Baltics and the white sands. What you will be served when you order pizza in Jurmala

For Saturday we had invited us to Tartu for lunch and filled ourselves with smoked salmon, tomatoes, baked cheese breads, fried potatoes and yellow beans offered by my parents.

Around 4pm we left Tartu towards Latvia and arrived in Jurmala at 8pm. At first we had the idea of bringing our stuff to the room and hurry to the beach to enjoy the best sunsets in Baltics, but our hostess did her very best to obstruct this plan. While I was checking us in, Scott was checking out the restroom and the lady, wanting very enthusiastically introduce Jurmala to us, refused to do it only for me: We wait until husband here too. Once the husband returned to the reception, the hostess spread out the map and started to point out how Jurmala is placed nicely between the sea and the river and where exactly our walks should take us. We finally managed to get the room key, however the lady insisted on walking us to the room, to make sure that we are able to find the door, merely 8 feet away from the reception desk.

We arrived at the beach exactly 15 minutes before the sun hit the horizon, walked along the beach, took some pictures and walked to the main boulevard to grab a light snack before hitting the bed. We chose Cafe 53. I got grilled chicken breast and carrot juice and Scott, ever the optimist, took pizza in addition to his salad. My chicken and the warm carrot juice were good, Scott's salad seemed fine too. Instead of pizza he got a loaf of bread with a pile of cut ham in the middle of it and covered with a lot of cheese. We didn't plan to return to that cafe.

Pühajärve. First overnight trip after the isolation.

Our first after-corona overnight trip took us to Tartu. Since they still recommend social distancing, we decided to stay in Pühajärve. Booked ourselves the lake view room.

By Friday evening we arrived in Tartu, had dinner at my mom’s following all the rules and made it to the hotel shortly before sunset.

Since the trees were all green by May, we didn’t manage to see enjoy our lake view that was well hidden behind the woods. Breakfast was buffet-style - the buffet was behind two servers, who then, their visors pushed back like redneck’s caps on hot summer day, handed the food out. We managed to get the table in the piano room and finally enjoyed the lake view.

Did some hiking around half the lake and drove to our lake house to have some freshly smoked salmon by my dad. Rules were followed only partly. Meaning, if you can’t do everything, do half. We kept half the recommended distance.

On Sunday morning we had a longer walk in the village and drove to Tartu after that. Had lunch with my mom, chatted with Gerli and her family as much as  it was possible over 20feet (just in case, right!) and made our way to Tallinn.

Since Scott had never visited Viljandi and we were in no rush, we decided to pay it a short visit. Most of the way it was pouring rain and we also got some while walking in Viljandi.

Food diary

Already two weeks I've been thinking that I should write here something, because checking the statistics in Blogger, it tells me that there are still few loyal readers left. What do you do in this blog, abandoned for weeks, will probably remain an unsolved mystery for me.

So I thought of uploading the morning views, I have been taking since first of march this year. But as you can see on the pictures, not much variety there either.

My Click & Grow that I switched on at Easter, has become considerable allotment garden. Already now I can pick some tomatoes (three out of six are red) from my book shelf and soon hopefully also some wild berries (three blossoms!). So, for the last two weeks every day I've been going to the store tomorrow to get some soil and plant the basil in some less innovative pot and fill the clicking hole with cilantro or chili. As you can see from the picture, tomorrow is not here yet. But that day will dawn and take my gardening to the next dimension. Luunja and Laheotsa farms, be prepared!

Kika asked few weeks ago, if I'd like to write down everything I eat during a week. No problem, I thought, how long can it take to write down those three things, I thought I eat. I was under the illusion that I eat like a catwalk model during her career peak and my bathroom scale is just broken and shows me numbers suitable for Peppa the Pig, not Kate Moss. After the first week, it was clear that local and neighbouring countries' candy and chocolate factories are still in business only thanks to my contribution. Starting day 3 I didn't even bother writing down each sweet and wrote as amount just "a lot". During the second week I crossed off all sweets with added sugar and am eating only below the cross now. Still haven't brought the scale to repair.

Good morning, Vietnam! Entertainment on Board.

Packed my bag yesterday and weighed it. 7,5 kilo. I just in case weighed it  again, because usually this amount of stuff has been appr. 10 kilo or more. Still 7,5. Since I couldn't figure out anything that I might have forgotten to pack, I just decided that the scale is not playin along. When I do weigh myself, the number skyrocket and when I weugh the bag, the courage goes down in a second.

After what I've been eating lately I can't really fit into my last years trousers anymore. So, I took the desicion to use the non-sharp razor (see yesterday's post) to fight the bushes on my legs, so I could at least decrease the size that much. Gave my stock one more chance tho and looked into each and every box I have. Finally in a box insode of another box I managed to find not only need, but two razors! Legs are shaved and Helena should not worry that somebody might think, she's travelling with boyfriend or something.

I was just appreciating the fact that I haven't had any cold since last year's August (as we all remember, I was down with cold all those two weeks before my five flights to US) and then I first got sore throat on Tuesday evening and head cold on Wednesday. By Friday morning everything was more or less already and by Friday afternoon everything had gone downhill again and my nose was runnign like birch nectar early spring. Added some more drugs to my diet, but still went to airport on Saturday with a decent cold. Bought some more head cold medicine there that the pharmasist didn't recommend to use together.

The flight to Helsinki was just as non-exciting as the layover in Helsinki. The flight from Helsinki to Bangkok on the other hand was fairly colorful. Turned out that taking one aisle and one window seat was smart idea, because nobody wanted the middle seat and we had a row of three for the two of us. As the last boarding passenger an a bit over middle aged guy walked through the aisle. Obviously not in hurry, he was on video chat currently with someone. Although the aisle seat girl was standing to let him through, he was just standing there and chatting. After he finally managed to finish the call, he took his sweet time to put the bag in the overhead locker and in no time (read: 7 minutes) he was sitting on his seat. But not for long. Apparently he considers the seat belt signs and the stewardess telling him to get back to his seat only recommendable and made his unsteady way (he had already started consuming alcohol) to the toilet and from there to the back to the crew to get some more vodka. During the curfew however his wish wasn't granted. He returned to his seat, sat down and threw his hand over his seat just onto Helena's screen. Helena kindly puhsed his hand away. A move which the guy understood as a wish to get to know each other and started to flirt with her enthusiastically. Estonian of course didn't go along and the Finn could turn his attention back to the girl on his own row. Went to use the toilet in his socks again, did bring some more alcohol and utrned to sleep over two seats (they had the middle seat unoccupied too). He streched his legs to the ceiling and put his head on the girl's armrest. Every now and then he moved himself, touching the girls upper body with his streching arm.

There was no wifi on the plane (Finnair had already apologised for that via text message, but that didn't help the wifiless situation). The first thing that I saw when I started a movie was the advertisement for the wifi on board. Finns and their sense of humor.

Mornings. Two weeks

During the last two weeks there has been a change behind the window - the gray view has turned into green and soon-to-blossom chestnut alley. While on Saturday I was still wearing my down jacket and pulled the hat down to cover my ears, on Sunday I was sweating in my hoodie.