WorldCon 2017, aka The Best, Most Tedious Disaster Story Ever

When last I posted, I announced  the schedule for my WorldCon programming and promised stories.  What gentle, naive times those were.

I was already en route to Helsinki when I made that post.  I was, in fact, hanging out in Manhattan after an overnight flight from Seattle, waiting to meet somebody for brunch, and generally looking forward to passing a long layover before catching another overnight flight to Helsinki.  The day was, in fact, lovely.  Unrelatedly,  I did not catch that overnight flight.

After getting bounced back and forth between Finnair and American Airlines on the phone trying to fix flight problems, then the same at the airport, then Finnair vanishing and turning into Qatar airlines while I was in line to talk to their people, I finally got the chance to rebook my flight.  Which prompted the following conversation with my roommate:

Me: I’ve had a bad feeling about this trip for ages. I’m thinking this is an omen.

Uni: It’ll be fine.

Me: I’m serious. How sad would you be if I just came home? I’m thinking of cutting my losses now while I can.

Uni: You’ve spent the last two months learning Finnish.

Me: That was fun on its own.

Uni: You can’t come home. I’ve got dibs on your favorite mug for the next two weeks.

You can’t argue with that.  I pushed on to Helsinki.

Instead of getting a direct flight to Helsinki through Finnair, I wind up on a British Airways flight to Heathrow, then a Finnair flight to Helsinki, which put me in Helsinki just in time to have missed all of my WorldCon programming.  Without my luggage.  This last bit didn’t surprise me. When I tried to check in for the BA flight, their gate agent nearly had a meltdown, began railing against American, then hustled me to a back room where I got a special private check in desk and very gentle security procedure. As somebody with a mild allergy to security theater in general and TSA bullshit in particular, I was pretty pleased by this.

But I made it to Helsinki. The people I was sharing lodging with very kindly left my set of keys at the registration desk so that whenever I got my luggage or was inclined to see where I was sleeping for the duration of the con, I could pick them up and do that. I got registered, and met up with many Strange Horizons folks, most of whom I hadn’t met before, and we ate delightful Nepalese food and chatted.  Then I unabashedly followed them to the barcon bar and we showed up before anybody else did which, I believe, means we founded the party.  Mind, I was wearing the same clothes I got onto the plane in Seattle wearing, and had only washed in various airport bathrooms, but I was definitely one of the cool kids.  Trust me.

When that broke up and it was time to head home, several of the people I’d been hanging out with very kindly and English-ly refused to go on to their hotel before making sure I could find where I was staying, despite my insistence that this was unnecessary.  The joke was on them, though, because I managed to have a fail-tastic adventure anyway.  You see, I knew the address of where I was staying, and I had the keys for getting in.  What I didn’t have was the apartment number.  In a building with eight floors.

“No sweat,” says I, as I examine the doors.  “I spent the last two months learning Finnish, and I am in Finland.  This means I’m prepared for everything.  For example, I know the note on that door says ‘No housekeeping.’  I will deduce my way into the correct unit.”

My plan was, actually, quite brilliant.  There were 4-5 doors on each floor, and seven floors with doors.  I had a key, and all of these doors required a key to be opened.  So all I had to do was put my key in each door, turn it, and when it worked, Boom! Destination located.  The next day I’d file the paperwork to change my name to Anaea H. Lay, and tell everybody for the rest of time that the H is for Holmes, because I’m humble.

I was not staying on the first floor. Cool.  Six floors to go.

I was not staying in the first unit of the second floor.  Or the second.  The third, however…the third opened.

Onto the foyer of a studio. (Weren’t we in a 1-bedroom?)

A studio with a bed taking up most of the space beyond the foyer. (There’s definitely supposed to be a sofa.  I’m sleeping on it.)

A bed with a very confused looking white and black pit bull stretched out on it.

On second thought, repeated counts of attempted breaking and entering is probably not the best way to get a good night’s sleep in a foreign country.  But hey, Helsinki is generous with their public wifi, so I high-tailed it back to internet land and used slightly less deranged methods of figuring out where to go.

