I am now FOUR trips behind on my blogging. There goes my plan of never leaving for a new trip before I've blogged the last one. Way, way, out the window goes that plan. It's been a ridiculous five weeks. I have been to Norway with my parents, Dublin for a conference, Copenhagen for a course, and Barcelona to see my sister in a competition. I have realized that as much as I love traveling, there's no way I'll ever be able to handle a job with that much travel involved. I need my own bed (or even my own room would be nice--I was in hostels/shared rooms for most of these trips). Plus now I'm back and have to turn in my final master's thesis soon. So I'm pretty much in panic mode. The travels were great though, so I'll share a bit now and fill in the rest as soon as I get a chance!
Norway was unbelievable. You'll get a post on that one later with pictures that will make you want to kill me.
I've already blogged Ireland from when I took a trip there last year, and I didn't get to do any tourism this time anyway. I was there for a conference (Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution) and I had no time to do anything besides learn things and network (read: drink Guinness with other scientists. Awesome). But it was my first conference, and I enjoyed it a lot. Exhausting though, whoa. I got to go because I got a travel grant, and then I won best undergraduate (in many European countries that means anything below a PhD) poster! Pretty proud of myself, not gonna lie.
Copenhagen was also a new place for me, and a city I liked a lot, so it will get a full post later.
Barcelona I've been to before, but I headed back to see my sister compete in the Under-20 World Championships for shot put. Cool, right? She's a total badass. She got 7th with her second-best throw ever, jetlagged and all. I'm so impressed. She's amazing.
Ok, good, now I'm only two trips behind on my blogging. That sounds better in my head. And now I'm off to write this thesis so I can be doooooooooone with my master's!
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Estonia
I've gotten a trip behind on my blogging and it's making me nervous! I just got back from Norway with my parents (awesome) and am soon going to both Dublin and Copenhagen for work, so I need to get my trip to Estonia in May blogged, clearly! It is, however, going to be the short version! Outline form, woohoo! And pictures, as always!
Quick background though. My friend sent me a message back in February asking if I wanted to go to Estonia in May. Silly question, the answer was of course yes. So we bought tickets. He continued to ask people until there were six of us going. By the time of the trip, however, we had lost three people to various conflicts. The night before the trip, the main organizer/guy who previously lived in Estonia and had all the plans get pretty sick. But he pulled it together and off we went. By this point, however, we'd decided the trip was cursed. So it didn't help when the three of us showed up at the airport and our flight was cancelled (they're combined it with an earlier flight and just very poorly chosen how to convey that fact on the departures boards). Nor when we landed and immediately picked up a drunk Russian friend. Or when we missed our tram stop and rode to the end of the line and back. But finally, we arrived at our hostel and crashed. Early the next morning we headed off and grabbed our rental car and left town
Day 1: To Lahemaa National Park
-Hit a grocery store and felt like kids in a candy shop since everything was so cheap after Sweden. A four-pack of beer over 3.5% alcohol (the limit for grocery store beer here, but that's another story) for 1 euro? Ok! Chocolate? Ok! This random Estonia bread thing? Ok! You get the picture.
-On the way to the park we stopped at an abbey by the sea and an awesome waterfall.
-Arrived at our awesome cabin, which was one of three in a lady's backyard at her house in the National Park. So cool! We waked around a bit, found the path to the beach, but then headed up to a nearby manor house for an awesome fancy yet cheap meal of local game meat (mmm, roasted boar neck with mango chutney, not kidding).
-After dinner we took our Estonian beer to the nearby Estonian rocky beach. It was amazing, a cloudy windy night, but beautiful!
Day 2: To Viljandi
-We spent our morning on an amazing hike through the really cool forest we were staying in.
-The afternoon was driving down to the other end of the country, a whopping 2 hour trip to Viljandi where our friend had lived. We arrived to a rainy late afternoon, but still checked out the castle ruins overlooking a big lake and had a nice dinner at his favorite tavern.
Day 3: Tallinn
-While our friend stayed in Viljandi to visit people he knew, the other girl on the trip and I headed back up to Tallinn to check out the city. The cool old city is very small, so we got a chance to see most of it by just wandering around, which it is a perfect place for!
Day 4: Helsinki
Helsinki is only a 2 hour ferry ride from Tallinn, so on Saturday we hopped on a boat! Helsinki itself didn't really impress me, it was just a city. The market on the harbor was nice, and the rock church was cool (a church carved down into a rocky hilltop in the city). My favorite part was going out to an island in the harbor where there is an old fort and just lying the grass watching sailboats go by.
