Go blue. Christmas Eve lunch.

Since the food has been pretty unfairly left in the orphan role in this blog (when was it you last time saw a recipe here, well?), here will be an overview of what we ate on Christmas Eve. Although the title mentions Christmas Eve lunch, we actually just kept eating all day long.

From top left: parmesan bowls with sprouts (idea form Scott, made by me), melon with jamon, jamon wrapped goat cheese spread, grilled bell pepper and different spreads, bell pepper wrapped goat cheese spread,grilled asparagus, beef tenderloin, grilled lobster (all made by Scott), creme brulee with fresh raspberries (idea from Scott, made by me + burnt sugar by Scott), crostini with different toppings and grilled salmon with mustard sauce (all made by Scott).

Considering how well the creme brulee turned out for making it the first time and the industrial size burner Scott has, we can easily open a cafe. Mediterranean maybe, because everything else was delicious too.

Go blue. Disappointment in the consumer society

It has been a while, since I've been wanting to complain about the playgrounds here. There are a lot of schools, kindergarden and parks in our residential areas and at least one playground in each of those. And few swings on every playground. And I like to swing. For some unknown reason there are hardly any kids on those playgrounds. But back to the swings. While everywhere else the seat is hard plastic or wood, here they have something like soft rubber seats that fits the butt or in the case of an adult (or bigger kid) can't fir it, but still tries hard on both sides. Anyway, the swings could be so much more enjoyable here.

What we could use as example from here in the everyday traffic in Estonia, are the crossing signs. As you can see on the picture, there is the sign pointing out the crossing, yellow lights, loudspeaker and solar panel. There's also a button you can't see on the pic. If you want to cross the road, you push the button and immediately there will be yellow lights flashing for the drivers to let them know that a pedestrian will start crossing the novelty here - a crossing. At the same time, the pedestrian (with visual impairment) is informed through loudspeakers that all the bling and whistles are turned on for the drivers and it should be fairly safe to cross the road now. And I think, it's especially cool that all this can be done using solar power.

There were 5 days off during Christmas time and due to not feeling that great, Scott decided to spend the Christmas Day in bed. And since on that day I had all those great ideas of what I need from stores right that time, I checked the opening hours of the stores. Turned out that in this consumer society the Christmas Day is worse than a regular Sunday in Germany - there is absolutely no store open, where bad planners could go and start buying some sweaters, mugs and white wine.

In addition to the bed sheet system I haven't managed to create a mutually benefiting relationship with the pillow either, so yesterday we went to Home Goods so I could get a new pillow. If you go to some good-night-shop in Estonia, the brands or products, you see, are mainly something like "Sleepwell" or similar or the pillows are divided based on the material like lamb wool, feather, polyester. Here, first all the pillows were sold in a package of two exclusively and second, they only had four brands: Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein, Tommy Bahama and Ralph Lauren. Each and every one of them unknown as great pillow producer to me. So, we brought home two pillows made by little helpers of Ralph Lauren with the promise written on the package: best pillow for most sleepers. Turned out, I'm not one of the crowds and can't sleep with my head almost up. Ralph's good sleep pillows will be returned. Will keep looking.

Go blue. Sheeps, Larry and cart stealer

Dear reader, I know, it's been few months, since I promised to write about the savings on highways in US and Larry's house and weed and everything, you can subscribe to here. And I'm sure, you've been impatiently waiting for it, because, what else can be more exciting than weed, right? But before I write about all those topics, I want to write about the blanket. I'm still not happy with the bedding habits here. As I've said before, the blanket covers have still not been launched in this country and people sleep with the combo of blanket and sheet. Which is not a surprise, because they also still use checks to pay for stuff. Anyway, the blanket + sheet combination has been driving me nuts, because they never remain nicely aligned with each other. And on top of that we have few lighter blankets here, which were not enough on chillier nights, so I ended up sleeping under a sheet, two blankets and a fleece. And there's also a down blanket, which I tried once and woke up 4 pounds lighter, after sweating those 4 pounds out during the night. Had to squeeze the sheets in the morning. In Tallinn we have a nice lightweight and warm lamb wool blanket and since the prices for lamb wool blankets start by around 400 USD in this country I decided to bring one from Estonia. Or rather I decided that Scott will bring one with him. I ordered it, nice and warm and two-layered and Scott did bring it over. I also bought a cover for it. First one in this country probably. Well, anyway, we tried our best to sleep under the new blanket, but after the third night had to admit that the blanket is so damn heavy that it's even difficult to turn a side under it. So, I unstiched the layers yesterday and now we have two lamb wool blankets. Not as warm and soft as the one in Tallinn, but light and inside a cover!

