Saturday, June 23, 2018

Powders, Trees, Ramsoms, and Salty Licorice

Let's start with beet powder: whenever you food needs a smackdown of class, sprinkle elegantly and damn - elk tartare beauty!
A big reason we went to Finland and Estonia was because they are food havens. Above, local mushroom soup, which looks like dirty water. Below - so much salmon!
We got to try local flavors, like spruce. I'm concerned that Canadians are missing a huge evergreen culinary opportunity, having now learnt you can eat trees. We also learned about ramsoms, shown below with scallop and celery, which are fun to say and eat.
Here, steaming spruce flavours to excite Barry's palate.
Despite Barry's glee, we did not eat here, so we still don't know what Estonian Eurasian cuisine is.
I like to try dishes that I could never ever make at home. This one is called: Tomato.
While we add maple syrup to our cocktails at home, naturally, the Finns and Estonians use salmiaki, so salty licorice, a taste I finally developed once finding it in booze.
We were less sure about the naming convention of the local chocolate bar and its connotations.
At Noa, in Tallinn, we had one of the top 5 meals of our lives. They invite you to meet the chefs and see the confusing preparation of this fire-oil cooked beef bundle.
In Finland, the default assumption is that the bill will be split, because their society is more advanced. In respect for this, we took a "Man behind the Woman" shot.

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Better Building Bling

I'm not usually so much into buildings, but in Estonia and Finland, the buildings were fantastically storybook-worthy.
I felt inspired to write fairy tales about them.
Another reason I don't post about buildings is it's hard to make funny comments.
Luckily, here is Barry proving that he's taller than a Medieval Estonian, or they were better skilled at ducking.
Just on my way home to the castly-place, but I'm worried my front door doesn't have enough bling.
How about some Russian influences?
Finally, here are some gargoyles who show us how they really feel, holding up buildings all day.
We walked through the old town wall/tower to get more educated.
Along with the door bling, it's best to decorate your building with a turret, several colours, and a plague commemorating someone/something with a very long name. It makes me feel ashamed of my modern condo.
More door ideas, for your art deco lifestyle.
And the best idea for home decor - a pupetteer plaque, everyone loves that!

Sunday, June 10, 2018

Nordic Notes

Fun fact: Finland has designed ~80% and built 60% of the world's icebreakers, and here are four now.
The Finnish Päivälehti media museum is the only thing in Finland that we saw that wasn't in English. Regardless, we learned that journalists used to sit around drinking Aquavit, as shown.
In Tallinn, we learned about Neanderthal brains in the Health museum.
And about ships in the Maritime museum.
They were disposing of an extra fake torpedo.
I wasn't very good at big gun aiming.
Of course, we visited the most unusual cucumber shop to get some unusual cucumbers.
Barry posed in random places on the street.
Here, he's trying to demonstrate how the road blockers are clearly birds.
In Finland, we observed a very high proportion of blond people.
Barry was going to take a picture of a bunch of blonds behind his blond beer, but the he got distracted by real life.
There seemed to be a movement against Scottish terriers.
And there was a handy cage for pandas.