Table Of Contents
Oof, finished Winter term and 3 courses. That meant that I had time for finally visiting my collaborators in Estonia (new country), Canadian judo nationals in Calgary, and going to New Zealand, along with a few days in Montreal (one day in May) before I left for Estonia.
Public Health
Blog post about how society has given up:
On the flight to New Zealand I was next to a sniffler. And there was a sniffler behind me. But I guess what are you going to do? Flights are not cheap and not really moveable. Well, I wore a mask, so I didn’t catch anything from the flight, but then caught a cold a week and a half after arriving in Aotearoa for no apparent reason. Can’t win em all.
Some other vaccine news:
- Moderna development continues, for now, with NEXSPIKE
- Absolutely Maybe, May 2025: More vaccines, including not-very-rigourous nasal vaccine results
There are a lot of colds going around NZ for sure. The Flutracker data show it. But the COVID levels, while higher than the first part of the year, aren’t as high as fall/winter 2024 yet.
Professional
This month was more exploratory. Thinking of new projects to work on with Estonians, and also what to propose to Amazon for Rust verification. Vinayak’s project was chugging along in May, though, and we did submit something in early June.
I thought I had a lot of non-work days, but I worked on 21 days. There are 22 work days in May. I also tried to take it easy when I had a cold.
Teaching
I wasn’t completely free of teaching in May. I gave two oral exams for ECE 459 and fixed some SE 465 marks. Also discussed changes to SE 465 to better adapt it for that audience. Should work on that next month.
Grad students/mentees/collaborators
In May I talked to my grad students on 6 days (despite travel), one SE alum, one lunch with TA for SE 465, and had 6 days with collaborators in Estonia. Two other SIGPLAN-M mentee meetings—there was the in-person meeting in Ottawa in April.
Collegiality/Service
FAUW governance reform meeting, class rep elections for SE 2026, 3 Onward! reviews.
Trips
As I mentioned above: Montreal/Estonia, then back to Waterloo for two days, then Calgary and from there Wellington.
Trip: Estonia, May 2 – 12
Vesal and I managed to coordinate, and I found a slot in my schedule, for a visit to Tartu in early May. Europe is sort of close to eastern North America: closer than New Zealand for sure, anyway.
I’d arranged this travel so that I’d spend a few days in Montréal before going to Estonia. My flight was from Montréal to Tallinn and then from Tallinn back to Toronto. So, after three days in Montreal, including seeing the parents and visiting the bouldering gyms, it was off to Tallinn. (The Plateau Mont-Royal is indeed pretty urban, and, yes, bigger than Wellington. Maybe it’d be nice to live there one day, but Québec politics is complicated.)
This was the first time I’d been to Europe since late 2019 (Greece, for OOPSLA), so I was looking forward to that.
YUL-CDG-TLL, May 2
The 747 bus to YUL was packed. Fortunately, I was mostly travelling light, though I had packed my lighter travel judogi, which I’d use in Montréal and Tartu. Still, I had two backpacks (40L and 26L).
Two flights and several hours later, after landing in Tallinn, the weather got a bit rainier but not a downpour, and I walked to the old town, aiming in particular for the Aleksander Nevski katedraal. One might think it looks somewhat Russian, but it’s still a key tourist attraction.
One reason that I do airport walks is to see what the infrastructure is like. YYZ loses badly, while, say, GVA is excellent. TLL is walkable on sidewalks but there are stroady bits and huge malls near the airport. Comparable to the LHR walk, but Tallinn is smaller, so the distance is less. As I got closer to the centre the streets became less stroady and there were more old buildings showing up, made of wood, brick, or stone (rather than concrete).
Getting to the old town, things looked medieval, a big part of their marketing, with Vikings playing a role as well. It’s somewhat like Old Montreal, but a few centuries older, and with more castles, and buildings made of stone (also true of Montreal). The centre is closed to cars and there are lots of people walking around. Touristy, of course, but it seems to work as a place for tourists.
