Go Blue. Public toilets

Doesn't really seem that big? Take a look at the next pic:

 

Yep, just a thumb wide.

This is the view from Detroit Airport toilet stall.

Three fingers easily.

I know I've written about it before, but the public toilets here are like a combination of the restrooms of 10th Secondary School of Tartu, where instead of doors there were mini hatches that hid less than a stripper's dress and hi-tech, where the toilet tries to guess when would be the right moment to flush.

First the doors. Public toilets are literally public here. There is always a multi-finger gap between the stall door and the wall, which allows you to comfortably observe what is happening at the sinks while sitting on the toilet, and if outside of the stalls you don't have to guess or throw yourself on the floor to see if the stall is taken or not. Just walk to the door and from several gaps you can clearly see the stage of ongoing business to figure out how long you need to wait.

Often the flushing is automatic, i.e. as soon as it notices a movement, flushing follows immediately. In most cases, even before I zip my jeans again, the toilet has flushed in an average of 3-4 times. Since the toilet paper holders are about 30 cm above the floor, I usually squat down to get the paper from there, and the first flushing takes place right after I get up again. The next 2-3 follow after every other movement. And who are these almost on the floor paper holders for?

Baltics and the white sands. Today we saw Russia.

 

 

During my morning run the weather was still slightly cloudy and the views over our Amber Bay absolutely enchanting. I almost forgot to finish the run, but we had brunch in Il Vino planned. They opened the restaurant at 10am and being the first customers at 10:02am we could choose our favourite seating on the rooftop terrace. Turned out that there's where our good luck ended. After we got seated, four more tables were filled, two of which families with kids and two single persons. All four tables were served before us and one of the solo guests finished her meal, paid and left all the while we still only had the views to enjoy. 45 minutes after sitting down we got the eggs (Scott approved) and oatmeal, for which I considered asking a knife, because, it was fairly difficult to break a piece from it with just the spoon.

We packed our picnic chairs and some food from fridge into the backpack and started the hike towards Russia. About half an hour later we found a perfect and totally empty dune in the forest, set up our picnic and enjoyed the delicious food and amazing views. Following the fence between Russia and Lithuania, we ended up in some splendid private beaches. Since we had only planned a little hike in the forest and on dunes, I clearly didn't bring my bikini... I wrapped the beach towel around me, tied it up on the back and swam like a decent muslim woman.

For the dinner, I decided to introduce the creme de la creme of Lithuanian cuisine to my husband and ordered zeppelinis. They still tasted just like ... well, zeppelinis. Like ground meat, covered with a lot of tasteless potato starch. I had nothing to complain about my burger and fries.

Since the sun rises on our side of the peninsula and sets on the other, we decided that on our last evening here, we're gonna check out the sunset too and walked 25 minutes to the west coast. What wasn't there, was the setting sun. However, we were greeted by a lot of clouds and a light pink stripe, where the sun most likely was at that moment.

Meanwhile, the restaurant that we planned to visit in Vilnius had sent me an email that in the summer they are closed on the weekends... Well, their business idea wasn't very clear for us, but it was obvious that it doesn't make any sense to go to Vilnius, if we can't eat in Bistro18. So, we took the map and after consulting map, Google and my dad, we decided to stay the night in Šiauliai.

Here in London Town. Alarm.

 

The light migraine from last night had turned into a heavy one by this morning. I took a pill, stopped by in Leon, got a porridge with fresh blueberries (or so I thought) and a cup of coffee and walked to the office with enthusiastic assumption that the pill works its magic and soon I'll be migraineless again and feeling much better. A barely survived the first meeting, cancelled everything else for the first half of the day and returned to the hotel to sleep. Few hours into that I started to feel better, when suddenly all the fire alarms went off. At first I hoped, it's some testing or technical error, but it didn't seem to stop. With the more pounding head ache I got dressed and walked out of my room. The first cleaning lady I saw and asked, what is going on, could only shake her head and tell me "Sorry, no English!". I tried again using more simple words, but she only managed to add two more phrases: "Reception. No lift!" So I walked down from the 7th floor, made it to the reception and saw a notification which stated that every Wednesday between 9am and 12pm they have fire alarm testing for our safety. In my humble opinion they failed miserably because I didn't see any customers evacuating. Or what use are those tests, if nobody gets out of the building in case of fire? Anyway, by that moment I was so pissed with my migraine there that I fairly impolitely asked why they don't have this information in the room? Or in the lifts? Or in the booking email? Or why wasn't it mentioned two days earlier while we checked in? "Sorry, but we have this information here on the counter" Like ... seriously? Do all the other Travelodge customers just in case stop by reception every day in today's information and digital era to see, if they might have some printed out information on the counter? By the way, they also don't have any phones in rooms, so you also can't call them to ask what's going on. Even writing this my blood pressure goes up again.

