Estonia is not that far from Stockholm and yet there are some differences that I just cannot help but notice.

Estonia has storks. There are stork nests on chimneys and utility poles, and storks striding around in fields and roadside meadows. It is pretty cool to see such large non-human creatures, so close to us. In Sweden there are none.

Same with swallows. When Ingrid went riding here in Tartu, the stable was full of swallows flying in and out, and their nests under the ceiling were more than I could count. In our stable in Stockholm there are sparrows instead.

The supermarkets in Estonia stock a much wider variety of processed food of all kinds. Fifteen varieties of ready-made potato salad. Pastries with savoury fillings of all kinds. Dozens of flavours of yoghurt, with actual variation, whereas Swedish supermarkets have maybe six and they’re all almost the same. (The supermarkets in London also had lots of flavours – I wonder what keeps Swedish producers from widening and renewing their range.)

Estonian cyclists do not wear helmets and generally seem to harbour a death wish. Cyclists cross the road diagonally without even looking over their shoulder; they cycle on narrow sidewalks without slowing when meeting pedestrians. The most extreme example was two guys on the same bike, one cycling and the other one standing on the rack. Neither was wearing a helmet. They were in the middle of the road, veering a bit erratically, because the one in the front was steering with one hand and using the other to hold his mobile phone.

Estonian women all make an effort to dress stylishly, whereas Swedish women are more likely to take the jeans-and-top approach. Estonian men all wear single-colour t-shirts and sports shorts, and look as if they were on their way to mow the lawn or possibly attend a beach barbecue.

Last week was Easter break at school. We all took the week off and had a mini-vacation at a farm. I had been longing for greenery and nature, and we also wanted the kids to see farm animals up close.

I grew up in the city but we spent all our summers at my grandmother’s cottage. It was very much a city-dweller’s summer cottage rather than a farm. But one of the neighbours had hens, and there was a sheep pasture nearby, so I got somewhat acquainted with some animals at least.

The farm we visited now, Kullagården, was a proper working farm. Small-scale, not one of those giant places of industrial-scale food production, but still a working farm rather than a hobby. Mostly they grow organic crops (wheat, oats, spelt and beans) but crop farming is pretty boring to look at, especially in April when nothing has been planted yet… But they also had a whole bunch of cows, both for meat and for the manure they produce. There were also horses and ponies, hens, rabbits and goats.

I liked the cows. They turned out to be much more inquisitive and nosy than I had expected. And they were beautifully hairy. The kids found them noisy and stinky and boring, and weren’t even interested in the week-old calves. Too large I guess.

Ingrid enjoyed feeding the hens. Adrian preferred to keep a fence between them and himself. I learned that hens find cheese a treat and prefer it to breadcrumbs. (I guess nobody would normally feed cheese to their chickens – these were leftover scraps from the bed & breakfast end of the farm.)

After some initial shyness, the rabbits were also pleased to be fed. Even Adrian came into the rabbit coop and hand-fed them dandelion leaves.

But the kids’ absolute favourite was the Totte the Shetland pony. They went out riding (on horseback or in a cart) every morning.

When the pony tired, they pulled the cart themselves.

We also took a walk along a nearby creek (Stjärnorpsravinen).

It was a very varied walk with lots to do: there was mud to splash in, fallen trees to climb over and under, bridges to cross, sticks to throw in the water…

So we spent a week on Tenerife, with sun, splashing and relaxation.

Adrian and Ingrid are still young enough that we wanted a hotel with enough activities that we could just stay in when we wanted an easy day. So we stayed at one of those family resorts with a large pool area including a kids’ pool, and a children’s club with a variety of activities. This was just right for Ingrid who loved every minute of it, and did everything from children’s water aerobics to a Halloween “ghost hunt” (complete with candy).

The hotel was in Las Americas, which turned out to be a really good area for us. Very close to decent beaches, and with lots of good restaurants. Our favourite restaurants: Monkey Bravo (Italian, very uneven service but excellent food) and Thai Botanico.

We spent a few days just around Las Americas – at the beach, at a mini golf course, just walking around – but also went on three trips.

