The Travel Day Was Worth It

I could also title this post "the day I met the President...again."

I met President Obama once before, when I was in Jerusalem. Of course, at that time, he wasn't President Obama, he was Senator Obama. But I knew he was going to be president one day, so I got my picture taken with him.

On September 3rd, I got my picture taken with him again, this time when he was actually president. If you are my Facebook friend, you have seen it. If not, you'll have to take my word for it, since this blog is "anonymous."

I knew that we wouldn't get more than a split second with him, and I wanted to make it count.

So we got there early so we'd get a good place to stand. Turns out we got one of the best places...the embassy photographer was right near us and not allowed to move, so we got one of the only good pictures that day. And when he was talking, before he came around to shake everyone's hands, I was about 10 feet from him.

When he shook my hand, I looked at him and said, "Thank you for supporting marriage equality." He touched my shoulder and said "of course."

The rest of the visit was...a visit. I handled his speech at Nordea Concert Hall. I was maybe 20 feet from the stage, my reward for having worked all week through constant headaches and changes and headaches that came from the changes. Let's just say when you are trying to invite people to a limited seating event that everyone wants their favorites to attend, it gets a little nuts. But it was worth it...the speech was great and ended up being important from a foreign policy perspective.

You can read the speech here or watch it below:

A Travel Day From Hell in Facebook Posts

Here I am, back in Tallinn. I wasn't sure I was going to make it.

My uncertainty started a few days before. My dog got stuck on the nose by one of the myriad of insects in the DC area, and apparently had an allergic reaction. So we went from an itchy lump on her nose to some mild barfing to explosive poopies.

Just what you look for two days before you are planning to leave the country and leave your baby in the hands of pet sitters (who are awesome, but who are not you).

But one trip to the emergency vet and a few hundred dollars later, she was fine. And I was back on track to come to Tallinn for my TDY.

My shuttle arrived about 10 minutes later than scheduled but I didn't worry, since it was scheduled for an hour before I felt like I needed to leave. We made it to the airport in plenty of time. Then I get to the ticket counter and...


Digger Diplomat

August 23 6:34 pm
So apparently American cancelled my ticket. WTF???

So I spent more than an hour working with British Airways people and the government person at the agency we are required to use to make our reservations. They said they hadn't received my orders, so they canceled by ticket. I consider turning around and going home, but remember that I really like my old boss and want to help her out. Plus I really don't want to spend two weeks apart from my wife, especially since our anniversary is during that two weeks. So I had the travel agent rebook everything. I also had her put in my known traveler number so I would be able to speed through security and make my flight. So we should all be good now, right?

Not so much. 

Digger Diplomat

August 23 7:44 pm 
Finally got my tickets. Too expensive to upgrade to economy plus. And the travel company didn't put in my known traveller number even though I gave it to them twice. And I got stuck behind the people in the security line with tons of crap and no clue how to go through. Sigh.I better get a pic with the President out of this!

Finally got my tickets as in only one hour before my 8:55 flight! AND the company got to charge the Department for having to deal with this over the phone...even though it was their error. And that upgrade to economy plus would have cost me nearly $400! 

Digger Diplomat

August 23 8:02 pm
Back on the flight. [Redacted travel company] STILL doesn't know they have to abide by the Open Skies treaty, hence they routed me on American carriers only....DC to London to Copenhagen to Tallinn...

This is actually a problem. The Open Skies Treaty we signed means that if a flight originates, terminates or transits the EU, we can't insist on only American carriers. EU carriers also need to be considered. Bet I could have gotten a better flight if they had considered say Lufthansa or Scandinavian Airlines... Regardless, given that this nasty routing was my original itinerary, I had a suit in my backpack. You know, just in case my suitcase doesn't make all those connections.  So I wasn't too worried about the number of stops. 

Then, at the gate, my name is called. Please come to the counter immediately. Really? Now what? I wonder if it is too late to go home. No no, my wife is already there.
Oh good...they just moved me back one row because a family had been separated. But it wasn't my last seat movement.

Digger Diplomat

August 23 :8:40 pm
Finally on board. A passenger asked me to switch with him, so now I am on an exit row with lots of leg room. Not that I need it

Oh, well that is good, right? Much less claustrophobic. No seatback pouch though...I spy the barf bag in the pouch across the aisle from me and mentally note that if I feel airsick, I bet I can grab that guy's back before he does! But I should be fine, right? I have taken my dramamine an hour beforehand, and it lasts for four hours. I should be fine. 