Within next hour I got my migraine under control and returned to the office. Today I was smarter and visited M&S before 8pm, got a bunch of fresh raspberries, tomato and mozzarella salad, parmesan chips, fresh orange juice and few more things and made my way back to the hotel.

And here's a lovely picture of Leon's porridge. Left one is the picture form their menu and right one the porridge I got.

Go blue. Find, where they hide

Dear reader, I've previously expressed my dissatisfaction with the public restrooms (restrooms, mind you, not toilets) here. Despite the fact that I come form a society, where "forest break" was used as synonym for "public toilet", I would like to think that some time has passed since then and nowadays it would be possible to take care of this kind of needs in a bit more privately than ducking behind a tree. But not in this country. And here also pictures to show, how the toilet doors covers you just as much as the stall doors in my high school 25 years ago. And since we are talking about sanitary rooms here, in addition to the fact that everyone can look (look, not peek) into the stall and that the automatic flushing system manages to flush 5 times while I'm in the stall, also the toilet paper rolls are almost on the floor. To grab the paper, you don't only need to squat, but also bend down while squatting.

Since the most convenient and cheap option to shop here is Amazon (easy return, shipping within two days, sometimes even next day), we have packages on our doorstep every day or every other day. Sometimes several a day. The mail(wo)men bring the packages to the door, leave on the doorstep and drive on to the next house. Now they have started to take pictures of the package they did throw on the doormat and I can see under my Amazon orders those lonely waiting packages. Noticed from our bedroom window the other day that the mail-lady was coming. However, she didn't go like usually to the main door, but walked to garage door and left the packages on the side of garage. I would have found those several days later.

Scott woke up with some kind of stomach ache and being a loving wife, I made him a cup of chamomile tea. Since he doesn't like hot beverages, I told him to drink it later, when it's on room temperature. An hour later he poured it down the sink, because it apparently smells and tastes gross. I should tell him, how the fingers of the little eastern-European back in the days the chamomile flowers picked, so that in case of some pain or infection there would be tea to drink. I'm sure, he's trying to figure out, how he ended up with this treehugger, who tries to poison him with the rowans and offers him some herb tea, when he's already feeling lousy. I'm sure, he wouldn't touch the pine sprouts either.

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.

Finally it's not me

I know, I was supposed to write about Larry's house and the savings on highways, but so much other thrilling things have happened that those topics will remain on hold for a bit.

When walking to the market in the morning, there was Chococoo on the way and we decided to make first truffle stop of the day. Scott chose raspberry nad lichee truffle and me one with passion fruit and another an award-winning chantarelle-salted-caramel truffle. I'm aware that recently it's becoming more and more popular to mix all kinds of flavours, but I'm not a target group for a sweet that tastes like porcini risotto in chocolate. We kept walking to the market to buy an Italian rice ball on the market. I didn't succeed last time, because once I finally managed to get the attention of the guy, working on dough, it turned out that the Italian joint is actually closed and I'm more than welcome to come back and get my rice ball the next day. Today, the kiosk was open and rice balls on the tray and ... we were still out of luck. Because the girl behind the counter didn't have any change and they didn't accept cards.

We walked through the main square and watched the preparation to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus in the commercial world and made our way to Drink Bar. Because they have the best cheese balls in the country there. We planned to compliment those with house made potato crisps. The cheese balls were as good as ever, instead of potato crisps we got a bowl full of soggy and oily potato slices. Scott touched one and tossed around another one, took the bowl, walked with it to the counter and told the girl that those potato slices don't look much like crisps and could we please get some that are fried slightly longer. Ten minutes later we got nice and crispy chips.