(The next morning I called T-mobile via my web browser to ask if they could maybe fix the thing where my phone wasn’t behaving like it should.  “We’re stumped.  I’ll boot this up to the next tier of support and call you back with the answer,” they said.  “You can’t call me back, my phone isn’t working as a phone.”  This confused them.  They wanted to know how I was calling them, in that case. VIA A WEB BROWSER BECAUSE THIS IS THE 21st CENTURY WHY IS THIS HARD JUST SEND ME AN EMAIL WHEN YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO.  But hey, when I finally made it back to the US, I had three very helpful voicemails from T-Mobile telling me how to fix my phone…)

Friday I actually got a full day at the convention.  More exciting, I wasn’t wearing the exact same clothes I left Seattle in; one of the people I was staying with kindly loaned me a pile of clothes to wear.  So I was wearing her running shirt.  Reader, I have never before in my life worn running clothes.  I sincerely hope to never wear them again.

I had make-up lunch with somebody I was supposed to have had lunch with on Thursday and we had a good chat.  At one point a complete stranger sitting next to us interrupted to say, “I’m sorry, but ‘don’t break the spreadsheet’ is a good motto for life.'” It was that kind of conversation.

I went to a panel to watch Amal Al-Mohtar be adorable and squee about Steven Universe, and got exactly what I expected from it.  I went to another panel about interactive fiction and continued the process of slowly realizing I have no idea what I’m doing there and have, possibly, made questionable life choices.  I stalked the web status page for my luggage in the hopes that it would arrive in time for me to change before the Hugo ceremony.

You see, I packed a dress.  And heels.  And basic grooming items for looking like a professional adult who wins things on the off chance that, you know, I won a thing.  During the second panel, I get the notice that my bag is in Helsinki.  There was hope!

Cue me, somewhat sheepishly, walking up to the support counter and asking if anybody there knows a way for me to get my hands on a phone that can make a local call.  My phone is refusing to be a phone, you see, and I would very much like to call the Helsinki airport.  Because I would very much like to wear anything other than jeans and a borrowed running shirt to the Hugos.  (I am convinced, at this point, that if Strange Horizons does win, I will never, ever win a Hugo again, and for all time I’ll be the person who accepted a Hugo in borrowed running clothes.  I cannot think of a story I’d want to be associated with less.)

A guy at the desk took pity on me, whipped out his phone, and called the airport on my behalf.  It’s all Finnish, all the way down, but he was able to give them a phone number I could receive texts from, because it gets automatically forwarded to my email address.  And fortunately, I catch it when he reads my chicken-scratch zero as an eight.  “You speak Finnish?” a lady nearby asks, clearly surprised.

“Not really, but I did spend the last two months studying it.  I am super prepared for everything!”

The Helsinki airport has no idea where my bag is.  It might be in Helsinki?  They aren’t sure.  They’ll call me with an update.

I was, at this point, feeling a bit of strain, so I went for my default coping mechanism, and started hunting down tea.  There was a lovely cafe in the convention center, full of lovely pastries, and I’m told the coffee was lovely, too.  I hate coffee, but they had a chai latte on their menu and I am down for that, so I order one.  And walk away.  And take a sip.

And then I’m back at the counter going, “I’m very sorry, but I ordered a chai latte.”

“Yes,” the girl at the counter says.

“This is coffee.”

“Yes,” she repeats.  “That’s what you ordered.”

“There’s coffee in your chai latte?”

“Yes.”

You know I’m dedicated to keeping displays of grief private, because I did not at that moment collapse onto the floor sobbing.  “I’m sorry, I’m afraid we’re having a cultural difference.  Is there something on your menu I can order that doesn’t have coffee in it?”

This became the second in a long string of conspicuous kindnesses punctuating the trip, because not only did she direct me to a safe way to order coffee-free tea, she refunded me the €1.20 difference between the prices in the drinks.  I’d expected her to charge me for the additional drink since she had, in fact, given me exactly what I ordered.

I went to the Hugos reception in jeans and a borrowed running shirt.  And the ceremony itself.  Strange Horizons didn’t win.  (Never have I been so happy to be in second place.)  Then the losers party, which also marked the first time I did anything in Helsinki proper the entire trip.  The steampunk gin bar is not messing around about its steampunk, or its gin, in case you were wondering.

Saturday, I gave up on the concepts of luggage, worldly possessions, or hope.  It was very freeing.