Digger Diplomat

August 23 9:03 pm
Sitting in the tarmac. They have too many bags on board and have to turn around, causing a "significant delay." Awesome.

So we were already away from the gate when they discovered that one of the bags on board had been mistagged for the people behind me. It didn't belong to anyone on the plane. For security reasons, it needed to be taken off before we could fly. Wonder if this will happen in time for me to make my connection in London to Amsterdam? I only have an hour and a half layover. 

Digger Diplomat

August 23 9:58 pm 
Still waiting on the tarmac. over an hour now.

Not feeling optimistic about my connection.

Digger Diplomat

August 23 10:08 pm
This is taking so long they are reshowing the safety video 

It also took so long they had to top off the fuel!
The pilot says they have been routed a faster route. Any bets on my making my connection?

Digger Diplomat

August 24 5:49 am [10:49 am London time]
Travel day from hell continues. Missed my flight to Copenhagen. The next one leaves in two hours. Then a five hour layover...and there is no Estonian Air rep here to make sure I can get on thay flight

Digger Diplomat

August 24 12:02 pm London time
BA gave me a five pound voucher...that neither covered my lunch nor adequately compensated me for my inconvenience.

I should turn around and go home. At this point, wanting to help my boss has fallen from my motivational list. Only my wife remains...

Digger Diplomat

August 24 5:04 pm Copenhagen time

Made it to Copenhagen. Took some doing to find my ticket to Tallinn. When the agent finally found it, she said I was in business class (which differs from regular class on Estonia Air only by seat location and free alcohol....and I don't drink.) I asked if that meant I could use the business class lounge and she told me to go try. The agent at the lounge, however, said that while I might have a seat IN business class, it isn't coded business class. So she sent me away...now I just have to sit in the hall and wait for four hours.#willthisdayneverend?

More than a tad embarrassing. Seriously? I should turn around and go home. At this point, wanting to help my boss has fallen from my motivational list. Only seeing my wife remains..

Digger Diplomat

August 24 6:07 pm Copenhagen time 
Just spent $20 for a sandwich, chips and a diet coke...and it was the cheapest thing I could find!

Digger Diplomat

August 24 8:15 pm Copenhagen time 
There have been multiple points today where if it hadn't meant spending two weeks apart from wife (including our anniversary), I'd have said screw it and gone home. And it isn't over yet!

Oh, had I mentioned this before? It is because I thought about it. A Lot.

Digger Diplomat

August 24 11:27 pm Tallinn time 
Made it to Tallinn. Wonder if my bag did. 

The good news is that my bag made it as the same time I did. I was in the hotel and in bed...a mere 24 hours after my journey began. And nearly twice as long as it has ever taken me to get here.

But at least I will spend my wedding anniversary with my wife....hopefully.

What is "Home"?

We have one week left in Tallinn.

That we could be leaving this place for good (not counting planned visits back) in just seven days is beyond surreal.

When I talk to my non-Foreign Service friends, they usually ask me when I am coming home. (My FS friens tend not to phrase it that way...it is usually, when do you leave post? when do you get to DC? when are you back in the states?) Coming home isn't what this feels like.

For me, home is mostly where my wife and our pets are. But you, or at least I, do tend to "nest" in a particular place.

We are leaving here to live in a state we have never lived in, in a house we own but have never set foot in. Neither of us has family there, nor really any friends there yet (except our current DCM, who I have come to consider a friend, but though her house is only about a mile from there, she won't be back until a year after we have left for Kosovo).

So I don't know that I can call that home, at least not yet.

South Carolina has always been home for me, but as more and more states move towards recognizing our marriage and yet South Carolina still does not, it feels less and less like home. Our place in Virginia, which we lived in during our four years back in D.C., felt like home. But Virginia too treats us like legal strangers, plus we have renters we have never met living there. It not longer feels like home.

So while America is home with a capital H, home right now and for the last four years has been Tallinn. It is where my wife and pets are, yes, and also where we come home to from work each night. It is where we sit at the table together every evening to eat dinner together and discuss our days. It is where we can laugh at each other singing too loudly in the shower (or my wife singing too loudly on her treadmill, the music from her iphone playing only in her ears!). It is where our cats play chase up and down our long, hardwood floor hallway, skidding into the walls as they try to take the corner. It is where our books are, our art is. Pictures of our families.