Birds and Old Tallinn, May 3
Estonia’s marketing, like New Zealand’s, also involves a lot of nature. I didn’t really have capacity to plan logistics for a hike, even though some surprisingly long hikes are possible in this small country. I did have capacity to go on a half-day bird tour with Marko, where we saw lots of birds and I learned about Estonian society from a different perspective.
We went around in his car and saw a lot of seabirds, as well as some treebirds. There were also thousands of migrating geese in a field. I had no target species, since European birds are all new to me. (I did have, like, 3 European birds in my photo archives, none of which were good). Chiffchaffs? What’s that? Terns, fieldfares, storks, etc; we saw over 50 species in all.
Tallinn to Tartu, May 4
Pretty chill day. The train takes two hours. Then, despite Karoliine having told me that nothing is really far in Tartu, it’s still a half-hour walk from the train station to the hotel. Saw some birds along the way and got to the hotel, which was pretty standard, but had a non-stellar view, of the bus station. The bus is much more central for the hotel than the train!
Tartu visit, May 5 – 9
The weather was sunny and not very warm for the whole week I was in Tartu (May at 58°N, I guess). So, early the first morning, I went to go look for some birds near the cathedral ruins. My fingers actually got really cold after a while, so I left. There were fieldfares, hooded crows, a great tit, feral pigeons, starlings, and perhaps a European pied flycatcher.
One morning, Karoliine did the tour guide thing and showed me around the highlights of Tartu. It’s a small town. Even smaller than Kitchener-Waterloo. It’s less spread out, and I think one can walk from one end to the other in 1 or 1.5 hours. The malls are all together, and there are also historic buildings in the old town. There’s also a river, and many bridges across it.
Professionally, it was good to spend a week checking out what was going on in Tartu. A bunch of stuff. I went to a thesis defense, gave some comments on an industrial-outreach talk by Vesal, talked to people, and thought about future plans. Good intellectual exposure to another environment, though not as intense (i.e. more sustainable) than going to a conference.
- Pictures: Tartu, mostly Ronmistehaus bouldering, May 8
- Pictures: Tartu, birds in Peetri cemetary, and churches, May 8
- Pictures: Tartu, mostly Delta Centre, May 9
Southern Estonia, May 10
Karoliine had planned an excursion around Southern Estonia. We all met up at Delta and then set off to see some classic Estonian bogs; the highpoint of Estonia; and the watchtower Pesapuu.
First, Meenikunno. We drove through the countryside, and then had a nice hike on a loop through the bog, with boardwalks as appropriate. There were some people on the trails, but not a huge amount. There was also an observation tower and a lake. The lake had some common goldeneyes, and we ran into some fungi hunters who pointed out some false morels. Also, there was a nice looking hut. Nice, easy walk (8km, mainly flat: it is a bog, after all!).
I’d requested to go to the Estonian highpoint, Suur Munamägi. It’s not very high, at 318m above sea level. It’s also my first country highpoint, somehow. I’m not Eric Gilbertson. I have been to a number of state and province highpoints, but have never managed to make it to a country highpoint. Eric has been to this one, of course, and not up the tower, since he was there at night. I also did not go up the tower.
Finally, it was off to the Pesapuu observation tower, 30m, where we could get a view over the countryside. They’d also done some practical anthropology experiments a few years ago, living for some weeks in ancient houses. The houses were still there. They don’t look super comfortable.
After that, it was back to Tartu, where I took the bus to Tallinn. The seats on the bus are more comfortable, I guess, but I still prefer trains. But the bus does leave from a more convenient place. Both the bus and the train stop at Tallinn airport, where I had a two-night reservation just nearby.
Back to Tallinn, May 11, and to Canada, May 12
The Tallinn airport Mercure was actually quite nice and had a better view of a fountain, a river, and a parking lot, rather than just a parking lot. I think the more expensive rooms at Dorpat also had a good view of the river, but that’s not what I got. Anyway, it was really pretty at sunset from the Mercure. I also saw a bunch of terns in Tallinn between the airport and the hotel.
Tallinn and Tartu both have a bunch of malls. I guess it’s dark and cold for a lot of the year.
