Nordic Wrap Up

I am no longer in the land of pickled fish for breakfast. Our travel adventure ended and now it’s back to regular life and peanut butter and banana sandwiches to start my day.

Even though the trip is over I have one last post to share – all the bits and pieces that struck me as interesting or funny over the course of the trip but never found their way onto Squircling:

• Europeans know how to run an airport.  This is in the Finnair lounge in Helsinki: 

Free wine and beer on tap.

• Fast and free wifi is available virtually everywhere in Helsinki and Tallinn.  Stockholm had it too, but it is more complicated in that you often need a code from the establishment.  Despite the strong tech presence in the region, I was surprised by the easy access. Maybe because it was such a nightmare for us to find good wifi when we lived on the road in 2010-2011, or maybe because near home the networks are locked up so tightly.  Helsinki and Tallinn, though, made it easy on two fairly unprepared tourists who needed to consult Google Maps, TripAdvisor and Wikitravel regularly while stopped on a random walkway.  Thanks to all the establishments that permitted us to linger on their sidewalks to surf.

• Chucks (Converse tennis shoes for you uninitiated) are the darling of northern Europe. I think they may have the greatest staying power of any fashion known to man.  I saved my pennies to purchase a bright yellow high top pair when they were in the midst of a comeback and I was about 13 years old.  I just did the math, and that was a really long time ago. These iconic shoes may disappear off the scene occasionally but they always come back, with the lag between periods of popularity shrinking each time. When I packed my bag for the Nordic Adventure, I looked longingly at my beloved navy blue Chucks, but boots seemed more appropriate so my Chucks stayed home. No one wants to be the equivalent of the person in the Hawaiian shirt and white tennis shoes that just scream LOOK AT ME, I’M A TOURIST. Well lesson learned. Other than in Lapland where it is just too darn cold for anything but wooly mammoth fur, I’m not sure there is a Swede or Finn that doesn’t own at least three pairs. I might have been able to immigrate if I’d brought mine for the trip.

• While we are on the topic of fashion, pantyhose are still a thing in Stockholm. Not tights, but the nude colored thin stockings.  I’m fairly certain I haven’t worn those since about 2001. But women and girls of all ages sported them with dressy and casual wear. Does anyone wear them in North America? I thought no (even NY businesswomen forgo them), but I’m interested in the experience of others.

• Saunas are a BIG deal in the region.  Apparently, weekly sauna time is standard for all ages. It can be a family experience; Business is sometimes conducted/concluded in saunas (that would weird me out – I find being fully clothed essential at business meetings); It is a place to relax. Apparently there are a number of different types of saunas, but we only experienced ones like I’ve seen in North America.  We got our first taste in Estonia and I thought it was an incredibly civilized way to relax and reflect after a day of tourism.  In Lapland, I was just grateful for the warmth.

• We had big plans to visit the Ikea mother ship in Sweden, but alas ran out of time. Fortunately we at least caught a glimpse of one (THE one???) from the train:

• Apparently, the Finnish are never on time; they’re always early. Clearly I could never live in Finland.

• I pronounced the few Finnish, Swedish and Estonian words I learned really badly. I have a knack for putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable.  AD had already struggled with this problem for two weeks before my arrival though and had a tip. He told me to channel my inner Viking and swore it would solve the problem. Oddly, it does.  So before I would say “thank you” I had to create a mental picture of a horned helmet on my head, then somehow my voice got deeper and the words just came out properly.  Laugh all you want, but if you go you have to try it. 

• Toward the end of the vacation we had strong flashbacks to the Around the World tour – clothes sniffing to determine what we could wear One. More. Time. It’s an unfortunate reality of long trips.  AD reached a crucial point in the trip where he didn’t have many inoffensive clothes left that matched.  The best he could cobble together for the day made him look like an Easter egg on meth. 

• While the end of a trip is always a little sad, the return home isn’t so horrible when this is your welcoming committee:

 

• Jet lag is an ugly beast. I’m on Day 5 of my eyes popping open at 5:30 am. Such an early start makes me exceptionally productive, but experiencing so much of the morning is really unsettling for me.

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That’s all I’ve got for our Nordic Adventure.  Squircling will go dormant again but I will likely revive it for our next big journey, wherever that may be. Please email me or leave a comment below if you’d like to be notified when that happens.

Let's Talk About Food

The Good 

Pastries. I mean that kind of goes without saying, but I especially liked the pastries in the areas we visited.  Cinnamon seems to be the most common flavor (and I love me some cinnamon!) with cardamom as a close second.  Generally the pastries were not as sweet as we would find in North America, and I describe the cinnamon rolls as a marriage between a North American cinnamon roll and a croissant – flakier, lighter and less sweet.  The cardamom versions were also a delight when we wanted something a little different. In the interest of science, I tasted many, many samples to be able to provide a statistically significant opinion. You’re welcome. 

