A Celebration of Mundanity

Recipe for complete relaxation: sit in a wood fired sauna until well done (i.e. sopping with sweat) complete with lashings from wilted thin birch branches, then jump into cool water of a lake in…

In need of taking some actual vacation time, we rented a cabin near Kalvola, 120 some km further north of Helsinki for a few days. This is the farthest north that either Mark or I have ever been. At…

On my way to the museum du jour, I walked by the Helsinki Parliament building. I'm not sure what was going on, however, lining the stairs were thousands of potted flowering plants, mostly Gerbia…

I made my way over to the Seurasaari Open Air Museum, this is a very neat and unique museum on an island to the west of Helsinki. Founded in the early 1900's the museum has buildings brought from…

Our first full day around Helsinki just took us for a walk around town, through the open air market in the Market Square near the pier and stopping for lunch and people watching. All the cafes along…

It's 12:45 in the morning and it's still not *quite* dark out. Dusk, or a really odd surreal twilight sunset on the horizon, well after midnight. Weather Underground doesn't have super detailed…

It's pouring rain. Buckets and buckets are falling from the sky! Perfect day to walk around the city of Madrid! We stopped in the Museo de Jamon for lunch. Ham is a mainstay of the Spanish diet. This…

I spent the day at the Real Jardin Botanico aka The Royal Botanical Garden of Madrid. Not much to say, it is a small but nice garden, surrounded on all sides by busy roads so you never escape feeling…

I'm loving the new 18-200VR lens, it's making it even harder to *not* take amazing photographs, here's a sampling of photos from the Madrid Zoo: It's really hard to pick favorites, just go have a…

Powered by churros, the Spanish fried-dough pastry mostly served for breakfast in Spain, and cafe con leche I set out for another walk about the city. I started out at the Plaza de Cibeles which is…