The Comfort Tour

So due to visa restrictions in Russia when we traveled there earlier this year, we had to sign up for a tour. We were coming off of a busy season of life and didn't want a high speed pressure filled event, so we signed up for "comfort class" tour.

The group was small and consisted of those who'd past 70  -- and us! I don't know what I expected but not the senior citizen tour.

An old trucker and his wife from Texas. He was rambunctious and couldn't hear and she repeated things for him. He had his wallet stolen at the Peter and Paul Fortress in the line for the turnstile, but other than pride and a few choice words, no damage done. He only brought cash in his wallet from the boat since he was worried about pickpockets. I had to wonder if you didn't bring your credit card on land to buy foreign things, why did you have it with you at all? It was a strategy that paid off for him though. 

Two delightful Vietnamese sisters retired and living in California had an amazing sense of humor and traveled without their significant others. One of them spilled her water bottle as we were getting on the mini-bus and was very adamant that everyone would know she didn't pee.

A retired Canadian couple born in the UK but living in Ottawa had very British accents and almost felt like a comic sketch of a British couple. He thought everywhere was unsafe but had had to travel with a "government office" during his working days. He fancied himself an expert on everything and liked waxing eloquent on it. He was a major pro-picture taker.

A quiet tall older couple from Minnesota or the Dakotas were a matched set of tallness.  She was friendly; he didn't talk. I found myself standing by him on the 5 minute escalator ride to the bottom of the St. Petersburg metro station. It was dramatically long. He was so overcome he spoke, "You'd have to leave for work early." Then at the bottom of the long escalator was a booth with a guard sitting in it. "That'd be easy work." I guess he thought about work.

There was one other couple and they were an exact match to this northern pair where one was friendly and one didn't talk. For the life of me I couldn't keep them straight. Except one fella wore a fishing cap.

While my mother has told me that I'm middle aged, I am not even beginning to be able to imagine the word retirement, so this was not my normal social set. It was almost like any group of quirky people but the quirks seem to be on steroids. Maybe our oddities increase as we get older? Is it harder to hold in our natural instincts of telling all you know or announcing loudly how bad the food or prices might be? I just don't know, not yet anyway.

 One thing that was unexpected for my husband and myself was that we felt responsible for all these people. I'm not sure if it is that we are used to living overseas and often are taking others around to see sites. We perhaps are in the habit of watching over folks. On this day, of course, we'd all paid dearly for a tour guide. She was a nice English teacher and probably around our age.

Nevertheless, my husband and I were tech support for the earphone technology, along with the tour guide, checking channels and volume buttons. We would hang back if we noticed one of the pack falling behind. We were cautioning them about pickpockets when we went into the metro station. We were definitely in mother hen mode even though it wasn't our job.

The cute thing is when we arrived late the first day (see earlier post) they were all worried if we were okay especially those from the north that must have skipped breakfast knowing the passport lines were long. It was our first time, how were we to know?

We compared notes with some younger people on the normal-non-comfort tours. It sounded miserable. They were road marched past a few more sites than us but never allowed to stop or ask questions. It sounded like a race to run past famous monuments, plus that tour was made up of three full sized bus loads of people and we were only 12. We could chat with our tour guide and ask for random potty stops while the big tour people did not have these luxuries. I was thrilled we had taken the comfort tour and had been able to enjoy the sites. To tell the truth, the comfort tour managed to wear me out anyway.

Pro or anti Daylight Savings Time?

Daylight savings sneaked up on me this last weekend here in Spain. Fortunately I had slept late, a prereq for a nice weekend morning, and my Sunday am appointment was not missed either. I noticed that despite having an extra hour, I was still running late in the end. Seems like you go into leisure mode when you think you have an extra hour!

Another shock came today when I went to the store after work and came out of the store to pitch black skies of night. How does that surprise you every single year?

The pro in this case was waking up to light. I really, really don't like to get up in the dark, so I do not mind at all the next few weeks that will give me a day lit morning.

