Saturday, September 8, 2007

Nurse Pavarotti


I intend no offense toward the late tenor, may he rest in peace, and I'm not certain but I want to believe that the people in this photo also intended no offense. It's just that seeing his name in the news reminded me of this scene from our trip to Estonia two summers ago.

England must not be a very fun country; groups of Brits seem to like to fly off for party weekends in other European countries. I'm told that Prague was a hot spot for a while, but recently the party scene has shifted to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, which is a little (very little) like New Orleans or Las Vegas in the United States. Swarms of partying Englishmen--many in t-shirts custom-printed for the occasion--mobbed the ferry between Tallinn and Helsinki. In Tallinn's Old Town, which is something like New Orleans' French Quarter, only about six hundred years older--some of the revelers wore party clothes and, in this case, party wigs. Here we see Nurse Alf and Nurse Pavarotti, out for an evening stroll (it was midsummer, so the evening was still quite sunny).

Below is a picture from a Midsummer Eve festival near Tallinn. Sadly, that's me, trying and failing at a traditional folk game. Part of the tradition is the cognac that precedes the game....



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