Finland, Estonia, and Sweden

[Brisketexan 105180]

Okay, so I amuse myself with the Texan-Mexican options in, ummm, non-adjacent areas. A sampling for your chuckles (from Gothenburg and Stockholm):

[Brisketexan 105180]

And some Stockholm scenes (where it’s sunny and pleasant…then cold and rainy…then sunny again):





Statue of St George slaying the dragon, which is FASCINATING in its detail. Uses moose antlers as part of the dragon’s spikes, etc.



Mucho fika for us:




And the Vasa, a super cool museum. To exhibit a giant-ass ship that Sweden spent a fortune building….only to have it capsize in the harbor a mile into its maiden voyage. Turns out that it was subject to numerous design changes with no real engineering, just the shipbuilders’ dead-reckoning. Which made it top-heavy and doomed. What I loved about walking out of that museum was that my wife said what I was already thinking: “seeing and reading the story of that massive engineering failure, it made me think of the aggies.” My wife and I are a good match.

[Brisketexan 105180]

I don’t want just any tattoo. It has to be a BESPOKE tattoo…because I want the full portrait of Pauly Shore on my left ass check to be elegant and refined.

[Brisketexan 105180]

Some of our grub from the trip:

We got to Gothenburg kinda late, so just went to our hotel. Where we met our daughter and some of our Norwegian friends, and were surprised by our son who snuck over from Scotland (our Norwegian exchange daughter got a great video of my wife’s surprise, which was awesome).

We went next door for drinks and snacks. Which included herring three ways:



Then the next night, with the full contingent of Norwegians joining us, we went full Swedish:



Some of the pastry selection at one of our fika breaks:





More to follow. Off to dinner.

[Brisketexan 105180]

Ok, will follow up with some wrap-up pics, more details, etc. but for the moment…in the BA lounge before our flight to London (then on to Austin), and sitting behind me, in full fucking drag, with giant falsie boobs and the whole deal, is Eddie fucking Izzard. I LOVE Eddie Izzard. Not bugging him, though.

[royiv 9333]

39 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Ok, will follow up with some wrap-up pics, more details, etc. but for the moment…in the BA lounge before our flight to London (then on to Austin), and sitting behind me, in full fucking drag, with giant falsie boobs and the whole deal, is Eddie fucking Izzard. I LOVE Eddie Izzard. Not bugging him, though.

Just as a heads-up, Izzard has been using she/her pronouns for several years. She's also been quoted as saying she doesn't dress in drag, she just dresses how she wants to.

[Brisketexan 105180]

Just as a heads-up, Izzard has been using she/her pronouns for several years. She's also been quoted as saying she doesn't dress in drag, she just dresses how she wants to.

Yeah, literally had the pronoun conversation with the wife a few mins ago - truly don’t know the current pronoun, been a fan since Eddie was a transvestite “he.” Not surprised Eddie’s a “she” now. And…she can SAY she’s not dressed in drag, but today’s outfit, with the Louboutins, the frequent lipstick adjustment, the fabulous purse…she’s definitely rocking it.

[royiv 9333]

4 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yeah, literally had the pronoun conversation with the wife a few mins ago - truly don’t know the current pronoun, been a fan since Eddie was a transvestite “he.” Not surprised Eddie’s a “she” now. And…she can SAY she’s not dressed in drag, but today’s outfit, with the Louboutins, the frequent lipstick adjustment, the fabulous purse…she’s definitely rocking it.

Your body of work around here establishes that you meant no harm or offense to anyone.

[Native Horn 3505]

Really enjoyed all the pics and descriptions of your adventure, Brisket.  Thanks so much for sharing with us.

[dcbc 14496]

10 hours ago, Native Horn said:

Really enjoyed all the pics and descriptions of your adventure, Brisket.  Thanks so much for sharing with us.

Second that.  I feel almost like I can cross this trip off my list.

 

Narrator:  He did not.

[Brisketexan 105180]

11 hours ago, Native Horn said:

Really enjoyed all the pics and descriptions of your adventure, Brisket.  Thanks so much for sharing with us.

We're back at the casa now.  I'll go through some additional pics and post this weekend, and post some wrap-up thoughts (on reflection, what we liked the most, the least, want to do again/more of, etc.).  Glad to share this stuff - I have gotten a lot out of other people's travel posts on here.

[Chewbacca 7780]

Okay, so I amuse myself with the Texan-Mexican options in, ummm, non-adjacent areas. A sampling for your chuckles (from Gothenburg and Stockholm):

I saw that place when we were in Stockholm. Cracked me up.