I will miss the longer evenings though. For some reason, even though the temperature didn't change, going for a long walk in the dark doesn't have the same appeal as a sunset stroll. In the heat of summer, however, we had to wait until 10 pm for the streets to cool down enough for a walk. Us and the rest of our Spanish village! Now we are all scurrying to the park at 5 or 6 pm. Our internal meters all seek the same bit of light. Or it could be I'm getting to be more Spanish in my life style? They seem to do things in groups, rarely are people doing things solitaire.

 With Europe changing a week before the USA, I get messed up in my internal calculation of what time it is for my people back home. Then there's my grandpa in Arizona which doesn't participate in daylight savings so while his time doesn't change, I have to try to remember is this the season where he's 8 or 9 hours different from me?

I know a few people who are adamantly anti-time changing antics on the clock. Just leave it alone, they say. They don't care about long days in the summer.

I also have heard the other argument that they should just leave it switched so that the longer light is in the evenings, don't switch back and forth.

Extra light? No change? Which one are you?

Psyching yourself out

Breathe in, breathe out. I went thru a spell a while back where it felt like I couldn't get my breath. I told a stomach doctor that after I eat sometimes I feel like can't breathe very well. He said don't eat so much. Thanks, I couldn't have figured that out by myself. But in reality it didn't seem to be related to the food. I also noticed the sensation of being short of air when I lay down at night.

I recognized lying in the darkness that I could escalate the situation or calm it simply by how I thought about it. I could concentrate on the tightness in my abs or I could concentrate on air flowing in and out of my chest as I breathed slowly and steadily.

I started thinking about the power of the mind. As a writer, I do often try to get inside people's heads. The thing is I'm not a super psychology student and it's not my first instinct to look into the thoughts or motivations of someone else. I like plot so I easily get swept away in the activities. Next they did this, and then they did that.

But seeing in myself my own "opportunity" to talk myself into near panic over catching my breath or calming myself down if I talked differently made me think about the psychology of characters and strangers more.

A friend of mine described how she took the anger level of driving way down by imagining that the person that cut her off had to pee or was on their way to an emergency. Or even she could imagine that they were having a really bad day and if cutting her off could make them feel more in control of their lives maybe they just needed that at the moment and she would "give" them that.

The power of our thoughts on our perspective is amazing really.  You hear stories of the bitter victims of disease faring worse than those who make peace with it and fight on. In both cases they are fighting but one seems to do so with more grace and sometimes more success.

Whatever was causing my own breathing issues went away on it's own with no medical intervention. I could have spent a lot of time in emergency rooms at bedtime had I listened to the panic voice in my head. Instead, I concentrated on the air I did have. I wonder what other situations in life I could adjust the way I see? Opportunity or problem? I think in psychology they would call it "reframing" how I look at the situation.

So as I'm beginning to think of my next book I'm going to write I'm trying to imagine what kind of psychological journey I can take my characters on this time. From panic to serene? Maybe that's a bit too much, but it makes me want to look at how people cope and their motivations more.

Food time may not be the right time for you in Spain

This is something that always comes up with visitors to Spain. A friend has recently come to visit and in addition to noticing my food shopping procrastination,  she made me realize that we eat at funny times.

We don't eat Spanish style but after living here so long and of course dealing with the weather the same as everyone else, we have inadvertently adapted to the food schedule.

The system as I, a foreigner, understand it in Spain is generally eating five times a day. It goes something like this:

Breakfast: maybe a cup of coffee, or a cigarette, or both. Juice and a piece of toast if you're all into it.
A toast favorite of mine here is pan tomate: toasted left over bagette bread smeared with puré of fresh tomatoe, olive oil, and sea salt.

Around 10:30-11am. It's break time. I can't seem to get a firm grasp on what this is called in Spain. Almuerzo is a possibility but some say otherwise. It is not uncommon for everyone to go get a coffee from an office environment around this time and eat something small. It is very common to see people who work manually sitting in the shade or on a sidewalk eating a bocadillo (sandwich on bagette bread) and drinking wine or beer or coke. It's a snack to get you through til lunch.

