What does one do with a year off of work?

Simple. Make a dish of Mac and Cheese with a bacon heart on it for when your wife comes home.

I should have a new blog up tomorrow.

Later

CC

Ten I's and Ten A's

Hey Folks. Only one month to go before heading home. That means I have to write two blog postings everyday to get caught up. I suppose the post on Heather and I going grocery shopping will have to be dropped. Maybe I'll have to skip the one about me doing laundry too. Possibly I might have time to squeeze in the one about vacuuming. We have some really great photos from that day.

Part 2 of the Nordic adventure is less about action and more about relaxation. We did quite a bit of walking and traveling in Stockholm and Copenhagen and just sort of took it easy in Helsinki and Tallinn.

After the best flight in years (and it was full of Norwegian Hell's Angels too), we took the city bus into town and arrived at the coolest art deco train station ever.

I was totally surprised. There was a lot of art deco architecture throughout the whole city. It was kind of neat because many times the buildings were totally enclosed because of the cold winters, so when I would expect a lot of design elements to be around facades or windows, they were in the foyers inside of the entrances. It made me want to go to Miami now.

We found out pretty quickly who is the most famous Finnish designer. Alvar Aalto has buildings across the city and they are stellar (although he may have been a fascist). Here is a bookstore he designed. Take that Chapters.

We just may steal this idea and make a Russian themed bar in Vancouver. This one is Kafe Mockba and owned by a couple of Finnish movie directors. They were playing old scratchy Russian folk records on an old gramophone too. Very cool.

We went out for dinner to at an old Helsinki restaurant that was...art deco! This place had a mural though. I had reindeer meatballs---pretty good, but I think I prefer either Swedish meatballs or plain reindeer stew. Heather had herring fillets. They were very strong tasting. She was quite happy that she didn't order the deep fried herring that is just like a herring ball of really small ones all rolled and fried together. Anyway, it was a nice restaurant.

It was warm and sunny for us in Helsinki, which was nice. I got mad at our hotel because they were supposed to have one free weekly public session at the hotel's Sauna, but cancelled it on the morning we were there because some large group wanted to book it. We both tried our best North American complaining, but all we were offered was a discount on booking a private session. I will, however, never stay at the Hotel Katajanokka again. I'm sure you will all remember the name too.

The predominate Christian religion in Finland is Lutheran. They built a fine white church.

We spent too much time (and almost too much money) in the Iittala, store as it is one of our favourites. They have so much wicked 'stuff'.

We went to the museum of Modern Art, but it was too expensive to go in, so we just walked around the building which was ok, but not mind blowing. There was a neat piece in the lobby.

Helsinki doesn't operate an underground but has an extensive tram system. We took tram 3 around a large loop of the city. The windows were dirty so none of my pictures turned out, but it was cool. Oh, I forgot, we almost made it to a Finnish Elite League hockey game the night before, but it started at 4:00 when we were told it started at 7:00. I blamed the corporate TV headquarters in Toronto. Jerks.

We stopped for lunch at an outdoor market and had, you guessed it, reindeer sausage and some delicious pancake/crepe thing covered in cream and strawberries. A good lunch.

That was sure an action packed day....I don't know what I really meant by we didn't do lots?? It was very easy and relaxing city to get around. It was quiet too. Like really quiet. There was minimal noise pollution. There weren't loads of people yelling and being obnoxious. One thing we found funny was no pedestrians will walk against the crossing signal. There are boulevards where you can see about 300 meters in each direction and they will still wait for the green man to come on before walking across. At first, we walked with impunity, but it became so obvious to us that we were breaking the norm that we couldn't do it anymore--even at night!

After lunch, we hopped on a ferry to the island of Suomenlinna, which was a short 15 minute ride away. It's an old fortress island that is now a national park. It has been used in the defence of Helsinki for a very long time. We walked the whole thing and pretended to shoot cannons at Swedish ships--Well, I did. There are a bunch of islands surrounding the inner harbour to the city and the water is very shallow in many places. The only way to get in was through very defined lanes and this island could defend all of them.

One of the coolest things about the island was there are a number of residences on the island. They are leased/granted out to artists who work on the island and agree to keep the houses up, so all your neighbors are painters and potters and the like, while the historical houses are all maintained at a very low cost to the park service. There is even a hostel in the old barracks. Great idea.

This part was very relaxing.

We went out for dinner and stopped off at a pub before heading home. We grabbed a board game from the stack and started at it. We chose Scrabble.

It was pretty dang hard. Then we took a look at the board for the distribution of letters.

Man those Finns love their I's

We took the ferry the next morning across the Baltic Sea to Tallinn, Estonia. The ferry went right past Suomenlinna, as it was the route.

The weather was poor for us in Tallinn, but that didn't stop us! We arrived at the port and spent all of our time in the old city until we left the next day. The old city is very well preserved. I've always wanted to go to a 'real' former USSR state and get some great kitch items. The Estonians really hated the Russians though and have almost expunged all things Russian from the country and are very nationalistic and proud of their own distinct history and culture. I think I appreciated that more then a red star pin, but that still would have been nice.