Day 5: Back in Tallinn
Since we'd really seen most of the city on day 3, we weren't too focused on day 5. We took a tour of the tunnels under the city walls, which I liked, and then spent a lot of the afternoon wandering aimlessly before settling in a cafe that our friend recommended. It was in a cute courtyard and we both totally fell in love and so we spent several hours and consumed a few cups of coffee and things made of chocolate there! It was a great way to end a great trip.
Tallinn is awesome. I can't exactly explain why, but I really loved it. Maybe it was my first trip in a while, maybe it was traveling with people that I travel well with, but I think it was mainly because Tallinn and Estonia in general are just rather awesome. Highly recommended! And hey, we made friends with an old Finnish grandpa who has rented an apartment in Tallinn for the summer (don't ask), so maybe I'll get a chance to go back!
Quick background though. My friend sent me a message back in February asking if I wanted to go to Estonia in May. Silly question, the answer was of course yes. So we bought tickets. He continued to ask people until there were six of us going. By the time of the trip, however, we had lost three people to various conflicts. The night before the trip, the main organizer/guy who previously lived in Estonia and had all the plans get pretty sick. But he pulled it together and off we went. By this point, however, we'd decided the trip was cursed. So it didn't help when the three of us showed up at the airport and our flight was cancelled (they're combined it with an earlier flight and just very poorly chosen how to convey that fact on the departures boards). Nor when we landed and immediately picked up a drunk Russian friend. Or when we missed our tram stop and rode to the end of the line and back. But finally, we arrived at our hostel and crashed. Early the next morning we headed off and grabbed our rental car and left town
Day 1: To Lahemaa National Park
-Hit a grocery store and felt like kids in a candy shop since everything was so cheap after Sweden. A four-pack of beer over 3.5% alcohol (the limit for grocery store beer here, but that's another story) for 1 euro? Ok! Chocolate? Ok! This random Estonia bread thing? Ok! You get the picture.
-On the way to the park we stopped at an abbey by the sea and an awesome waterfall.
-Arrived at our awesome cabin, which was one of three in a lady's backyard at her house in the National Park. So cool! We waked around a bit, found the path to the beach, but then headed up to a nearby manor house for an awesome fancy yet cheap meal of local game meat (mmm, roasted boar neck with mango chutney, not kidding).
-After dinner we took our Estonian beer to the nearby Estonian rocky beach. It was amazing, a cloudy windy night, but beautiful!
Day 2: To Viljandi
-We spent our morning on an amazing hike through the really cool forest we were staying in.
-The afternoon was driving down to the other end of the country, a whopping 2 hour trip to Viljandi where our friend had lived. We arrived to a rainy late afternoon, but still checked out the castle ruins overlooking a big lake and had a nice dinner at his favorite tavern.
 |
| Stage in the ruins in Vuljandi |
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| View of the lake from the stage |
Day 3: Tallinn
-While our friend stayed in Viljandi to visit people he knew, the other girl on the trip and I headed back up to Tallinn to check out the city. The cool old city is very small, so we got a chance to see most of it by just wandering around, which it is a perfect place for!
Day 4: Helsinki
Helsinki is only a 2 hour ferry ride from Tallinn, so on Saturday we hopped on a boat! Helsinki itself didn't really impress me, it was just a city. The market on the harbor was nice, and the rock church was cool (a church carved down into a rocky hilltop in the city). My favorite part was going out to an island in the harbor where there is an old fort and just lying the grass watching sailboats go by.
 |
| From the ferry back to Tallinn |
Day 5: Back in Tallinn
Since we'd really seen most of the city on day 3, we weren't too focused on day 5. We took a tour of the tunnels under the city walls, which I liked, and then spent a lot of the afternoon wandering aimlessly before settling in a cafe that our friend recommended. It was in a cute courtyard and we both totally fell in love and so we spent several hours and consumed a few cups of coffee and things made of chocolate there! It was a great way to end a great trip.
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| Cafe courtyard. I want that house! |
Tallinn is awesome. I can't exactly explain why, but I really loved it. Maybe it was my first trip in a while, maybe it was traveling with people that I travel well with, but I think it was mainly because Tallinn and Estonia in general are just rather awesome. Highly recommended! And hey, we made friends with an old Finnish grandpa who has rented an apartment in Tallinn for the summer (don't ask), so maybe I'll get a chance to go back!