I did have all day in Tallinn on Sunday, and visited the Linnahall, which the tourist bureau calls an architectural gem. Well, there’s a lot of concrete. I also watched birds for a bit, though I didn’t have the good lens with me, just the point-and-shoot. People do go to fish at Linnahall, which is on the water, and hence where the 1980 Olympic sailing happened.
I also visited the Museum of Photography. They had old cameras but also exhibitions that were very much not G-rated, as it turns out. Not really what they would talk about in public in Soviet days.
Trip: Calgary, May 14 – 18
Not much to say about this trip. I flew into Toronto on Monday evening and left on Wednesday afternoon, after errands (haircut!), meetings, and class rep elections. Had to take the taxi to YKF with my 60kg of luggage (including skis); the YKF bus left at 5:45 and I left campus at 5:00. Fortunately, the check-in requirement at YKF for the bus is 15 minutes before departure.
Having talked to Lorenzo from UCalgary at ICSE two weeks before, I arranged to give a talk at Calgary, which was well-attended by students and the number of faculty I’d expect (4 or 5, pretty good, really). It was my staple talk “Hot Takes on Machine Learning for Program Analysis” with some updates for 2025. Then I refereed the ne-waza (groundwork) on Thursday, followed by three full days of tournament. Saturday (U21/U16) was kind of rough but Sunday (seniors) was smoother.
Thanks to the Judo Alberta referees for organizing an event at Ranchman’s. There was supposed to be mechanical bull time but I thought I should get some rest. There was definitely line dancing lessons.
After the tournament I stuck around for a bit. Sandra brought oysters from PEI and the referees had an impromptu hospitality suite at the hotel. Most left for the banquet, but I left for Wellington via Vancouver and Brisbane. At YYC, I remembered that I had my mountaineering boots and that I needed to clean them. Good thing I had a spare toothbrush.
- Pictures: Waterloo to Calgary (11/16), May 14
- Pictures: Open Nationals day 0 and 1 (16/27), May 15-16
- Pictures: Open Nationals day 2 (11/25), May 17
- Pictures: Open Nationals day 3 and leaving YYC (10/12), May 18
- Pictures: YYC-YVR-BNE-WLG (24/57), May 18-20
Travel Planning
There wasn’t really any time to do Estonia travel planning. Good thing that had mostly been done in April. I did plan my trip to PLDI in Seoul, which is mid-May.
Movement statistics
Not much walking. Bunch of biking. Couple of driving trips.
Movement statistics:
- 🚶 Walking: 133km on 23 days
- 🚲 Biking: 38km on 7 days
- 🚗 Driving: 406km on 6 days (visiting Southern Estonia; Estonian bird tour; Wellington Open)
- 🚗 Taxi: 48km (Calgary; transit not an option with 60kg of luggage)
- 🚆 Train: 370km on 3 days (Tallinn to Tartu; UP Express and then to Kitchener; out to Paekakariri)
- 🚌 Bus: 300km on 6 days (Tartu to Tallinn; YKF to YYZ; in town)
- 🚆 Metro: 28km (Montréal)
- 🚆 LRT: 5km (Tallinn)
- 🛴 Kick e-scooter: 8.5km (Tartu)
- ✈ Plane: 32576km (YUL-CDG-TLL; TLL-AMS-YYZ; YYZ-YYC; YYC-YVR-BNE-WLG)
- 🚡 Cable car: 0.7km (1×)
Transit was 700km, dominated by bus and train from Tallinn to Tartu (about 200km each way).
Walks
One repeat:
- Paekakariki Escarpment Track: 10km, 382m elevation gain; is nicer with cars below now mostly taking Transmission Gully instead of the coastal route; was less hot than when we did it in March 2020.
Most of the walking distance was in Estonia, just around the cities. The 133km number was pretty high, especially since I had 3 days just staying at home with a cold.
Pictures
I added 19 sets of pictures and processed 19 sets of pictures, so breaking even I guess? Still, I processed some quite big sets of pictures from the past and probably the backlog is smaller than it used to be.