2pm Comida. In the Madrid area, this is just referred to as Comida maybe different in other parts. This is normally a three course lunch. On weekdays this is a very affordable and filling option. Last week I paid 8 Euros for: course 1 - cannelones; course 2 - skirt steak and fries; course 3 - an ice cream cone, drink included. It's sort of stick to your ribs physical worker food out in the villages where we are at. In the city a few minutes away, sometime it has more finesse but it's always the same structure. This is traditionally the big meal of the day. Children are released from school to go home and eat big and they come back at 4:30 or so which makes for a challenging day for working parents and a lot of grandparent involvement or paying the school to keep the kids for this time frame. After this would be your nap if you take one, not everyone does, and many people are too far away from home to go back anyway.

5-8 pm is merienda. Again snack time but more commonly this is something sweet. A donut or tortitas: that is American style pancakes with chocolate syrup and whip cream. This is the only time of day McDonald's serves pancakes here. People generally make sure kids get something during this time frame.

Dinner, well that depends. I understand that you might feed the kids here at 8 or 8:30pm. Restaurants do not open for dinner until 8, 8:30 or 9pm depending on their preference. I've entered a restaurant at 7:50pm and been told to come back later.

For Valentine's day one year, we left our house at 7:30pm, arrived, were seated and ate our dinner as the only patrons in the restaurant. At 9pm when we were leaving, a few couples were coming in. A fancy dinner out would probably be scheduled at 10pm or perhaps 11pm.

The next question every American asks is how do they sleep with all that food on their stomach. I have no idea. I do know people stay up later here generally. Even Spaniards sometimes admit it's not good for you to eat so late.

If they are eating at home, this 9-10pm meal is something lighter, not a big three course meal. A Spanish tortilla for instance would be a dinner. It's like an egg and potato omelet but made in a flat pan shape which is a fine art here.

I usually do eat breakfast. Mother raised me to eat something before I left the house. I don't do 10:30 snack/almuerzo though on occasion will eat a cookie if I'm starving around 11am. We eat lunch in the office between 1:30 and 2 usually, rarely do we go out for the three course meal. It takes a long time and even though affordable doesn't meet our budget.

 I try not to eat anything after work around 6pm but if I'm starving I might have a snack. Dinner without air conditioning in a summer of 100+F at times got later and later. We ate consistently at 8pm but often it drifted into 9pm. Now that the weather is cooling, we might eat a little earlier. I like the free time aspect when I arrive home and often write then, rather than "starting dinner,"  so it's not going to get too much earlier than 8pm.

When we are home in the USA and someone wants to beat the crowd to a restaurant at say 5:30pm -- it sort of gives me reverse culture shock. It seems like eating a late lunch to me. Funny what you get used to without even knowing it.

Telephone company induced culture shock

I had a guy who is living outside his own culture say he never had culture shock. I think he doesn't know the definition and has an ego that makes him think he's better if he doesn't have it. Maybe he is.

Having lived quite a number of years outside the USA, I would say culture shock can sneak up on you from very unexpected directions and maybe doesn't look like you'd think, even after years. After seven years in Spain, I define my culture shock moments by an unexpected and disproportional rage or reaction of some kind. It's not that the provoking event doesn't merit some reaction, it's just that proportionally culture shock jumps you several levels ahead of what it would be in your home culture.

Take Burger King for instance. The new one nearby has -- in English  -- on the seats "Have it your way" and yet a friend of mine who is particular about how she likes her food was told "no se puede." It cannot be. Yes, it's annoying and yes it's absurd but sometimes something simple can blow you out of the water. This same Burger King which has a permanent sign on it's pillar proclaiming "24 horas" told me two weeks ago at 11 am -- 24 hours yes, but not today, only on weekends.

The last two weeks I have been at conferences. The first week was here in Spain and people came from all over Europe. Now, I made the mistake of thinking these people are Europeans so they will not have a strong reaction to Spain.

What I discovered is that I am accustomed to the eccentricities of Spain and I have accepted many of them. I don't always like it but I'm used to it.  Now my northern European colleagues were suddenly asking why things were and I had no answer. I realized eventually that they were uncomfortable with the hotel changing the hours or the exact order of things or the details we had all agreed upon.