If you ever get the chance to hear Ken Liu talk about translation, take it.  He’s as good at deadpan and wry when lecturing as he is in his prose.  I also stalked more panels on interactive fiction, and continued to nurse my suspicion that maybe before taking on major projects that look like fun, I should first have any idea what I’m doing.  There were several games of Werewolf, and a fantastically brutal thunderstorm during dinner, and I back-pedaled on giving up on my luggage enough to abscond with somebody’s phone and spend some time talking to the airport about whether maybe I would ever see my bag again.  (It was definitely, absolutely, certainly not in Helsinki, and never had been.  They weren’t sure where it was, though.)

This was also about the time Nazis were marching practically next door to where my baby sister lives, so, you know, there was some muttering about how maybe when I was thinking this trip was cursed and I should cut my losses and go home that was absolutely the right idea.

Sunday was more meeting people for meals.  I had learned to order hot chocolate, because it never comes with coffee.  I had shared my traumatic chai latte experience with absolutely everybody, including strangers on street corners. I’ve had confirmation from a buddy who lives in Helsinki that of course chai lattes have coffee in them.  If I ever return to Helsinki, they will greet me as the girl perpetually wearing the same shirt who would not shut up about accidentally ordering coffee and then ask whether maybe I wouldn’t like to visit Sweden.  But, I had hope, because the Strange Horizons tea party was Sunday, and I was going to get myself some tea at the tea party.  I spent the entire morning inviting people to the party and positively gloating about my inevitable tea.  (I’d packed tea in my luggage.  With a brewing thermos.  This was not supposed to be a problem.)

The tea party was great.  It was packed.  We embarrassed Niall, which I shouldn’t be so pleased by because he’s English and therefore an easy mark, but I am.  People told me they liked how I read their stories and that was really great since I sorta assume everybody just cringes in a corner and quietly hates how I say their name, and deliver their favorite line.

Of course, they ran out of tea before I got any.  What sort of curse would I have if I’d been able to get tea at a tea party?

But, but, but, something magical happened.  I got an email.  From Finnair.  MY LUGGAGE WAS IN HELSINKI.  This was particularly great since the next day I would cease to be in Helsinki, and I sorta wanted to have my luggage with me.

I hopped on a train to the airport, fetched my luggage, hugged it a lot, hopped on a train back to where I was staying, hugged my luggage some more, and changed my clothes.  Then made some tea.  With my tea.  Which I had packed to ensure I wouldn’t be the tea-obsessed American traumatized by a coffee culture.  Then I hugged my luggage more, just for good measure.

Also, I put every pin I’d intended to decorate my con badge with on the collar of my shirt and shamelessly wore them to a bar, dinner, then a bar, while hanging out with people in Helsinki.  My favorite moment was probably when I passed people I’d met two days before and was greeted with, “You’re wearing different clothes.  You got your luggage!”

This ends the part of the trip I’d characterize as “frustratingly inconvenient.”  Let’s move on to the “Estonia is magic” portion.

Estonia is magic, y’all.  First off, everybody in the entire world was taking a ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn on Monday, and I was the only one who didn’t miss the ferry.  Yes, whether you remember it or not, on August 14 of 2017 you tried to take a ferry to cross the Baltic Seat from Helsinki to Tallinn, and you failed.  On the one hand, I felt very keenly for the travel woes of everybody else, and the people who were trying to coordinate plans around them.  On the other hand, vindication is sweet and even though this had nothing to do with the frustrating inconvenience of the trip so far, I felt vindicated.

Also, Tallinn is charming.  Everybody says this.  They are speaking truth.  I have no pictures with which to prove this but believe me; if I weren’t clinging to my pants in a defiant refusal to be separated from my luggage ever again, they’d have been charmed off.

I was staying in the apartment behind the kitchen of a yoga studio that had the Icelandic and Spanish consulates as landmarks for finding the building.  (See, charming!) This was just far enough outside of Old Town for me to walk along and go, “Yeah, this is pretty nice, classic compact European city with a nice…holy medieval times, Batman!”

There’s nothing quite like being an American from a family with pretensions about having ties to old things, then running into actual old things as if they’re nothing special.  It should have stopped working on my be now, but I think living on the west coast, land of everything was new this morning, has made me soft.

Met up with people to hang out over drinks and snacks in a pub.  Not just any pub, but a pub in the basement of a medieval building with walls thicker than me in the morning.  (Actually, in Tallinn, that probably is just any pub.)  I had a fantastic salad, enjoyed samplings of the peppered lard on toast, and tried not to take it personally that while wifi in my apartment at home needs constant coddling, I was getting fantastic signal and connectivity while in the basement of a building that was old when my distant forebears arrived on the continent of my birth.  I was not bitter.