Well, since the diet already flew out the window, from our deep-fried lunch we walked around the corner to Chocolala, because I had mentioned to Scott that they have a chocolate museum now in the basement too. After we had seen through the exhibition and found ourselves in front of the chocolate shelves again, the owner, Yussuf, came and offered some truffles and we ended up talking about the world of cocoa and chocolate for quite a while. We tried already familiar salted caramel, juniper gin and chili ones and a new, seasonal gingerbread truffle. Additionally we got to taste a pink, but 100% chocolate. From flavour and look I would have guessed, it's white chocolate with raspberry. We bought a tablet with champagne filling and a box of truffles and walked home.

Velvet Massage

I got a gift voucher to Thai Orchid Massage Salon, for an hour velvet massage. I booked the time on the web page and imagined already the masseuse softly working my back and me leaving the salon after the velvety and silky massage totally relaxed. First suspicion raised when I noticed that there is no massage table but just the mat on the floor and I had to change into the usual pajama they use in Thai massages. And when the tiny Thai lady first jumped on me and then started to do some headstands on her elbows on my back, it was clear that there's gonna be no silk or velvet. Finally when I managed to take a breath, I quickly asked where they're hiding the velvet and wtf is going on? She asked slightly worried if she's too hard. Well, I can always return the next day and show my bruises, if she was doubting her skills. But when next day my back, that had been hurting for a week, didn't hurt anymore, I decided to not to bear a grudge any longer.

I wanted to buy a pair of slippers for the office, because in the shoes I took there, my feet are cold. I considered the 20 euro ones from Amazon too expensive and the 5 dollar ones from Aliexpress too ugly. Today, while walking through the shoe section in the department mall, I noticed some slippers on one shelf and made my way over there. Could already see myself wearing those without waiting for several weeks. The price tag attached to the slippers informed me that they cost 79,99EUR. I decided to invest my money into Tallink stocks rather than bling slippers and left the department store.

Other than than the usual and daily complaints there are few more things from US that need to be brought into daylight, but I haven't managed to complain about yet. Like dessert menu. Unless you go to a pub or diner where the all sweet section is containing of ice cream and a slice of cake, in restaurants until you've finished your veggies, there is no talk about dessert. You take a seat, get the menu and drink card and have to notice with disappointment that the menu is limited to non-sweet food only. Always difficult for me, because I'd like to see the dessert options too. If there's something I'd like, I would order a starter and dessert. But if they only have pancakes and ice cream, I would just go for main course. However, during the time I've learned to plan ahead and I'll check the menu on their web page first to not to confuse the waitress, why I want to see the desserts before even ordering my greens.

The ice cream kind of makes the introduction for the next topic, which is our bad timing and Dairy Queen. As I've already mentioned, all last fall we planned the visit to Dairy Queen like a long waited holidays on Bora Bora. Constantly talked about it, never made it there. And when we finally landed in front of the ice cream joint (after an hour walk), turned out that as of last night it was closed for the winter season. This year we managed to go there and even get the ice cream and do it twice. And since they had a sign that last day of summer season is October 7th, our plan was to go and get an ice cream right after returning from D.C. Well, guess again. We arrived there shortly before 6pm, it was 75F outside and they had turned off the lights and locked the door.

Continuing with food topics, I still haven't figured out why in US the apple juice is called apple cider, but the orange juice is still orange juice. Both are made of crushed fruits. I googled and found out that cider is either an alcoholic drink made from fermented apple juice or an unfermented drink made by crushing fruit, typically apples. So, still unclear, why they have apple cider but not orange cider.

I also wanted to write about savings on the highways and Larry's house and weed and everything you can subscribe to in US, but since I've heard some feedback that every now and then my blog posts are too long, those burning topics remain on the waiting list.

When Life hands you a Lemon

Dear reader, today I want to share my disappointment with you. I recently just wrote how much I like running with Bill and that my relationships with neighbours are skyrocketing. Anyway, slowly the book neared the end and I chose my next masterpiece by Bill. One that included 3 books in one file. But it turned out that Bill in such an amount is not nearly as good of a companion. More precisely - he's the one reading his own books in this case. And although his writing is great, his vivid reading skills or the lack thereof still needs some practice. Or slightly more than some. Anyway, in dudgeon I started the already finished book from start again. Well, I've missed few parts anyway.