Wild game.  It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that we saw some form of game on every menu. I know a lot of people don’t care for the gamey taste, but I quite like wild game both for the taste as well as the fact that it is the antithesis of factory farmed meat so I was pleased to see it is so prevalent in the region.  I sampled elk, deer and reindeer. I think this means that Santa will no longer come see me. 

Swedish meatballs.  On the breakfast buffet, our hotel in Stockholm offered tiny little meatballs that tasted like the best breakfast sausage you could ever imagine, times ten and dipped in chocolate. They weren’t actually dipped in chocolate – they just tasted that good.  Dinner meatballs served with mashed potatoes, gravy, pickled cucumber and lingonberry jam (think cranberry relish but less tart) made us very happy too. 

Tomato and cucumber slices with breakfast and on every sandwich.  This one took some getting used to first thing in the morning, but every single one of our hotel breakfast buffets in Finland, Sweden and Estonia served them every day. So I tried them every day since I like to embrace the local cuisine.  The tomatoes were not that much of a stretch but I’m not the biggest cuke fan at any meal and breakfast just seemed weird. I grew to enjoy the fresh burst it added to my plate in the morning though. Kind of like melon but without the sweetness. And it made me feel all superior and healthy as I started my day. Cukes may show up as a breakfast garnish chez Bourdages soon. From the first bite I became a fan of the crunch they add to sandwiches.

Use of seasonal produce.  Given the overwhelming prominence of root vegetables on the menus, I can only assume that the Nordic food culture emphasizes eating what’s in season. Or they are addicted to root vegetables and the menu doesn’t change throughout the year. Hard to say really. And cukes were an obvious exception to the rule! 

The European approach to food and eating generally. It’s been awhile since we’ve been in Europe and I had forgotten how different attitudes toward food can be.  Now, I’m about to make some ridiculously broad generalizations that won’t be true across the board but don’t beat me up about stereotyping – I just want to provide a flavor of things that stood out to me in contrast to what I see as a trend in North American food mores.  So here we go. Europeans eat real food. They aren’t all about the latest fad diet and superfoods – you should have seen me on my two week search to find a “mean green juice.” Yeah, no juicing hype over there. They just eat the damn vegetables and fruit.  There is none of this “OMG don’t eat [fill in the blank] because it will kill you.” For example, sugar and pastries aren’t labeled as “bad.” People simply seem to understand that they are treats that should be entirely guilt-free yet infrequent. Unless of course you are just visiting then it is perfectly acceptable to average four pastries per day.  Personally, I prefer the less drama filled European approach.

The Bad

The taste. OK, that’s kind of mean and maybe too harsh, but here’s the thing. I’m an uncomfortable carnivore at best – I like meat (more than I wish I did) but each bite causes a lot of wheels to turn in my head as I weigh the pros and cons.  The culinary skills of the cooks that prepared our meals were not exactly fantastic. The food wasn’t awful, but if you are going to kill an animal, you at least need to respect it and make the meal awesome. I stopped ordering meat entirely because it felt like a waste. And while I applaud the use of seasonal produce, an out of season spinach leaf here and there would have made me happy. Ethical considerations aside, they just need to jazz up their recipes a bit.  On the upside, the locals appear to really appreciate Italian food if the number of Italian restaurants is any indication. We supplemented local fare with a lot of risotto.

Pickled herring.  No qualifiers here. It is truly horrible. Every. Single. Breakfast. Often the breakfast buffets offered several varieties: Spiced with anchovies. Swimming in tomato sauce. Smothered in mustard and dill sauce.  I could go on.  As a good little traveler I put a tiny morsel on my plate each morning in the hopes it would grow on me. And each morning I had to choke it down. It is pretty rough before I’m even properly caffeinated.  Choosing between evils, the dill-mustard one is the least offensive because the dill is strong enough to mask the flavor a bit. Unfortunately dill can’t fix the texture. And I love sushi so it’s not like I’m fish squeamish. Pickled herring is just bad bad bad. Eeyuck! [Shudder]

Marzipan. There is an unholy obsession with marzipan in the region. Keep that stuff off of my croissant please. 