One of my dinner companions, as we were preparing to pay and depart for dinner, moaned about how the magical pay-by-waving-your-phone-at-a-thing limit was too low to cover most bills so they were stuck using antiquated chip reader technology.  “You mean the chips that weren’t even ubiquitous in the US until a year or so ago and that most places still can’t handle?” I asked.  Yeah, that’s what she meant.

I had my luggage.  I was charmed.  The waiter had fetching shoulders and nice hair.  So I still wasn’t bitter.

Then we started planning the part of the next day that would involve riding the driverless bus.

Reader, I have complaints about the graceless collapse of empire, and how it directly applies to my quality of life.

The next day featured the accidental discovery of a bakery with amazing hot chocolate, eagerly following the coattails of a masterful social engineer by the name of Ellen Kushner, who enthusiastic-harmless-curiosity-seeker’d her way into two different hotel rooms that weren’t hers just to check out their views, marzipan gawking, market browsing, dumplings to die for, and tea.  A lot of tea.  Estonians, by the way, are as horrified by the Finnish approach to chai lattes as I am.

There’s definitely a lot of Tallinn that is there entirely to cater to tourists, and I definitely didn’t spend enough time there to scratch very deeply beyond that, but I’m up for fixing that any time.  Have I overused the word “charming” yet?

Wednesday brought the ferry back to Helsinki and, consequently, the most actually gawking at Helsinki I did the whole trip.  Mostly I wandered around and looked at things.  The Botanical Gardens are quite nice for walking around.  So’s most of the central city, actually.

By this point I’d chilled all the way out and started actually taking pictures of stuff.  There were many nice things to take pictures of.

I also may have made the ill-advised decision to walk from the central city, where I had dinner and did my wandering, through this place that looked like a nice park, on my way back to where I was staying.  I had to be out around 4am in order to catch a stupid-early flight, so rather than get wrapped up in something that might keep me out, I planned to meander bed-ward and catch a bus or trolley or cab or anything practical when I got tired.

I didn’t check to make sure there were buses, trolleys, or cars along the route first.

I did get back, and crash into bed, and get up very, very early.  I made it to the airport with no trouble and plenty of time to spare.  My flight was on time, I finished my souvenir shopping, got on my plane and…

…embarked on the spectacularly disastrous part of the trip.

My first layover was in Paris.  Not the good kind of layover where I could leave the airport and actually see Paris, but hey, so long as I get a croissant between flights, it’ll be worth it, right?

Spoiler: I did not get a croissant in Paris. Not even at the airport.

What happened instead is that I beelined across the airport to get to my gate, assuming that I could fetch a croissant once I knew I was in the right place and all was well.  This was good, because they were extremely prompt about boarding; already well underway by the time I arrived, even though I arrived 45 minutes before takeoff.  (Cut-off: 30 minutes.)  I scan my boarding pass and…get told I’m not allowed to board.

I’m unsurprised.  I missed my flight on the way out, and even though they assured me this wouldn’t cause any trouble on my return, I didn’t believe them.  Here was my vindication.  Or so I thought at first.

Actually, it’s not that at all.  It’s worse.  The gate agent is refusing to board anybody from my flight out of Helsinki, even though there were several of us.  She didn’t like how the connection was done.  No, she won’t help me rebook, this is Finnair’s fault.  “But I booked the itinerary through American.  That’s you,” I say.  See, I’d just gone down this road a whole lot not ten days before when trying to fix my departing flight.  Finnair can’t do squat for me.  American is refusing to board me, American is the source of the booking, American is who I need help from.

American sends me back through customs to Finnair.  To the completely wrong place.  So I go back.  They send me somewhere else.  Also wrong, but this time it came with a bonus trip through security.  (I love airport security, remember?)  I finally find a Finnair employee and explained to her what’s happened.  Her eyes get big and she goes, “But I can’t help you.  American has to…wait, how did you get here?”

That’s a good question, since the boarding pass I hold is for a flight that has, at this point, long since left, and in a completely different terminal.  “I’m very charming when I want to be, and security thought I was harmless.  Please don’t make me go through that again.”  (Fun Fact: Charles de Gaulle airport has, as a normal presence, uniformed soldiers with machine guns.  Ask me how I know.)