And since I'm already sharing, you should know that actually my disappointments are not limited with the fact that Bill Bryson is not capable reading his own books in an enjoyable way. I found some low sugar puddings in Solaris yesterday. Got a chocolate and a vanilla one. Tried the chocolate one last night - there was so much artificial sugar that the intense sweetness almost made my eyes water. Today, I very hesitantly opened the vanilla one. It tasted like uncooked bechamel sauce. Well, our ways with protein puddings will part now.

But the sugar topic just reminded me of a coconut yogurt, sold in vegan aisles (the ones that I usually look at as museum pieces, because one tiny cup costs over two euros). It has 7,7 grams of carbs, out of which sugars are 11,4 grams. Go figure. Kinda like some ketchups, where they've put 10lb of tomatoes into 16oz bottle. Or something like that.

Economizer

Since everyone is thinking anyway that I only complain about everything and get all the things for free, here is some more fuel to the fire.

Saw a commercial in Facebook about different lipsticks that were supposed to make the lips so glittering and soft that I already imagined how just the lipstick is enough to make me the star of the best parties in town. And the golden lipstick smoothly sparkling in the new years party. So, the lipstick arrived, I tried it on and the glittering pieces made a sticking sandpaperlike layer on my lips. I informed the seller that this is no way to visit any party and I would like to return the lipstick for full refund. Because like the homepage said, the customer satisfaction was what matters. And on this side of the keyboard there was a very unsatisfied customer. Despite my thorough clarification in the email about the problem, they replied with an email asking order number, product name, reason for return and photo of the product. So, I sent all the information once again and remained waiting. For a reply that didn't arrive. So I contacted them in the Facebook, because without returning code it wasn't possible to send it back. Few days later they replied with the same information I had already gotten per email. That they need the description of the problem and a photo of me standing on my head the useless lipstick decorating my lips. I informed them that they customer service sucks and opened a dispute in Paypal. Since the seller didn't respond in two weeks, Paypal refunded me the money. And I could just throw the lame lipstick away.

I ordered 32oz of maple syrup from Amazon for 15USD. What arrived was a damaged box and a loose bottle in it with cork into pieces. Since it was sealed, the syrup remained inside. I asked for replacement, within second there was the confirmation that a new bottle will be on the way and I can also keep the corkless one. So we have half a gallon of maple syrup now for 15USD.

We went to Cafe Truffe in Tartu few days ago. I ordered a lobster soup with shellfish and prawns. What arrived, was a thick orange coconut soup with 3 shellfish, 3 prawns and few pieces of salmon. The waitress was gone with the wind and within next 45 minutes didn't show up even once, which made it impossible for me to ask, if she even brought me the right dish. Anyway, I was able to finish half of the heavy food and once she finally showed up, I asked her about the lobster and told that there was no hint of lobster in my soup. According to her there is no lobster in the soup, it's just the name. I was so speechless that didn't even ask, why would one name a coconut soup a lobster soup. I did ask her later though if she would give me a discount for the lobsterless lobster soup. Turned out she wasn't able to do that and told me that I should have asked it before ordering. In case some of the readers plan to ever visit Cafe Truffe, make sure to ask about every dish, what are the ingredients and what not. To not find a baked salmon being placed in front of you, when you actually ordered grilled prawns, just because they decided to name the dish like that.

Go blue. Restaurant bills, rainbow and other daily topics

Few days ago, when going to the cinema, we saw the biggest and brightest rainbow. Why you can’t see it here at the moment, is not that I wouldn’t want to share the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow with you, but rather that I forgot my phone home. I did remember it while we were backing out, but I saved myself the trouble of running back inside, because there was no wifi in the cinema anyway and we didn’t plan to go to any picturesque places. Well, plan again. Instead I can share the sunset picture taken in the parking lot of TJ Maxx.