Tallinn is home.

And when we leave, I will be home sick. Home sick for Tallinn.

I know, or at least hope, that our new place will become home. That we will make memories grilling out on the deck we are planning to build, sitting on the porch swing we are buying or the hammock we are getting. Playing with the cats on the screened porch or with the dog in the first yard she will have had since we joined the Foreign Service.

But we aren't there yet.

A week from today, we won't be going home.

We will be leaving it.

Oops! It Happened Again.

I went to the Christmas tree lighting in Raekoja Plats on Sunday.

Of course, since I didn't bring an umbrella, it was POURING.

By standing really close to a guy with a really big umbrella (which said something about some socialist website on it...I worried about being under the umbrella of socialism!), I was able to make it through three songs and two speeches.

But by then I was drenched, so I gave up and went home.

I checked on Postimees (the largest local paper), to see if they had pictures or video of the lighting.

Instead, they had pictures and video of the tree falling...AGAIN.

You can check out video of it here, and a story about the incident here.

The rumor mill says the tree was sabotaged by squirrels...the squirrel is the mascot of the ruling Reform Party, and the tree was put up by the Mayor of Tallinn, who is from the opposition Center Party. But if you ask me, I think it was the wind.

And fear not, the tree will be back...but it will be a bit more modest...only 17 meters tall instead of the previous 24 meters. Which is still a pretty frickin' big tree!

Living in a Christmas Card

Because I work in Public Affairs, of course there was work to be done on Thanksgiving. So after I had stuffed myself senseless, I drove in an tryptophan induced coma to the Solaris Cinema for a viewing of A Marine Story and subsequent discussion on Don't Ask, don't Tell.

The movie was great, and the discussion was great. It was particularly awesome that Erinevus Rikkasab (Diversity Enriches) was able to secure the film's lead actress, Dreya Weber, to sit on the panel as well.

Now that Thanksgiving is done, we can dive into the Christmas season in full force.

Which of course means that my office is now adorned with two tiny and slightly tacky (especially the purple one) Christmas trees.

It also means that this weekend marks the tree lighting and the opening of the Christmas market in the Old City. I will definitely be there for that!

This is picture I have seen many places of the market...I posted it on Facebook and got a bunch of comments on how it wouldn't be real. But it is, and I will be taking some pictures myself this weekend and in the weeks to come. With or without snow depends on the weather...so far my Southern warmth has kept any substantial snow away.

Strange and Wonderful

Today is the first day I have had completely off in two weeks.

I'm not complaining, just tired.

Last night after work though, instead of going home and going to bed, I went out to dinner with a group of women from the Embassy.

We have done this several times now...we are trying to make it a regular event where we invite all of the women in the embassy...employees, spouses, FSNs. I think especially for the women with children, it is a nice break from the usual. And for me, it is just a lot of fun to get out with some really strong, smart, interesting women, or as one of my friends from the Embassy calls us, "an informal group of fairly odd women."

We had dinner in the Old City at an Italian place with pretty decent food and a waiter with a command of at least Estonian, English, Spanish and Italian. Plus they had prosciutto and melon, which made me really happy.

After dinner, we went to Shimo, a little bar run by an Egyptian man who has lived here 10 years. The others drank shots named "The Smurf" (which apparently tastes like toothpaste...why would you drink that?), "Apple Pie" (vodka, apple juice and cinnamon) and "the Estonian flag" (blue curacao, coffee, and cream I think). The Old City was still hopping when I left at midnight, filled with women in devil's horns or bridal veils carrying signs in Russian. I have no idea what that was about.

I decided last night that I would take Noostie for a walk through the Old City today...and so we did. We explored for about an hour and a half, a map tucked safely in my back pocket in case we got lost. We prowled down some back alleys with shops that are much more interesting than those on the larger streets.


There were still a fair number of tourists today, including tons of French folks, but I found that with dog in tow, the usual street vendors and restaurant staff didn't call out to me like they usually do. Perhaps it was that I was alone and with a dog, and so less likely to be simply a tourist.

I even caught one tourist taking our picture as we cut through Raekoja Plats.


What a strange and wonderful place I live in.