Now perhaps I have given up fighting these things since it takes so much energy or perhaps I have just accepted them as inevitable. I realized my colleagues were having a mild discomfort and confusion which is culture shock.

I know my significant other and I have each separately or occasionally together had moments of raging against something simple or terribly complicated, but invariably something we could not control.

Last Monday in fact after conference no. 1 we arrived home to discover our internet and cable tv service had quit.  We reset the system a couple times. Nothing.

In the USA the next step is make a phone call. We put that off until morning because we didn't have the energy. The next morning the automated system couldn't understand my man's Spanish. So I asked the admin assistant at work to call. She perhaps didn't realize I expected her to find the entire answer for me. She got me into a queue for English support and handed the phone back to me.

After being on hold for more than 30 minutes and passed between offices because they had me on hold for the wrong office, I found myself talking to someone in heavily accented English on perhaps the worst speaker phone I have ever heard. It was near impossible to understand anything. I fought thru the preliminaries of my phone number etc. I kept say I can't understand you. This degredated into him shouting at me and hanging up on me. I thought I was suppose to hang up on the cable company - at least I could picture that happening in the USA, but here they hung up on ME in frustration.

My Spanish speaking colleague said I should call and renounce the guy which is the word they use here for filing a complaint. It's a very expressive word that I like a lot and would like to try sometime, but I'd been passed around so much I had no idea who or what department I was talking to.

So I called back and then the automated system hung up on me. Then I called back and they tried to sell me something before they asked me my problem. Then I finally talked to someone in Spanish. I discovered embarrassingly that the payment didn't go thru as my account got too low. Okay, I can fix that. I only needed you to tell me.

I inquired two or three times in case my Spanish isn't working well on how to go about solving this. Do I need a number when I got to the bank and pay it? No. So then I repeat their expectations and what I should do a couple times. 

My man goes to the bank and there proceeds to get yelled at for not having the right information to pay this bill despite my close questioning of the phone company/cable company person.

Something that is simple or perhaps frustrating in the USA, turns into epic proportions in another culture. In the end, we figured out how to pay in another way online and service was restored but not before we'd had a war with our own emotions and the system. Often we just don't fight things because we just don't have the energy for it, but sometimes even in the same day, we have magical moments and love where we're living!

Carry On Tips for Travel

Many of the airlines are getting to be sticklers and charging for luggage or even weighing the carry ons -- especially the low cost ones. It pays to pack strategically. I'm getting ready for a couple of those kind of trips. Here's some of my ideas.

Color coordinate. I can get a lot more distance from my clothes and fit better in a carry on size if I choose a color scheme. If all my clothes are interchangeable, then that spaghetti accident on day one doesn't mean I have to wear it the rest of the trip. I know none of you have this problem, it's just me.

I have a personal rule of always taking two pair of jeans or trousers or skirt or whatever due to the same risk of accident. I also take two pair of shoes. This is a personal preference because my feet will go a long way, but generally the next day they need a different pair of shoes in order to do it again. Wear one, take one in the carry on -- stick to the color scheme. As much as I want to be cool and fashionable, it may be necessary to fit it all in the bag to leave the boots or chunky shoes at home or plan to wear those each way on the plane. Only the walking worthy shoes make the cut.

I can make my clothes last and even rinse them out but toiletries for this girl are a little more tricky. That one liter bag seems to shrink as I put my essentials in it. I understand boys don't have this problem.

One tip is if you buy name brand make up and they have free giveaways (usually smaller sizes) save those for trips. Also if you go to a shop that gives you a sample of a lotion or something, keep that tiny sample dish if it has a screw on lid. That single ounce size may make all the difference from having some sunblock along on the trip or not.

I keep those little containers and clean them filling them only according to the trip's needs. The bottles and containers you buy for this purpose are often a little larger which limits how many different types of products you can take. I recently bought some shampoo type bottles. I'd be lucky to get three of them and a toothpaste travel size in my bag. I need more than three products. Look for containers that have large openings for easy refilling. The little capsule that the disposable gloves come in with hair dye is great for hair gel or creme that isn't real liquid-y.