At the beginning it was really unused to me that right after getting your dessert or answering the waitress question of how we are and if everything is under control with “We’re good” we found the bill on the corner of the table. It felt like turning on the lights in the cinema after the movie or watching your hosts yawning and changing into pyjamas - clear hint that you’ve been loitering long enough and it’s time to beat it. However, reading an informative as usually article recently about what do Americans wrong while traveling, I found out that it’s perfectly normal here that as soon as the waitress notices that they aren’t getting any more money out of you, the bills lands on the table. And in Europe, on the other hand, those poor American tourists can sit for hours and wait for the bill, because nobody is kicking them out without them asking first.

Last winter I mentioned the telenovela few times, that we started to watch - Jane the Virgin. In April we watched the last episode of the season three and patiently started to wait for season 4. But consulting Google-Know-All the other day, it turned out that there was still one more episode of season three to watch. We corrected the mistake in the same evening and since it ended with few cliffhangers, we are way less patiently waiting for January 2019 when they plan to screen the next season. #correctingmistakesmyass

I have already written about the doors of public toilets, sorry, restrooms here. Or to be more precise that those toilet doors made by the frugal Americans don’t reach the wall, but remain about an inch from the wall. Giving everyone, who wishes it, the chance to have a peek in. But more and more places have automatic flushing now. Which makes me wonder, if those rather big American ladies have tiny bladders. How else to explain it that every time, I’m still halfway done with my business, when the water is already flushing. Sometimes it even happens twice before I’m done.

Go blue. The one, who types

Being the ever-non-satisfied tourists, we were of course not happy with our hotel room that was located directly next to the kitchen and maintenance room and had the garbage containers behind the window. I'm using the "we" here only out of pure loyalty, because I was only bothered by the half-basement-floor we were on. So, Scott sent an email to the landlord and listed up our complaints: in addition to the noise coming from the kitchen and the maintenance room, we didn't enjoy picking up previous tourists hair in the bathroom and finding used towels in drawers. He also expressed his opinion that to make up the inconveniences a refund of 25% of the paid price would be appropriate. The girl, who replied us, thought that it wasn't that bad and we should have taken into account that the room might be between the kitchen and garbage containers and offered us back half of what we asked. Being a wise planner of finances, Scott waited until the refund had been processed and informed them that we are still not happy campers and would like, as asked the 50 dollars more refunded. The manager of previous lady got in contact with us and expressed how sorry she is that we had such a traumatic experience and of course we will be refunded in the amount asked.

Traveling with hand luggage only means that I've had to get several things double to have them in both homes and wouldn't need to carry back and forth all the time. Like running gear, especially shoes. Jeans, jackets, water bottles, travel coffee mugs. Last two were the ones I needed now, because both I have, remained in Tallinn. I placed the order in Amazon and in two days the packages arrived. The coffee cup with a dent on the side. I expressed my disappointment to Amazon in regard to their quality assurance and asked them to replace the cup for a dentless one. Being deeply concerned about the situation, Amazon had to let me know that unfortunately they don't have more of those cups in the storage, but they will refund me the purchase price and it's up to me what to do with the cup - throw it away, donate or used it eyes closed so I wouldn't be able to see the dent. I decided that with the free cup, I'm not that concerned about the dent.

How I went to the dentist and what you can learn from it

To start in the beginning, I need to start with beginning of July when over night I got two gum infections. Since the left side pushed the infection quickly to the right side, I (naively) expected the right side to sort it out soon too and in few days I could continue my life as I know it. After eating painkillers for a week I went to emergency room. For 26 euros I got rinsing with the same mouth water that I was using already anyway and a bit of painkiller that was placed between gum and tooth. All that didn't change the situation more than just leaving me without 26 euros. So I called to most of dentist offices in Tallinn to find one that is not on holidays in July and where I could get an appointment before September. Found one. Basically the same procedure, but since they also took a panorama, I left that place with 45 euros less. By the end of the second week the pain started to decrease and I didn't have to take my carry-on to the drugstore anymore to bring the painkillers home. Fast forward three weeks and the gum infection was back, this time straight by the lower right wisdom tooth. I decided to go for the antibiotics. To think back a little, it must have been my first antibiotics in the last 20 years. Or even more, because I can't recall taking or not taking them in the school. At the same time I decided it was a good idea to have the mentioned wisdom tooth removed. Because I had consulted Dr. Google and turned out that the doctors don't remove the wisdom tooth, if there's the gum infection. So, I made an appointment in the face and jaw surgical center. So far so good. But I talked to my dentist about the plan and decided that removing the tooth doesn't fit my plans and changed the tooth removing appointment into consulting appointment. So, we'd have time to discuss and plan it and then find a suitable time in autumn to pull the little bastard out. As said, went to my consultancy appointment on Wednesday and before I realized, I was shown my tooth without a mirror. Although it might have been somewhat confusing in the doc's office, there was no more confusion after looking in the mirror at home. The cheek without the tooth was way bigger than the cheek with the tooth was and without the tooth it hurt much more than with the tooth.