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Eurovision!
Last weekend something amazing happened. I saw Europe at its least cultured moment. Anyone who has ever heard comments about Americans having no taste should know this simple phrase that can stop Europeans in their tracks: "I have seen Eurovision." This is a song contest where each country sends a song and they compete against each other. I would expect something like that to be taken seriously, with each country wanting to showcase something special, whether that means very good, traditional and cool, or something else. But no. Instead, nearly every country sends some weird or awful act! I asked a bunch of people and everyone says it is some kind of blend of serious and joke, but I only saw the serious in a very few acts. Examples of things that I at least hope are jokes are:
Jedward, the Irish entry for the second year in a row:
Buranovskiye Babushki from Russia--grannies complete with cookies in the oven!
Albania. I don't even know. Dreadlock snake, Dracula dress, and a weird gold earring I'm told Lady Gaga made popular. It's too much!
As an example of a serious entry, we have Serbia, keeping it classy and boring.
And then we have this year's winner, my current host county of Sweden! This song has actually already been playing in clubs here for a while (it was made for the competition, but there is a selection process, so it must have been released when she became the official Swedish contestant):
Such an odd event. It gets even weirder when you consider the voting--each country in Europe tallies votes from text messages from within its borders and then allocates points to the top 10 or so. But instead of voting for acts that were good, most of the votes are for neighboring countries! Scandinavian countries vote for each other, as do the Balkans and the ex-Soviet states. Oh, and all the Irish people in Great Britain gave the Irish contestant the second most points! So funny.
Really, I am not sure how I'd never heard of this before I came to Europe. It's like all the worst American Idol entries (the ones that go into that special episode before the season, the only one I ever watch), only there are flags and some kind of pride involved.
The winning country hosts next year, so it'll be in Sweden next May. Keep an eye out! This year it was in Azerbaijan, that most European of countries... I won't get into the border definitions of Europe held by the Eurovision planners!
Jedward, the Irish entry for the second year in a row:
Buranovskiye Babushki from Russia--grannies complete with cookies in the oven!
Albania. I don't even know. Dreadlock snake, Dracula dress, and a weird gold earring I'm told Lady Gaga made popular. It's too much!
As an example of a serious entry, we have Serbia, keeping it classy and boring.
And then we have this year's winner, my current host county of Sweden! This song has actually already been playing in clubs here for a while (it was made for the competition, but there is a selection process, so it must have been released when she became the official Swedish contestant):
Such an odd event. It gets even weirder when you consider the voting--each country in Europe tallies votes from text messages from within its borders and then allocates points to the top 10 or so. But instead of voting for acts that were good, most of the votes are for neighboring countries! Scandinavian countries vote for each other, as do the Balkans and the ex-Soviet states. Oh, and all the Irish people in Great Britain gave the Irish contestant the second most points! So funny.
Really, I am not sure how I'd never heard of this before I came to Europe. It's like all the worst American Idol entries (the ones that go into that special episode before the season, the only one I ever watch), only there are flags and some kind of pride involved.
The winning country hosts next year, so it'll be in Sweden next May. Keep an eye out! This year it was in Azerbaijan, that most European of countries... I won't get into the border definitions of Europe held by the Eurovision planners!
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Swedish "Night" May 27th
I was up late last night. I was in fact up past dawn. The thing is though, dawn here was at 3:47am today, so it's not that hard. Here is what last night looked like:
Crazy! And kinda cool. It's bad for sleeping when the birds start chirping at 2:30 in the morning though...
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| 1:30am--darkest point |
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| 2:30am--pretty much light outside... |
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| 3:45am--full daylight... |
Sunday, May 13, 2012
A new food challenge!
I just realized I never wrapped up the chocolate-almond croissant challenge from France! I kept up with my challenge until the end, dutifully trying every chocolate-almond croissant I came across. Yes, ti was tough, but I persevered. I think that there are many more croissants still to be discovered in my future, and I must admit I did not find one that made me decide the quest was over. My favorite was from the Vieux Four de St. Anne. It was subtle, with a good balance of flavors and the right textures for each component. But I just read on another blog from Montpellier that the bakery closed! NOOOOoooooooo. I guess I have to start over :)
The problem is that croissants are just not found in Sweden. They are, however, big on cinnamon rolls, which I also love (no, I don't love all pastries, but each country seems to have managed something I can fully support). I had been told repeatedly before I came how awesome the cinnamon rolls are, yet once I got here, I must admit I was a bit disappointed! Places where I liked other things had cinnamon rolls that felt a bit dry to me. My image of cinnamon rolls may be skewed due to exposure at critical developmental periods to things like Cinnabon-type gooey monster cinnamon rolls and the Pillsbury ones that made Christmas morning even better. But I decided that there was no better way to know Swedish cinnamon rolls than to try a range of them. And thus was born the Cinnamon Roll Challenge. I vow to commit myself fully again to an exploration of my host country through pastry!