The very nice Finnair employee proceeds to get on the phone to somebody and freak out in a long string of French from which all I understood was, “Ping-ponging passengers,” because the only French I know is useful for eating, and getting laid.  (I mean, if you’re only going to speak a little French…)  She then apologized profusely, but I was going to have to leave the secured portion of the airport to talk to somebody else.  No really, she’s very sorry, but she literally cannot help me at all, I am in utterly the wrong place.  The place she’s sending me isn’t the right place either, because I was in the right place when I was talking to American, but they’ll help me anyway.

Finnair’s umbrella company then, on behalf of me and two other people American had done this to, called American to fight with them and get us rebooked.  It took a long time.  I wasn’t shouty-angry like the first guy who was so furious that he was going to arrive in New York three hours later than he meant to that he missed the first flight they rebooked him on by yelling at them over how unacceptable the situation was, and didn’t have a wife and three kids stuck on the other side of security waiting for me to return with their passports, I volunteered to be the back of the line.  I could see the writing on the wall already and wasn’t inclined to fight my fate.

Finnair’s umbrella company, while calling American on my behalf to make them rebook my flight, bought me lunch in Paris.  I got a sandwich on a baguette and chocolate mousse.  I looked, but I couldn’t find a croissant.

Tangent: back in February, as a reward to myself for something I was smug about, I did something I almost never do and bought myself an item of clothing I didn’t desperately need.  Specifically, this item of clothing.  I packed it, thinking it would make a good shirt to wear for the very long flight home.  My sister begged me to change my mind.  I considered her perspective.  Then Charlottesville happened.

In addition to having uniformed soldiers carrying machine guns, Charles de Gaulle airport is full of people who will compliment you when your shirt says:

I did not expect an anglophone American wearing jeans and a t-shirt to get consistent sartorial compliments while in Paris, but there you go.  We live in interesting times.  Also, the attention made up for the lack of croissants.

Eventually I got booked onto an Air France flight.  Getting back through security and whatnot when my bag was MIA and my itinerary was a shambles was a unique and interesting challenge, but one I navigated just fast enough to keep from missing my flight.  Let me say this about Air France: fucktons nicer than American.  More room, better layout, better amenities, better food, and a movie collection that clearly came from a culture of film snobs.  They weren’t super big on saying things in English, but I’d entered the zone of travel purgatory, so I didn’t want to know what was going on anyway; it would have just depressed me.  It was a thoroughly pleasant flight experience, and I don’t think I’ve said that about a flight this century.

Of course, my bag didn’t actually make it onto the flight, and I missed my connection at JFK as a result.  But customs was too busy being confused about why I didn’t have my bag to care about my shirt, so hey, I got away with that.

“Why did you miss your connection?” the American agent asked me when I finally got to the desk.

So I told him the story, complete with, “but since American weren’t the ones who did the rebooking, the people who did couldn’t give me a boarding pass for this flight, and by the time I got here, I was five minutes late for the self-check in, and now I’ve waited in line for a human so long the flight is gone.”

There are no more flights tonight.  He books me on a flight 5am tomorrow, layover in Charlotte, that’ll get me back to Seattle.  Great, whatever, I don’t believe in home as a concept anymore and if I get stranded in Charlotte, I can rent a car and drive up to see family for the weekend.  This becomes my official plan when I see the actual itinerary.  “This is a 30 minute layover,” I say.

“It is?” he asks.  Then he looks into it.  “The gates are right next to each other.  You’ll walk off one plane and directly onto the next.”

“Have you seen the luck I’ve had?  There’s no way I’m going to succeed with a 30 minute layover.”

“There are more flights to Seattle from Charlotte than here anyway.  It’s a better place to be stranded.”

Actually, New York is a significantly better place to be stranded, but whatever, I already have my stranded-in-Charlotte plans worked out in my head.  I crash into a hotel to get a few hours of sleep before coming right back, and leave it at that.

(He gave me vouchers for food that were good at the hotel and the airport.  So I tried to order food at the hotel, even though I was much, much too tired to be hungry.  There was literally nothing on the menu inexpensive enough to be covered by the food voucher.  The lady who took my order took pity on me, rang me up for half a salad, then gave me the whole thing.  Saint.)

“I’m not even surprised,” I say when, at 3:30am the next morning, the self-check in thing can’t find my itinerary and won’t let me get my boarding pass for my flight.  Instead, I go wait in the long-ass line to speak to a human representative of American.