Got a prescription for another antibiotics and an extra strong painkiller from the doc. The painkiller was something to take once a day and was supposed to work its miracles for 24 hours. And I got the advise to take it before the anesthetic started to disappear and then next day based on need. Bought both of them right after leaving the dentist and since I thought that I can feel my tongue again, I also took the first painkiller. Anesthetic left, pain stepped in. That 24 hour painkiller didn't kill the pain at all. I consulted Dr Google again, whether I can mix and match different painkillers and compliment the strong one with the over-the-counter ibuprofen. Google was a bit hesitant, but kindly informed me that the given painkiller was analog for Vioxx. Vioxx itself was banned in US after being on the market for 5 years, because it caused inconveniently lot of sudden deaths. And the mentioned analog didn't get approval from the drug committee in the first place. They must have sold all the already produced packages to the east block here. Threw the rest of the 6 pills away and called the medical line to get a second opinion. I found out that there is not much point to take ibuprofen, because it's from the same family, but I can eat some paracetamol. I had to pay drugstore a visit, because my medical box at home consisted mainly of ibuprofen based painkillers. Paracetamol worked and I slept through most of the night. By morning, the missing tooth used more space than yesterday.

Sincerely
Your Hamster

Beginner Gardener

I mentioned in the office that my strawberry is blooming nicely, but I can't see myself cooking jam, cause there are no berries. Turned out that I should have sent an army of bees on them or done the pollening myself with a little brush. Since I can't even see any blossoms at the moment to start an enthusiastic pollen job, the strawberry plant found her place with other organic leftovers.

We ordered sushi from Wolt the other day. I entered our office address as well as directions on how to find the doorbell. Before I started to order, the estimated delivery time was 40 minutes. Well, more or less next door. Or so I thought. After placing the order the estimation changed to 35-45 minutes, which was still OK. And then suddenly it was 71 minutes. And since then every time the countdown reached zero and you thought that any minute now they will ring the doorbell, the zero turned into 8 or 9 minutes. And this happened some three times. I opened the customer service chat and asked where my sushi was. About to start biking, they said. So it did. However not to the office but home. Because their fancy site is apparently not capable to manage several different addresses for one client. The sushi arrived to the office 1hr45min after placing the order. To compensate the one hour delay, they gave me two free standard deliveries. Expiring in a month. And since I don't plan to use them anymore (when I'm huong, I want to eat right away, not in 2 hours), the compensation was basically nothing. Way to go, Tokumaru and Wolt.

First Bitch

Honestly, every day I do want to write something nice and positive here, but every time I grab my laptop, I can only remember all the things that are f*cked up. Today it's f*cked up next level, because I took my laptop just to express my opinion about how everything sucks.

The heating system in our building will be replaced. Basically old pipes out, new pipes in. Or rather, the work is in progress and several pipes have been replaced by now. At some point in July someone from the building board and one contractor came to see, where the new pipes should be. According to them it was a much better idea to install them right on the wall in the middle of the kitchen and in front of the fridge. Instead of the corner, where they are now. Well, not that much in front that it would block the door, but enough to make them stars of the kitchen. So I sent them an email this week, asking about having the pipes still as close as possible to the current one (which would be nicely behind the fridge). The reply I got, was basically that forget all the pipes in the kitchen, they will be turned to the other side and installed on the wall in the living room. The same pipes, that on 1959 were nicely built into the wall between the apartment and hallway, will be replaced with new ones that are supposed to decorate my living room wall now. I can start drying the kitchen towel in the living room from now on...

