (or, Shrove Tuesday buns) is their real whipped cream filling. Vastla in Estonian means "shrove", more or less, I guess, and "shrove" is the past tense of "to shrive", which means to hear the confession of and give absolution to someone, which is what they used to do in the UK on the day before Ash Wednesday. In the US, in the tradition of Carnival, we eat on the Tuesday (thus Fat Tuesday, not Shrove) before Ash Wednesday in anticipation of some serious fasting during Lent.

Every day in Estonia is somebody's name day. Come to find out, Madisepäev is no different than the other 364 days, at least according to my 10th and 11th graders. And at least one Madis.

A Look Back at...Me :-)

1. Yellow mums: We teachers of Tapa Gümnaasium were at the country house of Alo and Rita, husband and wife and boys and girls PE teachers. It was Rita's birthday, not too long after school started September 1. That's Tiiu, the German teacher, with her black-and-white pirates bandana on, if you could have gotten close enough to get a good look. She often gets the party started wherever we are, whatever we are celebrating. Just as it is proper - demanded at Tapa Gümnaasium - that a man pours the wine and champagne, so it was etiquette for me to present Rita with the birthday gift from the kooli collective.

2. Plastic pale: Not quite in the country this time, I was in the backyard of Kai's Tapa home. Kai's a music teacher, and it was her birthday this time.

3. Inner-tube: It is never all work and no play at summer English camp, especially when there is a pond right behind the cabin and especially when the rain lets up for an afternoon in July.

4. Airplane: A farewell in June as I embarked on another mission from the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History in Brussels.

5. Fireplace: Part of the real Estonian experience is here in the sauna in Tiit's brother's country house, situated on a hill at a bend in the Loobu River.

6. Apartment: Frank, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer like me, took the picture. Kathy, his wife, both from Washington State, stood by the door. We had all been at the theatre in Tapa one May evening, and we went to Maija's (with the glasses and big smile) apartment afterwards for a bite to eat and, of course, a bit to drink.

7. Standing around: Maija (a Russian teacher) and I stretched our legs somewhere in Bulgaria or Romania during spring break 2008.

8. YMCA group photo: Jenny, a former colleague of mine from the YMCA, sent this updated photo to me in March, showing who is and who is not still in the Financial Development Department back at the YMCA. Three are still there plus one who came back.

9. Beach: Like I said, it is not all work and no play at English camp, especially when (in July 2007) the sun was out! But, next time, tell me that that is no reason for me to take my shirt off. There were children around!

10. Ice sculpture: Estonian Independence Day, February 2007.

11. On the track: Tiit at a competition in Tallinn in the fall of 2006. I met him after shopping in Tallinn, naturally.

12. Two kids: Where did all of the legally responsible adults go? Tiit and his wife Lairi made me feel right at home back in September 2006, shortly after arriving from Ameerika.