[Chewbacca 7780]

And some Stockholm scenes (where it’s sunny and pleasant…then cold and rainy…then sunny again):





Statue of St George slaying the dragon, which is FASCINATING in its detail. Uses moose antlers as part of the dragon’s spikes, etc.



Mucho fika for us:




And the Vasa, a super cool museum. To exhibit a giant-ass ship that Sweden spent a fortune building….only to have it capsize in the harbor a mile into its maiden voyage. Turns out that it was subject to numerous design changes with no real engineering, just the shipbuilders’ dead-reckoning. Which made it top-heavy and doomed. What I loved about walking out of that museum was that my wife said what I was already thinking: “seeing and reading the story of that massive engineering failure, it made me think of the aggies.” My wife and I are a good match.

I don't know if you used the restrooms there, but they are unisex. Confused me when I went in and saw a woman at the sink. No biggie, though. All stalls have floor to ceiling doors.

[Brisketexan 105180]

I don't know if you used the restrooms there, but they are unisex. Confused me when I went in and saw a woman at the sink. No biggie, though. All stalls have floor to ceiling doors.

Yep. Was refreshing, actually. Made things much easier and faster, particularly for my wife. There were a handful that were M or W, but mostly unisex. Because who gives a damn? Unless, of course, you’re having a level 5 assplosion experience, and you then need to exit the stall to face 3 women at the sink looking back at you in complete disgust. Didn’t happen to me on this trip, but it seems inevitable.

[Brisketexan 105180]

Post-trip wrap-up and summary:

Helsinki: cool city with a fair amount of stuff to do and see.  Not overwhelming (in the end, it is just another relatively modern European capital).  But being on the water/archipelago makes it very cool.  The sea pool and sauna was a great experience, as was the day trip out to Suomenlinna to see the fortress/town and such.  Finnish is an incredibly hard language – it was really the first place we’ve been where I was at a linguistic loss.  I could say hello and thank you and a couple of other words, but that was it.  And it didn’t get any better – fortunately, everyone spoke pretty decent English, but that was just embarrassing.  I felt like the ultimate entitled American, and I hate that.  We stayed at the Hotel Lilla Roberts, and it was fantastic – great and helpful staff. For example, we stayed there three nights, then left for a night for a 36 hour jaunt to Turku, and we left our one big bag behind in their care.  When we checked back in, it was in our room with a nice note and some chocolates.  Breakfast at the hotel was really well-done as well. Honestly, the best meal we had was pizza at Skiffer Erottaja – super cracker-thin crust, tasty meal.  Many places there (and in Sweden) had the ubiquitous shrimp toast (shrimp salad on rye bread), toast skagen.  It’s good, you’ll get it somewhere.  But you’ll get tired of it being EVERYWHERE.  The vanha kauppahalli (big food hall by the water) was cool, and some decent grub there.  Food was a bit on the pricey side.  There are also a bunch of tents/temporary food setups on the north end of the harbor that prepared and sold a variety of Finnish food – obviously meant to cater to the cruise passengers who just have a few hours to look around, but some of it looked good enough.  Also found out that on Saturdays, at the Esplanadi park, is a hodge-podge Asian market (heavily Thai) with all kinds of grub, and it was a lot cheaper and looked good.  You can get fried chicken feet, even.  We had a nice dinner at a traditional Finnish place, Restaurant Sea Horse.  It was fine….decent enough food, but really bland.  The weather while we were in Finland was amazing – lows in the high 40s, highs in the high 50s to 60.  The people there were LOVING it, especially because it had dumped snow on them just two weeks before (there was still a bit of visible snow in shady places as we drove around).

Once we were back in Helsinki to take the ferry, the ferry to Tallinn was easy – we did take a cab to that, as it was a long walk away from our hotel.  Booked the ferry online in advance, paid 25 euros per ticket extra to sit in the lounge area (free coffee and breakfast, wifi, and very manageable crowd), I recommend that.  Food there was fine.  Oh, and the night before, we tried Hesburger, their big burger chain.  Don’t.  Just.  Don’t.

Fiskars and Turku: we rented a car in Helsinki, and drove the southern route west to go to Fiskars, which is now a craftsman’s village.  Obviously a hopping place in the summer – seriously, I bet it’s hard to park there.  But in early spring, it was fine, and most places were open.  Your wife will love it.  Lots of shopping and crafty stuff.  My wife actually got a long med-weight jacket that is perfect for our climate, and a great small purse (in Austin FC colors) for travel and to go to games.  It was actually a pretty cool little town, and worth the stop.  Then, we headed north through Salo (our friend’s parents live there, but we didn’t stop to see them – we don’t really know them) to the northern route west to get to Turku.  It was really nice to see the country starting to turn to spring.  Again, I bet in summer, some of it is downright spectacular.  Once we got to Turku, we checked out the castle, which was restored very well, and was a cool visit.  Then the next day, the cathedral, the oldest in the country (Turku used to be the capital).  Then a trip out to Ruissalo island which, again, is a HOPPING place in the summer (has a beach, there’s a big music festival there).  We had it largely to ourselves.  Got to hike some pretty coastal and forest trails, kicked up some deer, followed a woodpecker.  It was really pretty.  Drive back to Helsinki was on the main highway.  Was a bit weird seeing mileage markers for St. Petersburg, but hey, Russia exists.