I'm convinced that if there is someone in our building board that can use hashtags, they would have #firstbitch behind my name. But also my blood pressure skyrockets every time I see an incoming email from the building board.

The One who asks

shall receive free cake. Even in Estonia. We were in Must Puudel the other day and ordered among other things salmon salads with quail egg. When the plates arrived, it turned out that the quails have started to give chicken eggs. I pointed that out and the girl took the salads back to the kitchen to investigate the issue. She came back and let us know that they are out of quail eggs. So I asked if we can get a discount (it doesn't matter that half the chicken egg is bigger than one quail egg, because quail egg is way tastier). She couldn't give us discount, but offered us cake on the house. We graciously agreed (they have delicious cakes), because we had planned to go to Gelato Ladies for ice cream anyway, so replacing ice cream with free cake was a no-brainer. And the Mississipi Mudcake still melted in my mouth. After we got out of the restaurant, it turned out that there is no replacing one with other and we better make our way to Gelato Ladies for some Pavlova ice creams. As usually I took one scoop with two flavours or so I thought. In check out it turned out that it was only me thinking it and they had managed to squeeze two scoops into that small waffle. The misunderstanding was solved quickly and they charged for one scoop only.

On the other hand I don't think, it's OK from the chef to replace or leave out some ingredients from the food depending of his mood or availability and not to mention that to the server. I get it that most of the people don't want to be "difficult" or are too shy and eat the food that was brought, but not everyone is that way. And the server will end up in a way more uncomfortable situation than it would have been, if she would have been informed about the replacement. And anyway, in most of the cases the customer should be asked first before making bigger changes. I just remembered a time from years ago when we were waiting for the ferry to Stockholm and having dinner in a nearby cafe. I had ordered mascarpone filled pancake with raspberry sauce. And I did order it because of the raspberries. They brought me pancake that was covered with chocolate. But on my plate those two don't belong together. Coming back from the kitchen, the waiter informed me that they are out of raspberry sauce. So I sent the pancake back and ordered a salad. My scale was happy. And I'm happy when my scale is happy.

Anyway, by now I'm convinced that the food that is not what's ordered, should be sent back more often. Yes, I'm aware that children are starving in Rwanda and most of the people doesn't want to be complaining bitches and eat what's brought, pay the bill and go to Facebook to complain about it. Instead of letting them prepare you a new meal. I get it. I'm the same mostly. Especially when eating out with bigger group. Recently I ordered a tuna steak in Tallinn, and thinking about the delicious tuna in Trühvel, I asked to make it medium rare. The tuna that arrived, had raised at least several generations of descendants, died seven deaths after that and on the grill overcooked. Even medium is to nicely said about it, from medium rare it was just as far as Friday is from Monday (when you look at it on Monday). And it was tougher than a chicken that has spent its life running around in the garden training for marathon and in old age killed for mercy. I left some of the tuna, because I wasn't able to chew it anymore and it was stuck between my teeth too. On the other plates, those, who ordered meat, I could see perfect medium rare. And we had waited over an hour for the food. So, I decided to just mention it to the server, getting the plates. Well, he asked, so can't blame anyone but himself. He promised to give the feedback to the chef. I think, the fisherman should get it too. 

Every time I'm away from keyboard, I have so many great ideas to write about. Like today - on my way to market I wrote a long, informative and hilarious blog post in my head. Getting home and enthusiastically sitting down with my laptop, in best cases I can recall 2 sentences. And sitting on the couch for example the bicyclers don't seem such idiots. And so I skip writing about them. Although I do have a very strong opinion about them.

One would think that with this heat, where the food I eat, is mainly cold water, colder wine and slices of watermelon, the weight disappears like by miracle. But nothing like that. Instead of Victoria's Secret model we have a Sponge Bob here that just absorbs all the liquid. Or like a commercial that presented paper towel that was like absorbing a liter of water into one piece of it. I just in case have started to prepare my husband that when we meet, he should keep his eyes out for Peppa the Pig.