It may sound a little rustic but those tiny bars of soap that you get at hotels can double in a pinch as shampoo as well as shower gel. If you have one of those little bars, it doesn't have to go in your precious one liter liquid bag. Leave the shower gel and shampoo at home and throw an emergency bar in the bottom of the bag in case the hotel or hostel does not provide those.

Or alternately shop on location. This is often an option but those cheap flights may be really late arrivals, or if it's an event or conference you may not be in control or in a location where you have the option to get to a shop easily.

Try to use one product for two. My face sunblock can double for the body sunblock if it's a trip that doesn't need a lot. Plus I can downsize it to one of my little containers. Conditioner will work not only to help you comb your long hair but also you can shave with it. Try to give it up a product just for the trip or plan a different hair style that leaves some product behind.

Don't forget that in addition to your travel toiletries they want you to put anything else you normally carry in your purse in the one liter bag. Lip gloss, lotion, or hand sanitizer.  I use a lotion that is a hand sanitizer to combine those.

Extra tip: even when I'm checking a bag and I can put my full size bottles in. I will pack and emergency supplies type one liter, so that should the big bag not arrive, I can survive a day or two. This is usually toothpaste, toothbrush (outside the bag), make up, an eyeliner or mascara, deodorant, and conditioner.

A handy travel product if you have room is Downy Wrinkle Releaser. I just keep the bottle and mix up my own made out of 1/3 fabric softener and water, but the bottle size generally is 1/4 of your one liter bag. If you arrive, hang up your clothes and spray them usually they'll be wearable the next day without looking like they were in the suitcase.

Book hunting in the e-world

I was shuffling papers on a desk I only store things on since I carry the laptop around and slouch on the sofas these days. I noticed a pile of bookmarks and flyers about books in one of my cubbyholes. They are from a mystery convention I went to years ago, a mystery book store I frequented in the USA when I lived there, and maybe a couple that were direct marketing pieces from Sisters In Crime, a group I belong to, as well.

I realized I don't think I've ever gone to that pile of papers to look for a book title to read. Despite having kept these and toted them between two or three residences, I don't think to go look there. And despite having read the cards and kept them because they seemed interesting to me.

This got me thinking about how finding books has changed. I blogged a year ago about this a little bit too.

Now, I'm involved with Mystery Readers Corner on Facebook. It's a private group and for a good reason - though if you're a mystery reader you can ask to be a part. I was involved with two other groups on Facebook that turned into marketing blitzes by authors who didn't realize a little decorum might be called for. Posting about your book and it alone every day is a turn off. Those of you who follow me know I try to keep it fun, light, hopefully interesting and occasionally I mention my book stuff.

Anyway - on Mystery Readers Corner I hear about books everyday. Often I don't have time to pursue it but when I do and I like the way something sounds I try to put it on my GoodReads list. (Me on GoodReads) This way I maintain a digital list that doesn't accumulate papers in a cubbyhole in my house. By far this is not all the books I'm interested in but it gives me a place to start.

Though many of my GoodReads list are also ones I saw on GoodReads when I was shopping for a specific destination book and now that I'm not going to that city they don't hold as much appeal. They have a page of Around the World in 80 books that has a page listing books by place, for me the challenge is they are not all mysteries and it just depends on my mood. It's a fun list to look at though. They also do a challenge of reading around the world in a year or countries that touch each other etc. I have never taken the challenge but it's fun to see the suggestions. This too is a place I find books.

One of the most helpful things for choosing a book or adding it to my wishlist on these page feeds is when someone describes the tone of a book. I don't always want too much of a plot summary, but I do want to know if they liked it and if it was dark, light, serious, police procedural, historical, cozy etc. These words help me know according to my mood if that is a direction I'm ready to go on my next read. I don't always get to maintain that little tone-tidbit when I put it on GoodReads but I at least know it appealed to me on a specific day.