So, now all the other promised topics. Two houses down from us lives Larry. In a fairly nondescript white house. While during the day the house is just white and plain, after dark Larry turns on the blue light that lights up the whole wall and is visible to the furthest end of the street. If that blue would be blinking, it would be like a parade of police cars, protecting the prime minister. When I saw it for the first time, we were walking home in the night and I mentioned to Scott how ugly that lit wall is, Scott thought that it might not be a good idea to say it so loud that Larry can hear. But I think, he has the right to know.

There's an interesting phenomenon on the highways here - I've seen three lanes in several places on the highway, of which the third one sometimes is open, sometimes closed for the traffic. For the later case there are huge signs above the lane that say "Lane closed on the road". Since the roads in Michigan are just as bad as the streets in Tallinn, I can safely assume that it's to save money - if it's not used, it doesn't wear.

And lastly, about the weed, to pay off the fall debts. Several times last fall we ended up getting plain weed when buying cilantro and basil. We wanted to make cilantrohummus, but no matter how much of the herbs I threw in, the most that hummus tasted, was like fresh grass. Or not that fresh. Same with the pesto I made of the "fresh basil".

Some more fresh news too. Since it had been several months that I last visited TJ Maxx yesterday, I also took a cart. It's something I don't do usually, because, if I can't hold the stuff, it's easier not to buy it. Anyway, I had put a sweater and two shirts in my cart and after returning to it after taking a look at purses and pajamas, it turned out that some bastard had just stolen it. Not that it would have been too difficult for me (unlike for those Americans, who drive from door to door) to walk those 20 steps to the entrance to get a new cart, but TJ Maxx is usually selling only few copies of each item and I couldn't find new sweater and shirts. Anyway, I had found some other things to try on and made my way to the fitting rooms, where I found my sweater and shirts from the stand, where people put the stuff they don't plan to buy. Well, at least that. Anyway, I ended up buying that shirt. And also a comfy night dress. Anyhow, my favourite aisle in that store is the one with night and lounge wear. I couldn't care less about all those fancy dresses and things, but all the nice and soft pajamas, nightshirts, warm slippers and so on I would take home in a heartbeat. That brings me to the next topic, which is Christmas presents. Got mine last night and it turned out to be a soft and warm blue lounge set. From Uniqlo and matches great with my Uniqlo slippers.

The plan for the day was to do nothing. Just sleep, read, eat, watch TV. I was just finishing my second cup of coffee when I saw Rebecca pulling in. She was on her cookieround and brought us a jar of homemade cookies. Brunch continued.

Few months ago I wrote about the lipstick that I ordered that left a sandpaper layer on my lips and how I had to claim my money back through Paypal. Obviously the seller wanted to make up for the inconveniences I went through and had sent me another lipstick. What I should do with it, I have actually no idea.

I have never understood, how Love Actually is so popular. I think, I had watched it twice and it's one the most pointless and dragging movies I've seen. But it's December and as usually there are lists of best Christmas movies being published everywhere and Scott, who hadn't seen it yet, suggested to watch that masterpiece of the century. First 20-30 minutes into the movie I couldn't really understand, why I never liked the movie, but after dragging myself through the next 1h45m of stretching the rubber band, I very clearly remembered why I never was impressed by it. 10 absolutely not connected love or cheating stories, cheesy ending and otherwise lot of cliches. Anyway, today morning Scott had nerve to say that since he suffered through Love Actually the next movie choice should be his. Good thing, I wasn't left speechless and was able to let him know, what I think of the gesture I made for my dear husband, who had never seen the Christmas romance of the century and yawned those more than two hours in front of the TV.