Picture logs still available. As always, pictures are clickable to go to the full gallery.
- Sets of pictures posted: May=19, April=9, March=2
- Total pictures posted: May=755, April=352, March=54
- Total pictures in selection pool: 2339 (April/March 1664)
- Accept rate: 32% (min 15%, max 67%)
- Pictures posted on this page: 127
Just the birds:
Miscellaneous
No general comments about May.
Acquisitions
Uh, I don’t have any acquisitions of durable goods recorded, and I didn’t see any on my credit card bills, so I guess:
- None.
Sports
Despite the travel, went bouldering 6×, including reinstating my Faultline membership in Wellington and getting there 4× before getting a cold. Also Ronimistehaus in Tartu (self-serve entry) and Bloc Shop in Montreal. Judo was tougher: only made it to practice 3× in May. Too much time on the mat as a referee (and also fighting in the Wellington Open, where I got 1st in Veterans despite getting over a cold). That is: 5.5 days refereeing, including 3.5 at Canadian Nationals and 2 at Wellington Open.
Food
More restaurants in places that are not Waterloo:
Montreal, Calgary and Wellington
- Trip de Bouffe, Montreal: za’atar is good for breakfast (with tomato and cheese).
- Last Defence Lounge, Calgary: run by UCalgary Grad Students’ Association, viable non-food-court lunch option near campus.
- The Canadian Brewhouse, Calgary: my ravioli was OK (better than the one in Estonia) but people had bad experiences with steak.
- Ranchman’s, Calgary: a happening place; thanks to the Judo Alberta referees for bringing us there. Go for the atmosphere not the food.
- Native Tongues, Calgary: definitely preferred the tacos here over steak I didn’t have at Canadian Brewhouse. Correct fish tacos and quantity was good.
- Village Ice Cream, Calgary: long lines even in rainy weather; probably worth it, and definitely when there are no lines.
- Elixir, Wellington: go for the fancy cocktails, not the cocktail snacks; cheese and potatoes were OK but not filling.
- Club Vista, Paraparaumu: enjoyable burger at a social club/RSA and also they forgot our order and felt super embarrassed about it, scoring a free dessert and chips for us.
Estonia Tartu and southern Estonia
Good food in Estonia (mostly)!
- Reval Cafe: ravioli with bechamel sauce is a bit weird as an accompaniment.
- Kolm Tilli: I think the crispy chicken bao was objectively good but I didn’t actually feel like kimchi that day.
- Kohvik Werner: looks like a daily menu of chicken (daily menus are great). Did not have any pastries, alas.
- The Grill: another daily menu, obviously grilled meat.
- Uulits: at a place with a bunch of kitchens, but I just had a burger and fries, yum.
- Dorpat Hotell: regular (above-average?) business hotel breakfast spread.
- Delta Center: the University has pretty good lunch on campus with options; people said they got bored of it after a while, but it’s affordable and doesn’t seem too unhealthy.
- Puente Restoran: fancy dinner with collaborators, well worth a splurge.
- Suur Muna: tourist trap but also really good: our guess was that tourists often come with locals, so it is actually not a one-off destination for most.
Estonia Tallinn
- Peetri Pizza: unremarkable fast-food pizza; I’d meant to go to the pizza place next door, oops.
- Rataskaevu 16: truly excellent pork rib and memorable service; also talked to a digital nomad at the next table.
- NOP Cafe: popular place to be on a Sunday morning with a shakshouka that I’d eat again with no hesitation.
- Samsa Family Bakers: at the Tallinn train station; I don’t think I’ve had a cheburek before, but it’s the meat-stuffed-in-pastry thing that just can’t really go wrong.
- Pelmen: Russian dumplings in a mall, also a good choice for breakfast.
- Kompressor: cheap, tasty, large (but not stupid large) shrimp pancake that is worth its reputation.
- Maison François: waiting inside for sunset, correct French pastry in Estonia.
Volunteering
Nothing unusual this month. OAC Bolt Fund is almost ready to launch.
Conclusion
May was good! Not all months can be like May, but I do like having some months like that in the year.