One thing I've noticed on various list feeds is that I feel like a very slow reader comparatively and a very behind the times reader. I grew up scavenging books not getting them new, so I wasn't one to rush out and buy new until I got an ereader. I'm very rarely on the latest of anyone's series and as there are so many good books in the world I'm often picking up ones from a few years ago that aren't so expensive. So I guess even as an ereader, I'm still scavenging rather than looking at the latest and greatest, but hearing what people like in the latest and greatest gives me something to look forward to, maybe in a couple years.

Are you finding books differently and keeping track of them differently than you used to?

The art of procrastinating on food

Does everyone have major grocery purchasing aversions like I do? I've become the queen of substitutions for recipes -- assuming I even bother with a recipe for dinner -- in order to avoid stopping by a store.

In the last month, my significant other and I have achieved a new all time high or would it be stooped to a low(?) in avoiding food shopping. Today we had a conversation that went something like this:
I could eat a spoonful of peanut butter for breakfast.
Oh, you're out of cereal? Don't we have bread?
No.
Hey -- we have tostas. (Spanish pre-toasted crunchy bread slices. Think melba toast.)
Perfect, peanut butter, jelly, and tostas.
I've still got cereal.
Perfect.

This conversation took place on the way to get something out to eat for lunch, so the leftovers in the fridge could be lunch tomorrow.

Everyone does avoid the store on occasion (don't they?)  but we've really turned it into a game the last few weeks. I find great satisfaction in raiding a kitchen that seems to have nothing in it and coming up with dinner. Granted it's going to be dinner with not all the ingredients but dinner it will be.

It's funny there have been times in my life when this substitution or avoidance was due to financial constraints, but this time it's just shear stubbornness or laziness. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it's "vacation" month in Spain and everyone is either at the beach or wishing they were, so my own personal take is avoiding the reality of grocery carts.

Now, if I'm honest this month of avoiding the store has had to necessarily require visits to the corner shop in our village. It tries to do an impression of a grocery story but it really only has two aisles and a VERY limited selection. I would say most US convenience stores are probably on par with the selection. So we have picked up a couple more liters of shelf milk there, a couple lemons, some lunch meat and bread when we decided to have sandwiches all last weekend, uh toilet paper, and a few odds and ends. We also buy a lot of random things that just accumulate in the cabinets that have aided this creative non-food-buying marathon.

I know we are probably spending too much buying the odds and ends like this rather than breaking down and going to the big store, but we've been one-upping the sensation  that you need to go to the store for a couple weeks now.

So last Monday we were going to grill and had thawed all the meat in the freezer. A freak storm came up that was glorious and humid for a few hours of relief in in our high desert, but no grilling. Hmm, but we do need to eat. So eggs to the rescue -- we had a revuelto frozen package and voila dinner. Revuelto is a veg mix of some sort that you mix with eggs in Spain. Tuesday we grilled all the thawed meat and proceeded to eat it for the next couple days. Thursday on the way to work with the last two burgers in a bag for lunch we laughed and said okay we have to go tonight that was all fun but time is up.

Oops. It's a holiday and the grocery store near us is closed. Now we could have driven 30 minutes and shopped elsewhere, but not us. We decided to push it further. We discovered some forgotten fish fillets in the freezer which my hubby creatively turned into fish curry with some also forgotten cranberries.

Enough fish curry for lunch on Friday! I had a revelation that I still had a lemon and could reproduce that lemon pasta dish minus the chicken. I mean really if there's rice and pasta in the house, you can keep the game going awhile, right?

Saturday we walked to the corner pastelleria (pastry shop) and got goodies and a liter of milk for breakfast and we're (eureka!) invited to a barbecue for dinner. So we have not achieved this non-shopping streak without the help of others and restaurants to be fair.

Breakfast is going to be our undoing I think. It's going to have to be this week. Or we could make a couple more stops in the corner store to make it to a full month of non-shopping. Like I said, we've still got rice.

Self discovery oddly enough via Pinterest

I'm not an avid pinner. I have a few boards. One is for characters in my books, one is for books I like. One I called "Food I Will Likely Never Make" because I'm a big one for looking but not actually doing -- as I suspect a lot of pinterest is.