Tallinn: the ferry drops you not far from old town.  Catch a cheap cab, and you’re there.  We stayed at the Hotel Telegraaf, in the old….telephone and telegraph building.  It was plenty nice, central to old town, a Marriot property.  So…Estonia HATES them some Russians.  A shitload of their museums, history, explanations of shit, etc., talks about the years when they were occupied by Russia.  Ukrainian flags and support ALL OVER, especially out front of the Russian embassy.  At our daughter’s recommendation, we got the Tallinn Card, which gets you admission to all kinds of museums and such.  We went and toured the old city walls and the museum through which you enter at the Kiek in de Koki tower (hehheh…kick in the cock).  Hey, did you know that Tallinn was a Hanseatic city, which followed Lubeck law?  You will.  Can’t escape it.  The old walls and such were quite interesting, though.  We had lunch at a Georgian restaurant near the walls, Tbilisi.  It was actually really damned good.  We also visited the main square (an iconic place), one of the churches where you can take an elevator up pretty high to get a good view of the old town, the maritime museum (has a hanseatic cog that was found a few years back, actually some pretty interesting stuff related to that), and a plaque to the Polish sub the Orzel outside (a story I read as a kid and loved – one of the “great escape” stories of WWII).  Also visited the Russian orthodox cathedral, which is more modern, and striking…fuck that place and their Russian apologist bullshit.  Visited the Vabamu Museum of Occupation (again, the Russians OCCUPIED Estonia, lemme tell you) – it was closing early for a private event, but we still got to see a fair amount of it, would have liked to have seen more.  Had dinner at a Ukrainian place, Restaurant Odessa.  It was interesting and good as well.  We over-ordered dumplings, but such is life.  Next day, we wandered old town some more, visited the old KGB cells (again, fuck Russia, a message Estonia is super comfortable with).  Read a bunch of material about the Forest Brothers, and their resistance against the Russians – did a whole lot more reading on that later in the evening.  It started to rain on us that evening, we had dinner at a nice, generic modern European place nearby that night, Restoran Spot.  It was quite good, but unremarkable.  Then the next morning, a cab to the airport to rent a car and head east, to Lahemaa national park, up on a series of peninsulas into the Gulf of Finland.

Lahemaa: we rent our car at the airport.  Wife needs breakfast.  No problem, there’s a giant mall right next door, has cafes and coffee shops and such all in it.  SHIT.  None of them open till 10:00, and it’s just after 9:00. Hey, there’s a McDonalds there – I know it sucks to resort to that, but we know they have breakfast, let’s walk over there.  They’re open!.....and serving fucking burgers.  At 9:15 am.  No breakfast.  Just burgers.  Shit.  Okay, we get in the car and drive till I see a big Olerex, one of their gas station chains.  We go in, and find some coffee, a couple of pastries, and a yogurt for my wife (she needs some protein to start the day).  Gal at the register speaks ZERO English…and Estonian is as weird as Finnish, so I understand NOTHING.  She’s gesturing wildly, asking us several questions.  To which I respond by just handing her money – I picked this stuff up, I want to pay and leave.  Later, I realized that she was likely asking us if we wanted her to heat our pastries.  Sigh.  It was a pretty shit breakfast.  Off we go.  We head east.  Again, odd to see mileage signs – and not very far – to Narva, on the Russian border.  Along the highway, open farmland, with lots of geese in the fields.  Could have sworn some were Specklebellies (turns out, I was right).  We exit the highway and turn north around Kolga, and head up to the Kasmu peninsula.  It was a gorgeous spot.  A very maritime village, former site of the Estonian maritime academy.  Rocky beaches, glacial erratic boulders scattered about, lots of birds (nesting season was beginning), and primeval forests.  We hiked a decent bit through the forest, out onto the tip of the peninsula.  One of the prettier spots we’ve been.  Again, I’m sure it’s HOPPING in the summer – there were lots of little cabins you can rent, activities and amenities, etc., that just weren’t open for the season.