“Oh, your flight out of here was delayed and you were going to miss your connection,” the agent says when I get to her.  “They’ve already rebooked you.  You’ll be leaving from La Guardia and connecting through Dallas.”

“No.”

She hesitates, then goes on.  “This is actually a better itinerary because…”

“No.”

“It’s okay.  We’ll get you a cab.  You have plenty of time.”

“You can put me on a direct flight.  You can put me on a flight that connects anywhere on the east coast between here and Charlotte, or either of the Chicago airports.  I will not accept any other itinerary, and I am not leaving here to go anywhere other than back to the hotel I just checked out of, unless it’s by plane.”  The poor agent looked to be at a sincere loss.  “There’s a direct flight out of here at 5pm, and another at 9:30.  Either of those will do.”

“But they’re so late,” she says.  “You could have this other flight…”

“No, that other flight will get me stranded in Dallas.  I dislike Dallas.  I’d rather be here.  Worst case scenario, if I’m still here on Monday, I have a meeting that I can show up in person to instead of taking by phone.”

“I’ll get you set up.”

While she does that, I called the hotel and un-checked out.  It was very nice of them to let me do that.  (There were a lot of people who were very nice to me, in case I’m not highlighting that enough.) (I was still wearing the Nazi punching shirt.  I suspect this helped.)

As she wraps up, I start to suspect that maybe, in my deranged, sleep-deprived state, I’ve been a little too harsh.  “I’m sorry if I’m cross.  I’m just very tired, and very angry with your employer.  I know it’s not you, and I appreciate how helpful you’ve been,” I say.

“Mama, I saw your itinerary history.  If I were you, I’d be sobbing or screaming.  You’re fine.”  Take that, people who think getting icy under stress isn’t healthy.

I returned to the airport with plenty of time to spare, so I visited baggage claim.  No, of course my bag isn’t somewhere sensible like JFK.  It’s totally still in Paris.  I mean, they were going to send it to the right continent, but then I changed my itinerary to connect through Dallas…

“Stop there.  I didn’t make that change,” I said.  “They didn’t even tell me about that change until I was already here trying to complete the itinerary before that one.”

Doesn’t matter.  The last flight from Paris for the day has already left.  They aren’t going to schedule my bag for another itinerary until I’ve arrived at my final destination.

I don’t think she understood why I asked whether it mattered which part of Hell I was in, or could they deliver the bag regardless.

Of course, my 5pm flight was already delayed to 7:40.

Let’s skip several hours involving a gate change, a mechanical problem, and a weather delay, and get to the point, now after 9pm (you better believe I was wondering about the state of the 9:30pm flight) when I scan my boarding pass to finally! board! the final! flight! and instead of getting a beep and a “Thank you, Miss Lay,” the console flashes bright red with a “DO NOT BOARD.”

“I’m sorry about that.  You’ll need to talk to the gate agent.”

“That’s okay. I no longer believe in a universe outside JFK.  Though I dimly recall that I did once hold such a belief.”

There’s confusion.  Minor mayhem.  (We’re technically still having a weather delay, but trying to sneak out during a break in the lightning.)  The gate agent cannot figure out why the system won’t let me board.  “I’ve probably had my itinerary changed too much and tripped some sort of anti-terrorist algorithm,” I say, while wearing my nazi-punching shirt.

“What sort of changes?” the agent asks.  Then she looks up my itinerary history.

And looks at me.

And at my history.

“Are you cursed?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Go take your seat.  There’s not anybody in it.  I’ll figure this out once you’re in the air.”

She did not have to tell me twice.

Hilariously, there was a guy in my seat.  Did I mind?  He wanted to sit next to his wife and their toddler.

No guy, I do not mind fleeing from the prospect of six hours in an overheated tube with your toddler.

It was Wednesday in Seattle when I boarded a flight in Helsinki under the naive delusion that I’d completed a trip which, while off to a bumpy start, ultimately smoothed out and turned quite pleasant.

It was Saturday when I finally got there.

What have we learned from this adventure?  A few things:

1. Dark premonitions should be heeded.
2. Estonia is magic.
3. Advertising your predilection for Nazi punching causes people to be nice to you.

These are valuable lessons for everyone, and I hope my experience will allow you to benefit from sharing in my hard earned knowledge.