The food page is where I made my self discovery. I opened the board for the first time looking for something I thought I'd put there that maybe I would consider making depending on the ingredients. What I discovered is that I am obsessed by the same basic foods.

I have pinned several versions of macaroni and cheese. I know, what am I 12?! Oh comfort food, I love you.

I would have admitted before looking at this that I like cinnamon rolls. Based on the board, I have to say I REALLY like cinnamon rolls. The shameful revelation is that I've never made them and my vehement pinning of cinnamon rolls is the hunt for a recipe that will finally be easy enough that I will actually try. I often eat cinnamon rolls and think I want MORE cinnamon. It seems that I secretly dream of a day when I find a recipe that doesn't involve raising, waiting two hours and kneading etc. but allows for easy mix up dough and LOTS of cinnamon. Disclaimer: I'm living in a country that doesn't have cinnamon rolls (except for Starbucks) so this may be part of my obsession. 

I pin a lot of enchilada related things. Enchilada soup, avocado enchiladas, chicken for enchiladas in the crockpot. If I go to a Mexican restaurant, I often order burritos so this is intriguing that I pin enchilada related things. I do love anything in the Mexican/tex-mex genre. On a side note: I have NOT pinned the four billion versions of adding things to guacamole. Why mess with something that is pretty much perfect? Corn and goat cheese in my guac? No, thanks. But I digress.

I have pinned frozen desserts that don't require an ice cream maker. Granted I've at least chosen two different flavors but I see a pattern again. Few ingredients and a pan in the freezer. I'm looking for the easy dessert fix apparently.

Overnight French Toast is another biggie with me I hadn't realized. Not sure I'm a fan of french toast to the point of obsession and repeated pinning, but I think the truth is, I love the idea of breakfast just being there when I get up on weekends. So the idea of french toast in a crock pot that would be all gooey and ready is appealing. I tried a breakfast egg casserole in the crock pot a few months ago for dinner. Turns out my crock pot here in Spain cooks super hot and scorched the heck out of those eggs in about 6 hours instead of 8. So much for the overnight idea. Scorched french toast just isn't as appealing, nor is getting up at, say, 3 am to turn it on so it's not scorched by morning. This is probably not going to happen. Ever. Thanks goodness for my significant other making muffins, smoothies and such! whew.

A lot of my recipe pins are crock pot ones, as I'm apparently on the trail of homemade food that I don't have to spend much time making happen. I want to eat well I just don't want to participate much. It's another pattern I didn't know was there.

The one trait I'm a bit horrified to admit that the pattern shows is I want it easy and effortless. I wish I was one of those people that enjoys the process and the art. That would seem more noble. I just like to eat yummy-ness but prefer minimal effort which doesn't always go together I find.

I wonder if everyone could go to wherever they hoard recipes and find a pattern? Do you have any food obsessions that you KNOW about or will it come out in some public forum someday?

 

Cruise Quick stop wrap up: Estonia, Finland, Sweden

Talinn, Estonia
The old city stop off was near the port. A medieval colorful city with a crafts/trinkets market going in the main square even though it was a Wednesday. Not sure if it was a holiday or just a matter of the tourist part of town and summer catering to tourists. They were doing a good business so it was paying off whatever the cause.

We went into a lovely old church near the main square that was intimate, whitewashed and held ancient well used pews. Nothing fancy and they were putting up songbook numbers for a service later.  Another church more of a grand cathedral had been turned into a museum that was mostly empty but had the Danse Macabre (Dance of Death) panel paintings that remain from the medieval times by an unknown artist. Death in skeletal form but different costumes "danced" with people in all different walks of life and all different ages. It was an odd panel the full length of one of the chapels and had apparently been larger at one time.

We mostly wandered and shopped. The city was very colorful. and while medieval very different looking than what I might expect. Perhaps it was all the yellow paint and the ornate carvings on buildings that surprised me.