After our shitty breakfast, we were hungry for lunch.  At this time of year (but honestly, all the time), there weren’t a lot of options.  We drove back down the peninsula and east to Vosu, a beach resort town.  And it clearly is a big beach town (again, hopping in the summer).  There was a Russian pub open – all the travelers in the area were going there, as it was the only real option.  Decent meal, all things considered.  Wife had some sort of breaded chicken dish, I had a potato and bacon porridge with sour cream and pickles on the side (SUPER Russian), and we got some fried pelmeni as a road snack.  Properly fortified, we headed back west, to our main destination – the hike through the Viru bog.  Note that there are all KINDS of sights and hikes throughout the park – we barely scratched the surface.  So, we get to the Viru site, and begin our hike.  Well, first we hit the crapper at the trail head, as I was convinced that there would be no further facilities (I was right).  The hike takes you through a big-ass peat bog, a fascinating environment.  You walk through the forest for a bit, then get to a wide boardwalk taking you over the bog.  That boardwalk ends in an observation tower – all told, it takes maybe an hour.  We didn’t see many people, but they were all doing that route – heading as far as the observation post, then hiking back.  But the trail is a LOOP.  It continues through the bog, looping around it, and then back through the forest to take you back to where you began.  But the boardwalk also narrows to being two boards wide.  Fuck it, we were there to see the whole thing.  We did the loop.  And did not see a SINGLE additional person.  Nobody.  We had the place to ourselves.  It was quiet, but constant waterfowl activity – geese overhead, and ducks swooping in and landing next to us periodically.  There are a couple of spots with benches and observation decks where you can just sit, and watch, and be.  And we did all that.  It was a pretty good hike – another 2 hours – but it was great.  I can see how it would be hot in the summer, and more crowded, so if you do it, make sure to bring some water.

We wrap up, get to the car, and head out to find the cabin I’ve rented (near Kolga) for the night.  It’s a little wooden cabin on the banks of a little river.  Fireplace, sauna inside (both were stoked and ready to light for us).  We got there and dropped our stuff, then looked for some dinner.  Again….not many options.  We had to drive about 20 minutes to Kuusalu, to a little pizza joint.  It was fine – it was dinner.  Hit a grocery to pick up some eggs and such so I could make breakfast the next day (realized we needed to tend to that on our own).  Then back to the cabin.  It was getting a bit chilly.  We were beat from hiking.  Lit the fire.  Lit the sauna.  We sat in front of the fire.  We hit the sauna.  I did a partial cold plunge in the river (HOLY MOTHER OF SHIT IT WAS COLD).  Then back to the sauna, which felt amazing.  Bedroom was upstairs.  We didn’t have a specific agenda the next day, so slept in.  Got up, made breakfast, relaxed, and headed out.  On the way out, we passed Kolga Manor, an old manor of a timber family.  It has fallen into significant disrepair.  Sometimes, it’s open, but not this part of the season. But there’s a small museum next to it.  And it said “open,” so we stuck our heads in.  Nobody there.  Until this woman comes downstairs, having heard us come in.  Her name was Anu, and she was definitely surprised to see us.  We paid our 5 euros each…and she then walked us through the entire museum, which is really just a hodge-podge of local shit, from the really old to the relatively new (a bunch of shit from the 1980 Moscow Olympics, for example).  Anu was kick-ass.  Her English wasn’t great, but she soldiered through, and we helped her fill in words, and just visited with her.  Truly an awesome part of the trip, and unexpected.  From there, we headed out, back towards Tallinn (we had a flight out late afternoon).  On the way, we stopped at Jagala Juga…which is an awesome name, but is also a pretty cool waterfall – the widest in Estonia.  The rest of the river’s course to the Gulf of Finland is a big trout and salmon river – killed me that I didn’t arrange to fish on this trip at all.  Lunch was snack stuff at another Olerex on the way to the airport – I had an Estonian gas station hot dog, as one should do.  Also, by then, I had picked up on two words of Estonian: “Pood and Khovik.”  Food and Coffee.  As I pulled over to the Olerex to tell my wife we could get food and coffee there, she asked how I knew – “dude…Pood and Khovik.  Those are our key words.”  After a nice break, we ramble on to the Tallinn airport, which was pretty easy to navigate to.  And, right as we are getting there, the skies open up.  We got really lucky on the weather, and had decent skies and decent temps the whole time.  So, we board our Finnair flight to Gothenburg to see our daughter.  Well, we had to go through Helsinki first.  That’s literally a 20 minute flight in a twin prop puddle jumper.  Surely from Helsinki to Gothenburg, we’ll have a decent plane.  NOPE.  We have an hour layover, but then get back on the SAME GODDAMNED shitty twin prop.  Oh well.  It got us there.

Gothenburg and Stockholm summary to follow……