One day we went to Aqualand, a nearby water park. This again was paradise for Ingrid. She’s old enough to wander around inside the park on her own: she can find her way around (and back) without getting lost, judge which slides are appropriate for her, make friends with other kids (with or without a common language). And she’s a good enough swimmer that I am comfortable with her being unsupervised in even the deepest children’s pools (but not yet in pools where the water is above her head).

We’d read mixed reviews about Aqualand (that it was dilapidated, and bad service, and bad food, and having to pay extra for all sorts of things). So maybe it wasn’t all brand new and shiny, but it was fun, and in totally decent enough shape – and we brought our own food so we avoided their expensive crappy offering.


Another day we went to Loro Parque, an animal park. (They also served crappy lunches, almost inedible.) It was sort of like Kolmården, but denser, smaller and more “managed”. The animal exhibits were so-so and the enclosures were all so small that I felt sorry for all of the birds and animals. Kolmården really beats them on every front except one: Loro Parque had excellent animal shows. We saw dolphins, sea lions, and orcas, and they also had a parrot show. The shows were impressive, and (unlike at Kolmården) they ran lots of times throughout the day so it was easy to get a seat without any advance booking.

Finally we also took a trip to Mount Teide, the world’s 3rd tallest volcano. Volcanos are pretty darn cool things, even when dormant. Lava fields are a bizarre sight: this wide expanse of fresh black rock that nothing grows on, rock that looks all hostile and “hellish” even hundreds of years later – right there for me to touch. This was a place that I really would have preferred to visit with fewer crowds and more time, and without kids who think a volcano is kind of cool but then feel done with it after 5 minutes (“been there, done that”) and thereafter keep asking “can we go back now”.

As I said, Ingrid loved the whole experience, and it was a welcome week of rest for Eric and myself. Adrian on the other hand would have been happier at home, I suspect. He didn’t really complain but you could see he wasn’t comfortable with the whole thing. He likes playing in water but hates splashing, so he didn’t enjoy the pool or Aqualand, and the waves in the sea were also more scary than fun. And the house was wrong, the bed was wrong, the meatballs were wrong… the poor boy effectively lived on bread and french fries and fruit and nuts all week.

On top of the world

This past week, week 2 of the photography course I’m taking, we worked on aperture and depth of field. I found this a lot more challenging than the first week’s material – normally I use wide apertures almost exclusively, and trying to find appropriate subjects for narrow apertures took some work.

Here is Mount Teide, the world’s third highest volcano.

We’ve been in Estonia for nearly two weeks and I have barely said a word about it on the blog. It’s all been too intense, the days too full of action, the mind too full of impressions.

Attractions, sights and outings follow each other in an unceasing flow. We have been to museums, science centres, playgrounds both indoors and outdoors, taken a boat trip and a horseback ride, and more.

Ingrid swallows it all and asks for more; Adrian has found it a bit overwhelming at times, and would probably have preferred some calmer days. But it is easier to plan a day with lots of activity and take him aside for some quiet time, than to plan a quiet day and then try to add extra activities for Ingrid.

Most of these activities we’ve done together with my childhood friends and their children. Me, Ingrid and Adrian have really enjoyed catching up with our Estonian friends, and Adrian pretty much adopted my friends Rahel and Marju as extra moms. Eric has bravely kept us company all the way, but he can probably imagine better ways to spend two weeks of his summer… Planning ahead for our next trip, I think I will try to manage both kids on my own.

Both Ingrid’s and Adrian’s ability to speak Estonian has improved hugely. Adrian said almost nothing at all in Estonian during the first days. Yesterday and today he was playing freely with the other kids and talking to the adults, and using words and grammar that I have never heard him use before.

A few highlights:

Tartu adventure park/seikluspark. Ingrid completed the two kids’ tracks twice and found them rather too easy, so we went on to the first two “real” tracks. These were really meant for people over 140cm (and Ingrid is probably not even 120cm) but with me there to help her move her carabiners, she managed both. Then we did the 300m zipline ride, side by side. Adrian sat on the ground and made silly faces. (We’ve been to a similar park in Otepää twice before during our previous trips, and I could have sworn I’ve blogged about it, but couldn’t find any post about it.)