The Just OK 

Coffee. I had such high hopes for a superior coffee experience during this trip.  The coffee I mainlined drank in Iceland years ago was indescribably good, and consistently so throughout the country.  Seriously – we stopped for gas and the cup of coffee I bought out of an automatic machine ranks as one of the best I’ve ever tasted. I don’t know if it is the mineral content in their water or a well developed coffee culture, but it would almost be a reason to move there.  I expected a similar experience, especially after reading the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (it is true, many of my expectations for this trip were based on the book) – the characters can’t make it more than three paragraphs without stopping for strong coffee. These are my people! Sadly, the coffee was average. Finally on our last full day we saw a sidewalk sign in Helsinki “coffee and fresh baked goods” and followed the arrow down a small street to a charming café. FINALLY a cup of regular coffee that had some attitude. I had to double the amount of sugar, and it was awesome.  But one good cup does not a great coffee region make. I have to give it to Iceland for coffee and Italy for the espresso. The others are wannabes.

A side note about lattes in Finland.  Throughout the region, lattes were fine because espresso is naturally strong enough to be interesting. The lattes in Finland were pretty anemic, though, because even though the coffee part was good, the milk was weak.  The Finns prefer skim milk, never the best choice for a latte (said this whole milk girl).  And by “prefer” I mean that this freezing cold country has ice cream on every menu and in every shop because apparently they have an excess of cream to use up since no one will use any milk but skim.  I find that fascinating.

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While I can’t rave over the Nordic cuisine, I had a blast as we experimented and tried new things, and the food in Stockholm (the most cosmopolitan of the places we visited) was actually pretty good. Overall I think it was a positive experience because we did not expect it to be a foodie trip – it’s not as if we were in France or Italy, but instead in a land of hearty meals. A meat-and-potatoes-get-it-done kind of food culture. And at least the pickled herring produced some funny faces. 

Helsinki

Although it would have been only a very short flight from Stockholm to Helsinki, we booked a cabin in a cruise ship to return to Finland so that we could see the Stockholm archipelago as well as the many islands off of the Finnish coast.  While we did ooh and aah over the stunning ocean front homes on the Swedish isles, for the most part the 12 hour boat ride did not deliver the expected sightseeing extravaganza.  Spending all day on the ship was fantastic, though, because it gave us a bit of a break from being non-stop tourists. We read, napped and dined, and finished the day fully recharged to explore Helsinki during our final day and a half of the trip.  Never underestimate the importance of relaxation as part of your travel itinerary! 

Support of Local Businesses.  I mapped our Helsinki itinerary while AD attended a morning meeting to wrap up the business part of his trip.  He didn’t suspect a thing when I presented the list of our objectives for the day. He just shook his head when we rolled up in front of the store of a local designer. And he thought I chose to walk through the Design District because???? I say one shop in over more than two weeks of traveling is admirable, if not miraculous. Besides, a local designer focused on sustainably sourced materials? It would be irresponsible tourism not to have a peek at his store.  I loved the collection and the fact that the designer himself assisted my shopping efforts.  Unfortunately his creations don’t fit me quite right, so I had to leave behind a pair of pants that I will pine over for quite some time. On a more positive note, his jewelry fits all sizes and shapes…

Restaurants.  Never mind the cuisine, Helsinki restaurants permit dogs inside the dining room!  A slightly unruly boxer accompanied two of our neighboring diners at lunch and this guy was in our dinner restaurant: 

This lab wasn’t a therapy dog. He was just out with the family.

I find it so civilized that no one freaks out that dog germs will somehow irreparably contaminate restaurants. In Vancouver, the health department won’t even permit dogs on outside café patios. Not surprisingly, I prefer the Finnish approach. 

What the?? As I admired the broader minded approach to dogs in Finland, we chatted with AD’s Finnish friend about our respective pups and the Finn pulled out his phone to show us a photo of his.  The photo, taken within a day of our viewing, was not just a dog. It was a dog and a snake that the dog found in the yard. It’s cold in Helsinki right now. Not parka cold, but winter coat and gloves cold. The possibility of snakes never crossed my mind.  Am I safe nowhere? 

While apparently there is a reptile risk in Finland, at least your stuff is safe.  People are incredibly nonchalant about keeping their belongings from being stolen.  In our very busy dinner restaurant, a woman seated at the table closest to the door left her laptop all by its lonesome and went who knows where for an absurdly long time.  I’m a New York girl at heart so I won’t even leave my phone too far out of reach on the table while I’m seated next to it.  Who gets up and walks away from a laptop? By the door? I kind of had to keep vigil because the whole thing made me nervous.  And then after dinner we walked AD’s friend back to his bike a few blocks away smack in downtown Helsinki. While he had a flimsy cable lock run between the back wheel and the frame, the bike wasn’t attached to anything, and I’m pretty sure my nail clippers could make short work of the cable. But, the bike was still there hours later for me to witness this phenomenon. 