Our first entry (not my actual first cinnamon roll experience, just the first one I got pictures of, oops):
Kanelbullar is cinnamon roll in Swedish: kanel=cinnamon and bullar is for buns according to google translate. But these beauties came from an old lady selling them on a stand in the street on a beautiful day last weekend. I was stoked, thinking that they might end the challenge before it began, but sadly, that was not the case. I think they suffered from being put in a plastic bag, and were sorta gooey in a bad way, more like soggy. I took one out and left it on a plate to dry off a bit (get rid of bag condensation basically), but then it was just dry. I also tried heating one a bit, but no real luck there either. I'm not sure what they would have been like without bag effects, or even if the bag affected them actually. But either way, I was sad that a little old lady couldn't provide me cinnamon roll bliss. This may be better though--I haven't seen here again, so what if I had found the perfect one and never got to have it again?? I'm hoping to find my winner in a bakery where I can go regularly.... I am back to biking everywhere (here, like Groningen, is very bike centered and bike friendly) so I'm getting lots of exercise and can eat cinnamon rolls at will. Haha yeah, we'll see how long that idea lasts!
And here's another shot I love from that day in town, just for fun and because it makes me happy!
The problem is that croissants are just not found in Sweden. They are, however, big on cinnamon rolls, which I also love (no, I don't love all pastries, but each country seems to have managed something I can fully support). I had been told repeatedly before I came how awesome the cinnamon rolls are, yet once I got here, I must admit I was a bit disappointed! Places where I liked other things had cinnamon rolls that felt a bit dry to me. My image of cinnamon rolls may be skewed due to exposure at critical developmental periods to things like Cinnabon-type gooey monster cinnamon rolls and the Pillsbury ones that made Christmas morning even better. But I decided that there was no better way to know Swedish cinnamon rolls than to try a range of them. And thus was born the Cinnamon Roll Challenge. I vow to commit myself fully again to an exploration of my host country through pastry!
Our first entry (not my actual first cinnamon roll experience, just the first one I got pictures of, oops):
Kanelbullar is cinnamon roll in Swedish: kanel=cinnamon and bullar is for buns according to google translate. But these beauties came from an old lady selling them on a stand in the street on a beautiful day last weekend. I was stoked, thinking that they might end the challenge before it began, but sadly, that was not the case. I think they suffered from being put in a plastic bag, and were sorta gooey in a bad way, more like soggy. I took one out and left it on a plate to dry off a bit (get rid of bag condensation basically), but then it was just dry. I also tried heating one a bit, but no real luck there either. I'm not sure what they would have been like without bag effects, or even if the bag affected them actually. But either way, I was sad that a little old lady couldn't provide me cinnamon roll bliss. This may be better though--I haven't seen here again, so what if I had found the perfect one and never got to have it again?? I'm hoping to find my winner in a bakery where I can go regularly.... I am back to biking everywhere (here, like Groningen, is very bike centered and bike friendly) so I'm getting lots of exercise and can eat cinnamon rolls at will. Haha yeah, we'll see how long that idea lasts!
And here's another shot I love from that day in town, just for fun and because it makes me happy!
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Things that come in tubes 5
Today's item: vitamins. I forgot to take a picture in the store, but imagine rows and rows of these, like "Everything Cheese" from last time. This one is maybe cheating a bit, since I've seen vitamins in tubes like this before (in France I think), but here the tube madness was again taken to extremes, with tons of them!
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Things that come in tubes 4
This one is "Everything Cheese." Ost, the last part of the name of each of these, means cheese. A sample of the flavors of cheese in a tube are bell pepper, crayfish, ham, and chorizo. Two of the ones I'm having trouble translating (or maybe more believing) are mayonnaise cheese and game meat cheese. So that's delicious. Haven't worked up the guts to even buy one of these to try. That enormous tube of caviar I got just isn't going anywhere fast, and I think one tube of Swedish mystery in my fridge at once should be some sort of limit.
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