This was our hotel courtyard.

We went for lunch at one of those weird medieval re-enactment restaurants. I have never had so much fun eating and ordering. I got a bowl of field mushroom soup with a strange roll and soft cheese and a tankard of honey ale. The restaurant makes their own beer using the same recipe as in the 15th century. A tankard, man. A tankard.

Tallinn was gorgeous. The whole old town has been restored and there are church towers and spires around every corner.

We climbed this tower. It was looooonnnng climb up, but the view was worth it. Heather didn't like the height so much. I'm funny--Sometimes heights bother me and sometimes they don't. I had the strangest panic attack on a chairlift at Mt. Baker once. It was only about 20 ft high and there was a safety bar. Weird.

We went out to a medieval basement bar dinner. The beer was very cloudy.

And finally, some day/night shots of the main square. Night/day rather.

I forgot to mention how much cheaper Estonia was than the rest of Scandanavia. Remarkably cheaper. When you get two pastries and coffee for eight Euros and think that's cheap it means that it's  a significant difference.

Blast-er from the Past-er

The Most Beautiful Cat in the World

Baltic Cats!

An Estonian giant--Ten Pound Tommy.

See ya later!

CC

Nordic Cool

First, we had a sweet visit from Roberts and Chapin (otherwise known as Natalie and Adam) right after we got home from Greece. It was a fun night out filled with laughter, curries, and a lot of pints. Good times. Visitors are fun.

I think it was all the curry, but I was sick for the next week with a cold again. Maybe it was just the Manchester cold that gave me a cold, or as our friends in Scotland call it "The Dampness". Well, I was sure laid out for a bit, but Heather was very kind and took great care of me and fed me soup to feel better. It was only Mr. Noodles and I did have to boil the water myself, but it was kind of her to get it out of the cupboard for me. She even put the pot on the stove! I appreciate it, honey.

After mostly getting better it was time to get back on the ol' travel trail, as we had not travelled since we got in from Greece, eight days previous. It's ridiculous. I know.

I've had a strong infatuation with Helsinki for some time now. I think it all started with a t-shirt that I bought on sale that had a logo of the 1954 Winter Olympics on it. I also enjoy snowy climates and feel they often get the short shrift by tourism for being frozen solid in the winter months. I'm not advocating winter travel to ice cold destinations filled only with herring and reindeer, but this is the fall and I wanted to go. And badly. I knew it would be expensive too, but I really had no idea how expensive. Please just keep your fingers crossed for us that we can buy back our wedding rings from the pawn shop before heading home.

It's also kind of hard to say no to countries that you want to visit that share borders with the places you are going. I mean, how could we not go to Denmark too? I wouldn't want Denmark or any Danes to be upset with us. We capitulated and started off from Copenhagen.

You all know how much I love to fly too, so get this: we left Manchester to Copenhagen in a hurricane. Well, I think it was downgraded to a tropical storm by the time we left, but it was W-I-N-D-Y. I think I'd cancel the trip next time and swim to Denmark.

OK--Enough preamble!

Copenhagen was wonderful. Again, another easily accessible, clean, artistic, and smart-looking European capital city. Besides the cost, it was almost perfect, although it was super flat (but once you start complaining about the topography you can take off).

We walked around (maybe a little too much) and scampered over to Nyhaven to procure the hands-down, second best sandwich I have ever had in my entire life.

The meat was a carpaccio of some sort of game (elk, caribou?). It was melt-in-your-mouth good. The bread was nutty and soft. Arugula (or Rocket if you prefer). Sweet Mustard. Tomatoes. Unreal.
(btw, the best sandwich I've ever had in my life is waaaayyyy too long of a story for this blog. You'll have to buy me a drink and I'll tell it to you).

It could have been a bit warmer out for our taste, but it was still a great area. Oh, Heather's sandwich was good, but not even close to mine.

The Danes (and Scandinavians) really know their architecture and we loved wandering and looking at the monumental buildings. We should have taken the canal cruise to get a good look at them all, but ran out of time.

This is the Opera House. It wasn't my favorite building, but I had the best picture of it. The underside of the front overhang was reflective and picked up the water and front atrium spectacularly and that doesn't really show up in the photo. I blame the flat light. Wait, I blame Heather. She took it. Way to go Heather.

This is some crazy orange, Danish, tudor-style complex that we snuck into.

We worked our way down to the Danish design museum. I was really excited to see it as the Danes were kind of the world leaders of international design from the 50s to the 80s (if not still). The museum had a retrospective of a famous Danish designer. It was cool, but something looked a bit off. Judge for yourselves.

I know right? Just off a little.