Go blue. Go, Gaili!

The morning began at around 3:30am when it was clear that there won't be anymore sleeping that night. I got up, checked the availability of the taxis and there were several within few minutes. When we were ready to leave to the airport at 4:50am, because my flight was departing in 1h35m and started to call the taxi, it turned out that everyone in Tallinn had the same plan and none of the three providers didn't have any car to provide. Scott finally managed to book Uber, which was supposed to arrive already in - tadaaa! - 24 minutes. Tulika told me they can deliver in 12 minutes. Since it was not possible to cancel Uber and apparently the driver did step on the gas, we ended up with two cars on the street waiting us to get in.

The flight to Copenhagen as well as the almost 5 hour layover there was fairly eventless. Not how I would describe the rest of the trip though. We took off and and the crew started to serve drinks before lunch. As usual I asked for coke and tomato juice. My favourite combo on the plane, because coke sometimes helps prevent headache and tomato juice can be seen as food in case the actual food ends up nothing remotely tasty. So, they put a coke and the glass of tomato juice on the tray table and told me that only one drink is complimentary, the second one is for purchase. Since I didn't know that, I also didn't want to buy the other one. The stewardess took the glass of already poured out tomato juice back.

So I reached for my water bottle from the pocket of the seat in front of me and ended up with the whole back panel of that seat in my hand. Turned out that they need a mechanic to fix it and they offered me a seat 6 rows up, where the front seat was intact. I moved there with my stuff and honestly, I've rarely seen someone so disappointed as the dude whose seat next to I took. Obviously half an hour after take off he didn't think that someone might come and sit there, so he had made himself pretty comfortable over both seats. Once he realized that he actually does have to gather his stuff and empty the other seat for me, he first tried to give me his window seat, but I aint no stupid.

Lunch finished, a can of coke and cup of coffee as well and cleaning the dishes halfway done the plane flew straight into a turbulence. The crew was sent to their seats and have some rest, the cleaning was left unfinished. 20 minutes later and the coke and coffee I had been drinking started to make their way to the light at the end of the tunnel, but the plane was stilling going through turbulence and made some freefalls. Size of the bladder didn't make it easy for several passengers, who started to sneak to the toilet and weren't too concerned about the crew's order to return to the seat and fasten the seatbelt. After those 20 minutes the captain spoke. Either English language or general communication skills didn't seem to be his stronger sides, I only understood that he once mentioned a mechanic and that for the next hour we should consider heavy turbulence and the passengers should, please, sit back and relax, because he's not going to turn off the seatbelt signs anytime soon. Once 45 minutes had passed of the mentioned hour and the plane had been more or less stable for at least few minutes, I also made a long waited beeline to the toilet.

