Monday, August 26, 2013

Sunday Snippets #8 (on Monday)

From my childhood home.
I've been slacking with my Sunday posts mainly because I am lazy and don't get anything done. The fact that I am on vacation has little to do with it; in fact, if anything, I should get more posts up because of all the time I don't have to slave off working :p
 
Today started the last week of my summer holiday, I will be back to work next Tuesday (how I love it is not Monday this time - it's so nice to have that extra day in the beginning of a week). It has been a nice holiday, full of mainly just lazing around but also going to places and doing stuff.
 
Right in the beginning of the holiday the boyfriend and I visited a music festival here in Helsinki for a day, and it was an awesome day. I haven't been to many festivals mainly because those around here tend to take place in the middle of nowhere and I hate tents with passion, but this one was in the middle of the city, so yay.
 
It started raining on Monday and it rained straight through the first four days of the summer holidays, so that meant a lot of staying in and playing a computer game and reading.
 
Also, our Mammucat fell ill right before the start of the holidays, which meant we had to start treatment combined of pills twice a day, washing her hears once a day and putting some ear medicine into ears twice a day, so that pretty much meant that longer trips will not happen. She feels better now and we will go for a check-up to the vet tomorrow afternoon.
 
A solitary Mammu :)
 
A week ago we did visit my parents in Estonia, for about three days. Many of my relatives visited during the same weekend and it was nice to catch up with all my cousins. We returned with a big suitcase full of food, mainly from my mother's garden and greenhouse. Plus a big batch of chanterelles we picked from the forest - I love mushroom picking! And my dad is a pro and knows all the best mushroom places. In fact, one year I gifted him a huge bright yellow ceramic chanterelle for birthday. He loves mushroom picking.
 
This last Friday we took a small train trip to another town here in Finland, we started this tradition last year and both trips were very nice. We saw an awesome medieval church, an awesome museum are that consisted of a small wooden town of different buildings from past - like houses of leather makers, tobacco makers, bakery, string instrument maker, smith, etc. etc. In some houses people dressed in appropriate clothes were still working on the crafts and this place was awesome. We spent so long there that we didn't make it on time to the main tourist attraction of the town, an old castle. So we just admired that from outside. We also had a quite extravagant 3-course lunch in one of Finland's oldest restaurants, and had in total 4 hours in trains - and I am obsessed with trains. One year I told my boyfriend I want nothing else for birthday gift than a train ride. I got a pile of gifts, plus a train ride, so nothing to complain about. Anyway, back to food, after eating we spent an hour in a totally empty park; the boyfriend took a nap on one bench and I read on the other. Pretty much a perfect day based on my standards.
 
Glove maker's apartments.
On the town streets, there were plenty of visitors and this was the only
shot I got with only people with time-appropriate clothes on.
String instrument maker. I played violin for 9 years myself,
so this room I loved specifically.

In the front of reading, it has been slow but steady. I finished Mansfield Park for Austen in August event - so proud I actually managed to finish a book during the event! At parents, I organised all my childhood books and brought back some 10 or so that I want to read. These are such comfort reads, I've read three of them already. I am thinking I should do a post about my childhood reads, because being from non-English language environment (not to mention a post-Soviet country), my reading material as a child was very different from most I have read in other blogs. I made a post of the huge pile of books I got almost for free on Thursday, and I started A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, which I am reading now. It has been an odd experience in the way that being almost half-way through (and it's 600+ page one), I have absolutely no idea whether I like it or not. I realise it basically depends on the later parts of the book what I will think about it in the end. So it's exciting!
 
Robert's idea of a comfortable sleeping position?

4 comments:

  1. This village looks awesome! I really like all the traditional places!

    I too always feel how my childhood reading (I grew up in Russia) is very different from everybody else's around blogosphere... I'm now curious if yours have something common with this list?
    http://irrelevant-scribble.blogspot.cz/2013/01/russian-classic-pre-1960-childrens.html
    These are some of my favourite childhood books, and I'm wondering how much of them are known in Estonia :)

    And of course I'll be mighty interested if you actually do a list of your childhood books! That's be awesome :)

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    1. It was really, really coold place and we could have happily lingered for hours in there.

      Thanks for the link! So many of those that I recognise :) I'll leave you a comment under your post because the comment may be very long :)

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  2. Eeeee so much exciting stuff!

    So, poor Mammu :( Sick cats is always a really sad thing. But hooray for taking little train trips - I haven't been on a train but I really, really want to! And those little houses with the time-appropriately dressed people sounds like it would be really cool to see.

    I have A Prayer For Owen Meany on my list to read next month, if I can get a copy from the library. I've been hearing so many good things about it. I hope I like it.

    I hope you enjoyed your vacation! Back to the grind now, sadly. Hopefully going back to work doesn't suck too bad! Lol.

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    Replies
    1. Trains are awesome. My boyfriend mocks me about the train obsession :) And the medieval village was really cool.

      I finished A Prayer for Owen Meany today, I gave it 4 out of 5, though most of the time during reading I leaned towards 3. However, the end was a lot stronger for me so the rating went up. Will be curious to see what you think!

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Leave a comment if you feel like it - it warms my little bookish heart. :)