Anyway, the museum was ok for the first third, then we hit the contemporary stuff and we almost stole it all for our house. It was the coolest stuff!!!! Chairs, phones, houses, couches. I particularily enjoyed the three Jacobsen chairs. He was a famous Danish designer who put together a whole hotel (the SAS). He was the architect and made everything in the whole hotel including three 'new' chairs. Heather forgot to take a picture of them though. They did have a cool fabric exhibit, which led to portraits of us.

We walked up and checked out the little mermaid statue. It was cool, but really sad as some woman was pouring out the ashes of her husband in front of the statue while her parents took pictures and she cried.

That night we ended up, well, throwing down on dinner. We went to Kiin Kiin, the only Michelin starred Thai resturant in the world. It was extravagant and totally excessive and so unbelievably good it's really hard to explain. Hands down the best meal we have had. The pictures aren't the best--you know who's fault it is.

The third course, scallops.

Dessert- coconut ice cream, dried coconut, frozen coconut and caramel. Sounds boring? It was insane.

Dang it was good. Walked home along this.

The next day we walked down the street to the train station and jumped aboard to Stockholm. It was a pretty fun train ride, even though we were facing the wrong direction (I don't like sitting backwards). Heather was able to work, while I watched some guy's laptop through the seat crack in front of us (Fair Game with Sean Penn. It was very entertaining even without sound). Two observations about the Swedish countryside: 1) There are a lot of lakes. They are mostly small, but it seemed like there was a new one every few kilometers. They are all surrounded by idyllic cabins too. 2) We passed a lot of farmland and there were no derelict vehicles, refrigerators, or anything broken down on the land. Very different from other rural places I've seen.
We stayed in Sodermalm. Please excuse my lack of umlauts, I don't know how to make them on my keyboard and I'm pretty sure I'll never need to use them again in my life. They are cool though. Our hotel was small, very small. I was kind of surprised how small it was even though it was called Three Small Rooms. Go figure. It was very centrally located and the neighborhood was ultra cool. We headed out to the local beer hall and I had reindeer stew while Heather feasted on a plate of Swedish meatballs. The meat balls were good, but the lingon berries on the side were the bomb. I think Ikea sells them, but I never thought they would be so tasty!

The buildings around Stockholm were a bit surprising. All of the buildings are very similar. As we later found out, many of them were built or approved by a government department from the 50s onward. This department was focused on functionalism and they are mostly just square blocks. Once you get out of Soldermalm there are more grandiose flats that kind of resemble old brownstones, but I just figured there would be more 'monumental' architecture everywhere.

We walked around the first day, mostly shopping, looking at ultra cool clothes that were too much money. We did manage to find the two stores in Stockholm that were having sales and picked up some threads.

Here is a giant hall dedicated to all meats Swedish.

We were both too wimpy to try the smoked eel, and they just looked too scary to eat. The lox and smoked salmon were nice and fresh (compared to the fish in ol' Manny), but still didn't measure up to Van.

It was also mushroom season in Scandinavia. That is a heap of Chanterelles!

We just recently watched "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" and there was a big car chase through this park. See if you can spot it if you watch the movie.

The next morning was my birthday. Barf. I wasn't too happy about it as I am no longer in my early thirties and I really enjoyed my early thirties. Dang, I'm almost 40! I hope no one buys my a chicken. I wanted to go and get a simple tattoo in Stockholm that just said '35' but Heather talked me out of it and instead I got a tattoo that she picked.

I think it looks good.

For however much it sucked, I had a very nice birthday. We started off with a cruise to the island park of Djurgarten and a nice long walk.

I knew that Stockholm was an island city, but I thought it was one big island. It's pretty cool, the city is actually like 40 small islands, so you are always really close to the water. Very comforting for two people from Vancouver.

We then jumped back on the Metro and headed to the library. Why the library? Turns out, it's the coolest library you will ever go to. It was really neat. I don't think the pictures do it justice.

We then jetted back downtown to the photography museum for an exhibit on Robert Maplethorpe. I had seen a few of his pictures, but never a whole exhibition. They were really stunning (and sometimes shocking). I've never seen anyone else get as close to showing the body looking like classic Greek sculpture in photographs.

Heather then took me out for another cruise to Skeppsolmen Island for dinner. I love cruises.

I had the apple smoked cod with apples and mussels. It was devine.

Then dessert in Gamlastan. Raspberry pie and custard with old style hot chocolate. A fantastic birthday indeed! Thanks Heather and Stockholm---you will always be the bomb, on my chest.

The next morning was incredibly surprising. We flew to Helsinki and had a smooth flight with minimal sweating and no panic!!! Unreal!!!! The cool nordic winds calmed my heart. (Well, until we flew home). Still, it was an encouraging sign.

I do believe I've pulled a CanManc longshot, meaning it's been too many days writing about one trip (I started on Monday and it's now Friday) so I'll just leave Helsinki and Tallinn for the next one. And soon--I'm running out of days!

Blast-er from the Past-er

Ahhhh. Last November Bliss. That is not a shark.

Manny Cats!

Oh Manny Cats. How we've missed you. You specifically, Mabel.

Later,

CC