In Dulles I had 2 hour stopover, so I didn't even hope to be able to catch my next flight. As for the immigrants it was strongly forbidden to switch on the phone before customs, during the more than an hour in the passport control line I couldn't look for alternatives. I actually got out of the plane fairly fast, after that a bus took us to the next terminal and that took 20 minutes. The immigration line, as said 1h05m and already I was standing in front of the officer. I answered him, why I'm coming to US, why my husband's not with me, why I don't live in US and how long we know each other. After that I was sure that his hand gesture can only mean that I should kindly wait until they take me to the secondary screening to specify all the details, but he only wanted to take my photo and I could sprint towards the customs. After that the security check and once I made it to that line, the boarding for my Detroit flight had begun. Laptop out, liquids out, fleece off (hadn't even bothered to put on the jacket meanwhile), shoes off. Through the screening, turned out that I should have had taken Kindle out as well, so purse through screening again. Stuff back in the bag, shoes on, didn't bother tying the laces and, having 15 minutes to departure, my gate more than 900 meters away, took off running. Halfway there I heard the message that "Last call to the flight to Detroit, the gate is closing". Not even Usain Bolt would have been able to make a better performance, moreover, how often have you seen him running while carrying a backpack, having a purse over his shoulder, a jacket under arm and shoelaces untied? I made it to the gate, managed to reply "Detroit" to the question, where I'm flying to and wasn't able to react any way to the statement "Oh, you made it". Went through the gate, showed the airport guy at the terminal door my boarding pass and mentioned Detroit and he pointed me to the plane. I walked over to the plane, boarded and was slightly surprised to see that it was a  2+1 seats plane when the lady behind me asked, where I'm flying, to Charlottesville? I answered that didn't plan to and I'd rather go to Detroit. Turned out that the aircraft, shown by the ground handling, does not fly to Detroit and my plane was on totally different direction. Once I've found the right one and arrived by the ramp, it had started to close the door. Having lost few pounds due to the heavy exercise in the terminal I squeezed myself in and was one and half an hour later in Detroit. And one more hour later home.

Mas que solamente ciudad, Barcelona. We walk.

While I woke up with headache yesterday, today Scott was in food coma and couldn't drag himself out of the bed. Finally he managed it, we packed our things, brought the luggage to the reception and started our usual route - bread store (no bocadilla con jamon y queso, no chocolate croissants), then unusual stop in another bread store (they had the bocadilla) and cafe. I went in to order coffee and chocolate croissants and coke and it turned out that the croissants arrive in 10 minutes. We were not in hurry, so we sat down in the terrace, waited for the coffee and few minutes later saw a guy biking with a huge carton full of pastries and few minutes later we had fresh coffee, cold coke and warm chocolate croissant in front of us.

While standing in the traffic jam on the cathedral square yesterday, I noticed a rooftop bar and decided that we need to get there. After the breakfast we entered the hotel, took the elevator to the roof and enjoyed the views. Since nobody came during the ten minutes we spent there to offer us food or drinks and we had taken all the pictures we wanted, we went back down. As we didn't have any other plans, we took a longer road to Gracia, had quiche and soup in a Portuguese cafe and made our way to our churrosjoint. Scott had learned from mistakes and we ordered one churro for each - I had the dulce de leche and Scott the chocolate filled churro. Walked to the hotel, took our luggage, bought some bocadillas con jamon for the road to avoid eating those lousy Lufthansa sandwiches and went to the airport. 22.556 steps after arriving home.

Mas que solamente ciudad, Barcelona. We eat.

I woke up with a headache that turned by the time I made it to the bathroom (considering the size of the room I could basically step from bed into bathroom) into a migraine. I took a pill and went back to sleep. By 11am I felt more or less OK and already 11:30 we stepped out on to the street. Our first stop was again the bread store, which to Scott's Great Disappointment didn't have the bocadillas con jamon y queso. As consolation he took a tiny pizza and 3 chocolate croissants. We went to our cafe, ordered a coffee and a coke and ate those chocolate croissants.