Vudila, an outdoor playland with all sorts of activities. A pool area with water slides, go-karts and mini ATVs, trampolines and bouncy castles, etc etc. More than enough to fill a day, and good fun in all ways, but the food was really disappointing.

Ice age centre, a science centre about ice ages. Interesting for adults but too serious for the kids, who had much more fun at the beach next to the museum.

Old favourites revisited: Road museum, Hansapäevad, Tartu Toy Museum with its playroom, Ahhaa science centre.

One more set of photos from Bologna, this time with pictures of its many and famous arcades.

Some more photos from the Bologna trip, this time focusing on the views and sights of the city.

I found it unexpectedly challenging to get any good pictures of the city. By now I feel reasonably competent at taking documentary photos of the kids and of our everyday life. I am a little bit less happy with my photos of the garden but my shortcomings there are mostly to do with composition. Here I found myself lacking technical skills. The light was simply so different from what I normally work with. I am used to dealing with normal to dim indoor lighting, not with brilliant high-contrast sunshine. I usually need to worry about camera shake and noise from high ISO settings, not about clipped highlights. So from this trip I have good portraits of my colleagues during dinners in dim restaurants, but unsatisfactory city views.

This weekend our company went to Bologna for some teambuilding and off-site conferencing. And a very nice weekend it was. Warm weather, long leisurely lunches and dinners, staying at a nice hotel, spending our afternoons walking around in the city… No dishes to wash or meals to prepare, no rushing to get everybody to nursery/school/work…

The hotel lobby – with a real suit of armour sitting on the sofa.

The conference facilities

Saturday: The planetarium at Ahhaa, somewhat disappointing. A lecture rather than a show, dry-ish and uninspiring. Presented by a guy picked for his knowledge rather than his presentation skills. Since he only gives a scripted talk his knowledge of astronomy is no use; I would have preferred someone with better diction and more charisma, or even a recording by a professional actor.

Sunday: drove to Tallinn. Got stuck in a massive traffic jam at Ülemiste due to some bicycle race that we didn’t know about. We could have taken an alternative route but the traffic authorities didn’t have the sense to inform drivers of the road blocks in advance. After half an hour we finally got to a place where we could escape the jam and zig-zag through Lasnamäe to Pirita where my friend V lives. Spent a most relaxing afternoon with V and family – the kids entertained each other, Adrian picked through their toy box, and we adults just lounged on the deck and ate and talked.

Monday: in Tallinn’s Old Town. The town was overrun with large guided tourist groups; they were everywhere. Both kids were in a bad mood, tired, didn’t want to eat at mealtimes and then complained of hunger a short while later, and generally complained about stuff all day long. We hardly enjoyed any of the stuff we saw.

Tallinn Flower Festival: small scale, low-key, pretty and fun.

Finally saw the much-discussed Victory Column with my own eyes.

Lunch at Olde Hansa: menu unchanged over the past 10 years, food still good, portions smaller than they used to be.

Climbed to the top of the tower of the old City Hall: good views but very windy; had to go down almost as soon as we got up because Ingrid wouldn’t keep still and got in everyone’s way, while Adrian squirmed all the time.

NUKU muuseum, the museum of Tallinn’s puppet theatre: far larger and more interesting than I had expected. But it was a total labyrinth, a tangle of rooms with confusing signs.

Kultuurikilomeeter, a kilometer of culture: “a lot of kilometer and not a lot of culture”. Instead of one kilometer the path is 2.2 km long but the culture along it is very, very sparse. From its name I had expected it to be lined with sculptures, installations, outdoor art… all we found was an “eco-island” (a cheap-looking café on some sort of floating island), a stage and some graffiti and another café in the old Patarei prison, a construction site which will at some point become a museum for sea planes, and a couple of historic ships. A lot of urban decay – hip and edgy, I know, I know, and quite nice-looking in places, but depressing in others – but very little of what I would actually term “culture”. We gave up about halfway through since Ingrid and Adrian were both bored as there was nothing at all to hold their attention.