We got blueberry ice cream and lingonberry sorbet on the way back on purpose choosing something we hadn't seen elsewhere. It was just right and no stress kind of day. Perhaps we should have been more into the history but I  just didn't have the energy. Linen goods (ie my sweater and a tablecloth) and Russian style paintings, dolls, hats etc seemed to be the things to buy.



Helsinki, Finland
We took a 10 euro shuttle to and from the center from the port which was a good move. it was a very boutique store city that looks like it'd be fun to do home decorating shopping in but I didn't what with flying with suitcases and walking around a city all day.

We walked down to a market along the water that had people selling fruit, Finnish meals on paper plates, and homemade goods. This was really delightful and while I'm sure kept up for tourists felt like locals were there too. We talked to girls who tried to get us to buy Spanish blueberries that were on sale which is funny since we traveling away from Spain. My man bought a winter hat from a lady who knitted it. The market had lots of heavy winter linens and knifes. I'm guessing summer is short there.

We walked on to an Orthodox church that was colorfull and then to what seemed to be the main square. It was dominated by an enormous Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Cathedral inside and outside it was airy and light gray indoors. The massive steps created a seating area to listen to the music festival and for the seagulls to swoop down to try to steal whatever you were eating. It was a local festival of music and crafts and food. The significant other being the brave eater that he is bought a paper bowl of minirit (sp?) a little white fried fish you eat whole (head, fins, tale) with a sort of hollandaise sauce drizzled on too if you wished. I think it is like smelt. Fried with a cornmeal type batter or something coarser anyway  than the fried boquerones version in Spain. A band did some folk music and folk dancing going while we sat on the steps.

We shopped the little booths and  I bought a little ceramic dish from the artist. I got in a long line for some pastry looking things and asked the ladies ahead of me what I was in line for! They explained it was a traditional pastry of rice, a savory thing. One lady remembered her grandmother making them. I didn't catch the name. They wanted to know all about my trip and were delightful to talk to. A rock band started then which they confirmed were singing in Finnish but were "too loud". The pastry was artistically folded dough around a middle of rice mush then it was fried, and then it appeared to be rolled in melted butter. It was tasty but not a dramatic flavor. It made me think of survival food that needed to fill you up. While I was eating it, I got pooped on by a seagull. Someone told me that is good luck.

Stockholm, Sweden
We walked about a mile to the Gamla Stan "remarkably preserved" Old Town. It was windy, cold (in June!) with small pretty streets and loads of shops but not all open since it was Sunday. Lots of ice cream shops making their waffle cones and it smelled so good. Lots of artsy boutiques again and fun felted hats and paintings and such. We had to get money at an ATM as they are EU but not on the Euro. Kroners. It is really hard to estimate how much you need of currency when you are only there for a few hours. Every place took credit cards too.

We ended up wandering into the royal palace in the Gamla Stan and went in for 150K each, not a cheap ticket but you do get to see a lot of rooms. Most of the upholstered furniture is covered with ticking type covers, probably for protection, so the impression is not as grand as it could be. It felt like a much more subdued palace especially after Russia. It had gone thru several phases of people, royals actually living in it and what is now a cabinet meeting room was once a royal dining room. A modern room done in 1998 for the king's jubilee was all retro and 1950s expensive looking. The palace was just more used and somehow friendlier than the big shiny palaces though there were some lovely rooms. The white sea room and a dining room based on the Versailles mirror room were some of the blinged rooms. Parts of the palace had a little of an early American feel to me probably because it was moved into in 1740 or thereabouts.

A military band started playing while we were inside which was interesting and there were still ceremonies going when we came out and we imagined what if it was for you all that ceremony. The Swedes wore imposing military pickle hats at least ceremonially. It was and interesting changing of the guard.

We had a huge slice of apple strudel from a quaint coffee shop that the prince and or his wife had been to  - at least  I think that's why they can display the photograph but not sure... then we got ice cream.  What decadence. We took advantage of our time away from the ship to eat random local things rather than try to squeeze in another meal. We used the stairs on the 10 story ship a lot and the weight gain for me was only 2 pounds (1 kilo) whew!