After those not-so-successful restaurant visits, we made even more thorough research and googled the best pintxobar in town. After the breakfast we walked some in the Barry Gothic, but after it was clear that several thousands of tourists had the same plan and it took us half an hour the cross the cathedral square (appr. 100 meters), we flushed that plan down the toilet and made our way straight to the pintxobar. We got the seats comfortably just at the counter, where we had more than 10 different pintxos within reach and at least 30 more that required us to get up to have some. In case the loyal reader doesn't know, pintxo is a tapas originally from Basque area and means a delicious snack that had been placed on a slice of bread. It can be some tuna or Spanish omelette or morcilla (blood sausage) or sausage wrapped into bacon and then fixed with a toothpick. Eat what you want and how much you want and when done, gather your toothpicks, because the bill will be calculated based on the number of toothpicks you have. As a new thing for me, also the desserts were on display and had toothpicks in them, so I ate a crema catalana to finish the lunch. We ate until we could not eat anymore and went to pay the bill with our 16 toothpicks. All the way back to our hotel Scott told me how great the food was and if we would have gone there already yesterday, we definitely would have gone again today. I decided that since the drum was gone anyway (read: diet cancelled), the drumsticks can go too and offered that we can have dinner there too. Anyway, being full from lunch, it was time to go to my favourite churrosjoint to have some dessert. Well, the drum obviously had lots of drumsticks. We walked some more in the city, shopped in grocery store and Uniqlo, made a stop in the hotel and returned to the pintxobar. This time we had a plan and strategy and had different pintxos with tuna, chicken, minced meat and guacamole, shredded meat (favourites!), shrimps and then some flan and chocolate mousse. The result of our plan and strategy was 27 toothpicks. In all fairness I need to say that bigger part of them was on Scott's plate. The drum didn't have that many drumsticks. 29.725 steps.

Mas que solamente una ciudad, Barcelona. Gaudi.

In Berlin our main goal was shopping, sorry sightseeing. In Barcelona the idea was to eat. And then eat some more. Having chosen the main eateries, all our other plans, that we really didn't have, were made around those. On Friday we wanted to have dinner in one small fish restaurant and on Saturday to have lunch in the Argentinian buffet. First monkey wrench in the plan appeared in Frankfurt when I was checking the opening times of the fish restaurant and it turned out that the family who is owning it, is having holidays and the place is closed. Quick Google also claimed that the door of the Argentinian joint has been closed for awhile. Oh, well.

Anyway, the morning had broken and us, who booked a quiet room could watch other windows few meters away instead of stretching ourselves on the sunny balconies overlooking Via Laietana. We went out and since our hotel is nicely located in El Born, we made a quick stop in the bread store, where Scott bought bocadilla con jamon y queso and few little chocolate croissants and sat down in a cafe next to the market. Got some more chocolate criossants, coffee and enjoyed the morning.

We walked to La Sagrada Familia. The mentioned life- and post lifework of Gaudi is built mainly using donations and ticket money. Considering the ticket price I'm sort of surprised that they haven't finished it yet. The fee to go up in the tower was 35 EUR. We continued our walk on the ground with no additional fee and went to Gracia, because as far as I knew, this area was filled with cute little cafes with delicious food. We took seats in one of the cafes on a square and had some few days old churros and not really tasty patatas bravas. On the way back we took a look at my favourite churros joint (still there and opened) and decided for a safe choice for lunch - a local place in El Born that I knew from previous trips was good. Turned out that even though the place was good 15 years ago and 10 years ago, by 2018 the things had changed and the food fairly disappointing.

Before going back to the hotel we also walked a bit in El Raval. Nothing had changed there - the girls with short skirts and priced per hour were still standing on the street waiting for Richard Gere to arrive. Half an hour before the sunset I had that amazing idea of going and watching the sunset on the beach. We sprinted to the beach with speed that would have left Usain Bolt in our dust. We sat on the sand, watched the sun setting and since 30.000 steps were not enough for Scott, we walked up and down the beach some. For the dinner we chose based on a trustful recommendation a small bar in Barceloneta and had some delicious pork (Scott), OK cod fish salad (me), fairly disappointing patatas bravas (neither of us), delicious Crema Catalana (me) and some homemade chocolate truffles (Scott). I had ordered the cod salad, I knew exactly how it's supposed to look like and the waiter brought me a bowl full of lettuce with some pieces of crab meat and tuna. Turned out that in his mind I ordered Ensalada de atun, not Esquixada. Despite me even pointing my finger at what I want when placing the order, it was still somehow my fault that I got the wrong salad. Patatas bravas were supposed to be best in town in that joint. Apparently the ones claiming that, hadn't eaten those anywhere else. We paid and returned to the hotel. 33.000 steps and then some.