While Helsinki may not be my favorite city I’ve ever visited, I have to say that these experiences made me realize it is absolutely lovely. How wonderful to live where theft is such a low concern and your faithful dog can accompany you most anywhere.  They need to sort out that snake thing though.

Most Unique Churches Award.  If you go to Europe, you visit churches. It doesn’t matter if you are religious or not, it’s just what you do to experience the architecture and history.  Helsinki offered up some of the traditional style of churches that were beautiful, but it also boasts the very original Chapel of Silence and Church of the Rock.

While technically a protestant church, the Chapel of Silence is mostly meant to be a place of calm within the busy city and everyone regardless of his or her religion/background/philosophy is welcome to come benefit from the silence.

Outside of the Chapel of Silence.

AD and I looked at each other and whispered, “It looks like a sauna.” True, but it is incredibly peaceful, and not nearly as warm.

The Church of the Rock is also a protestant church that is carved directly into a mass of, well, rock. 

Apologies for the less than fantastic photo but an iPhone camera is no match for streaming morning sunshine.

I must also applaud the Church of the Rock as one of the most thorough churches ever.  Churches frequented by tourists often provide their religious pamphlets in several languages. Languages like French, English, Spanish, German – you get the idea.  The Church of the Rock seems to aim to cover ALL languages:

I had to look up Amharic because that one was new to me – it is a Semitic language spoken in Ethiopia, in case you are wondering.

Uppsala Sweden

Why did I put a day trip to Uppsala on our itinerary? Because I remember the city from the Millennium books. Seriously, had it not been for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I doubt we would have gone. We did cursory research on the place, but basically we hopped on a train Easter morning and hoped for the best. I had a moment of worry that the expedition would be a travel fail, but figured at worst we’d go to a café and then take the train back and would have at least seen a little Swedish countryside along the way.

The travel gods smiled upon us, though, and we discovered a lovely little town.  Although not much was open because it was Easter Sunday, we did get to crash the Easter service at the cathedral and enjoy the sights of this university town.  Lunch on a sunny patio and a stroll beside the river completed the day.

The Uppsala Cathedral is the tallest in all of the Nordic countries. We returned later in the day for photos so that I would not have to belly crawl down the aisle during Easter services to get a good shot. 

On our way back to the train station I learned that one of the hotels offers “After Shopping with Champagne” on Saturday afternoons.  While we did not get to experience this phenomenon, as far as I can tell it is kind of like après ski but you must shop first and apparently the appropriate beverage choice is limited to champagne.  Have I mentioned yet how much I love Sweden?

Sightseeing in Stockholm

A random street that caught my eye.

We explored Stockholm in our usual fashion – many miles walked with only loose objectives and a strong desire to turn down that next unknown and intriguing street. All peppered with many café stops. Contrary to our normal practice, we also found ourselves in a few museums after we figured out that we enjoy those with a history focus. It’s art museums that aren’t really our thing. Apparently we need a story, not just pictures. 

ABBA the Museum.

I love ABBA’s music but in our home office when I play their songs it triggers a fair amount of whining from my coworker. So I’m still surprised that AD told me about the museum. I believe he brought it up as a joke. His mistake. I knew almost nothing about the band but learned that they have a beautiful story of two couples that pursued what they loved, and created some excellent music for the rest of us in the process. And despite AD’s reticence, he had a blast. Look at him sing Dancing Queen!

Because I like my blog readers, I have not included a video/audio version. The same goes for my version of the tune.

Fotografiska.  OK, OK. A photography museum is more art than history, but I make exceptions for photography.  Most of the pieces aren’t exactly ones I would hang in my home, but the exhibitions were interesting. They told a story. If nothing else, the visit was worthwhile for the view over the water from the café on the top floor. (Café stop No. 438 of the day.)

The Vasa. Talk about a work fail, back in the early 1600s, shipbuilders created the massive ship Vasa, which sank on its maiden voyage when it encountered the second gust of wind in its sailing life. The base of the boat wasn’t wide enough to hold sufficient ballast to keep it from tipping, and the cannon holes were too low so when it tipped, it filled. Whoopsie.  It stayed at the bottom of the ocean for 333 years before someone found it and raised it IN ONE PIECE. The boat we saw in the museum is 98% original, which boggles the mind. (Kudos to the museum for clear indication of what was not original.)  Not to mention the fact that the ship was raised in the mid 1900s so divers wore those cumbersome suits with the big ball shaped helmets – not exactly modern equipment and comforts.  Malaysian Airlines should maybe considering reaching out to this salvage company…

It’s a lot bigger than it looks in the photo. The museum has eight floors of viewing platforms to permit visitors to see it top (not counting the masts – the top two-thirds of the masts aren’t attached because they won’t fit in the building) to bottom.