Literature Critic has spoken

I have a list of books that I have been wanting to write about, but busy as I am, the list keeps getting longer, but there's still no word put on paper. Or in the blog for that matter. Anyway, it's time to correct the mistake and here's the carrot and constructive critics.

Lauri Räpp - There's a Cafe at the End of the World
In the winter I borrowed from Gerli and read "Looking back at Tartu" from Lauri Räpp. It was really cool reading with lots of memories resurfacing. Well, I could remember most of the things, he wrote about apart from the house parties in Annelinn. Never visited one of those. They finished before I started to consume alcohol and visit parties.
Anyway, I noticed his new book in Apollo one day and when quick browsing told me that there's a chapter also about Hoi An, where I recently spent more than a week, I made my way, sorry, my fingers made their way to ester.ee (library database) and as soon as there was the information that someone had returned the book, I beelined to the library. Lady Luck was on my side and so I could walk home with the book.
On one side, it's like a travel book, on the other not the usual random travel diary. He writes smoother than a calm sea before sunset and makes you want to pack the bag again. Wait... No, it does not. The desire to pack the bags is a constant state of mind.

Tui Hirv - My Reykjavik
For a little while we had an idea to visit Iceland in the summer. However, loyal blog readers must know that this trip hasn't happened (yet). But in the planning phase I did start to read "My Reykjavik". And then I read it and read it and read it, mainly because I don't like to not finishing books after I've started reading them. It kind of feels more like waste of time than finishing lousy books. And there was some interesting information hidden under all that whining and critics. And then I extended the return deadline for another 3 weeks and kept reading. Finally, when I finished and returned the book, I had to pay fine too, because the total time spent on the book was more than one and half months. I think, the only books, that took me longer were Master and Margarita, which I also didn't like and Railway Bazar from Paul Theraux, which unlike My Rejkyavik was a great book, just really intense.
There are good books too in the My-series - whenever possible, I've always praised India, Mongolia, Guatemala, France and most likely several more. And there are extremely bad books in the series too. Bad for very different reasons - f.e. when the writer clearly dislikes the country and instead of writing about it through humour, there are 200 pages full of critics and whining. Or the whole book is just boring description of the country. Or it's just badly written.
The writing style of My Reykjavik was alright, but already in the first third of the book I was fed up with the author criticizing Estonia. I get - she ended up in heaven on Earth in Iceland and in compare to Iceland everything is so bad in Estonia that it's a miracle there are still some people left here. Even being an alcoholic is less bad there than it is here. Although reading about it gave me the impression that it's a way bigger problem there. I personally am glad that the author has found her place and doesn't need to suffer in the sh*thole and I'm also happy that she's far away from Estonia.
Disclaimer: I also didn't like My Iceland, so maybe it's impossible to write a good book about the country.

Leelo Tungal - Little Comrade
We first saw the movie in the cinema and then I decided that I want to read it too. I knew that the book with movie picture on the cover was second edition and my experience so far had proven that the newest one is never available in the library whereas the well read older ones are always there. So, without consulting Ester.ee first I made my way to the library... just to find myself in front of the shelf by "T" and see only one book by Tungal there which was definitely not desired Little Comrade. So I was keeping my eye harder than Bruce Willis in the legendary movie on ester.ee, but it seemed to be failed attempt. The ones, managed to grab one book, didn't plan to let it go apparently. Until the Lady Luck was smiling again and I got to borrow it from the electronic library. So I read it in my phone.
In the beginning I was somewhat annoyed with the 4-year old writing style, but got used to it pretty fast and it was very interesting reading. However, I have to admit, that despite having a lot left out (as it's always the case with book vs. movie) it was just as good.

Mihkel Raud - Where I am and how you can get much further
As mentioned previously this book only came with me home, because I noticed it on the counter in the library. But sometimes good things happen unexpectedly and so this book happened too. I finished Räpp and started with Raud. Read some of it with my third breakfast coffee, then some on the beach while sun and wind bathing, some later at home and half of Sunday and finished. Didn't find any life changing truths there and I do have my doubts ever getting further than Mihkel Raud, but it was a very entertaining reading. I like his ability to laugh at himself and also when critics are written through humour. So - absolutely recommendable self-aid book that didn't help me, but surely entertained me.