Oui, merci.

Okay the photo above is from Helsinki but it might as well be from Paris. And it will, in November. Crème brûlée, pain au chocolat and tarte au citron be aware! I'm coming to get you all. And even better, I'll have a superb hostess.

Next week: Buenos Aires

Next week me and Laila are off to Buenos Aires for a few days! I am very excited to go there and here is a list of what I'm gonna do there:

- Sit at different restaurants and cafes and eat delicious food. I love food, I so do. I love cooking, I love eating other people's cookings and love eating out.

- Drink Argentinian wine, obviously.

- Watch Laila getting it on with the famous Argentinian beef. Good luck, girl. We'll see if I'll get jealous and start questioning my decision of being a vegetarian. I've been off carne for a long long time and I don't really even know what I'm missing out on but I am afraid if eating well in Chile has been limited on my part, in Argentina it is even more so. I mean I'm sure I can find great vegetarian food in a place like Buenos Aires but I just don't get the best of the best, the true Argentinian culinary excellence, the beef steak.

- Drink good coffee. I'm not a coffee drinker normally but I do enjoy a cup of cafe con leche if it's well made. Actually the last time I was in Spain I was hooked on the milk coffee they had in Pedreguer. I sprinkle sugar on the nice foamy milk surface, then eat the sugar+milk foam with a spoon, then add more sugar to the rest of the coffee and enjoy it preferably with a bit of equally delicious chocolate. But if the coffee is as good as it sometimes is I don't even need the chocolate. And while drinking it I don't even have to make funny faces like I normally do with the awful Finnish coffee because I actually like it a lot. So the reason why I'm hoping to spend a good amount of pesos on coffee in BA is because the coffee here really sucks. And it's supposed to be a lot better in Argentina. I know a few places with good espresso based coffee here but other than that it's nescafe. And seriously a cup of that instant shit often costs more than a huge completo (local "hot dog") which is absurd. With Laila we never get tired of being amazed by that. Chile is not a coffee country, not saying Finland is but it's still half a light year ahead of Chile with its coffee.

- Listen and watch tango. How could I not do that in Buenos Aires?

- See the real Casa Rosada. Our home here in Valpo is called Casa Rosada by its people and by its friends. Mainly because of its pink residents (Anne and me of course, NOT referring to any hello kitty stuff, just our beautiful nordic skin. Although the concept of rosada has gone beyond all things explainable. Everything can be and is pink around here. In conclusion: PINK IS A STATE OF MIND.) but the house itself is pink too. I'm not particularly interested to see the Argentinian precidential palace except for the fact that me and the prez share something really special, something pink.

- Visit book stores. I love books for a variety of reasons. I love them as objects and I love reading. I've heard that one of the most magnificent book stores in the world is in BA, it's called El Ateneo and I definitely wanna see what it's like.

- Try to get to know a little bit about the (political) history of Argentina. This will probably include visiting the grave of Eva Peron as well as other monuments. I read that even today the mothers of those who disappeared during the dictatorship march every Thursday at Plaza de Mayo and give a speech in front of the Casa Rosada. Mothers will never forget and I support them.

So wandering, eating, drinking, listening, enjoying, laughing and talking will be my tasks for next week.

P.S. The pictures above are from Restaurant Allegretto in Cerro Concepcion here in Valparaíso.

Bean there

My roommate Kike done that. Traditional Chilean bean stew. Looove it. I'll try to learn how to prepare it. So far I've only reached the peeling-the-beans phase in which I'm actually pretty good at.

Breakfast at 2 p.m.

When times get rough

It's quite okay to concentrate on other stuff.

Like books, food and yoga.

Good books I've read recently:
-On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
-Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
-The World According to Garp by John Irving

All by excellent authors so it should come as no surprise that they were the type of books that once you finished them you had to take a moment and not read anything else for a minute. That you were kind of left with this feeling of longing after the last page.

Good food I've eaten recently:
-nectarines
-zucchini with garlic and olive oil
-pebre chileno with bread

That's it.

06.12.2008

Preparing and eating Chilean and Finnish goods, making Christmas decorations and finishing the night with a bbq in Viña.

Today's lists

List 1

To buy
-a mirror
-a reading lamp
-shower gel
-a cardigan or a hoodie
-a wooden structure to put underneath my mattress

List 2

To do
-measure my mattress and get some guy to do the wooden thingy for it down at the carpenter's
-plan a studying schedule
-study Spanish
-get tiles from the hard ware store and build a table using the tiles and an old window frame
-pay the rent
-go through the photos from my London-Paris-Pedreguer trip and post some of them here

List 3

Good things
-the sun
-friends
-new home
-learning new things everyday
-the view from my window
-the face lift that the States is going through
-the sometimes occurring optimism of actually speaking Chilean one day
-sleeping when sleepy
-eating when hungry
-the music I listen to

List 4

Not so good things
-flu
-tiredness
-feeling cold
-not being able to communicate well
-Finnish sweets which now have a strong onion aroma because apparently the jar I put them in used to have something onion-y inside
-missing out on lives of people who are very important to me
-the frequently occurring pessimism of never learning Chilean
-fleas
-the music Danilo listens to

Empty Bowls

Today me and Koko went to an event called Empty Bowls: design for a purpose (in Finnish) which was part of the Helsinki Design Week. The idea is that different designers and artists donate their seld-made ceramic bowls for the event which then the audience can buy. By giving money, people can choose a bowl they desire to have and get soup for lunch. All the money goes to charity for the fight against hunger. Here in Helsinki the Empty Bowls project worked in collaboration with UNICEF. The idea is quite nice, you get yourself quality handmade ceramics while giving money for charity.
We got there at 11 when the event started but already there was a long queue almost reaching all the way to the next block. Once we got in the beautiful Helsinki Cathedral crypt was packed with people searching for the favorite piece. After a while me and Koko found our favorites of the big bunch and were ready to get some soup. There were 6 different options for soup! Pumpkin soup, mushroom soup, borch soup, crayfish soup, sausage soup and sea food soup. I took crayfish soup and Koko got pumpkin. Both were delicious.
The atmosphere at the event was wonderful. A string quartet playing beautiful classical tunes and people enjoying their soups and their brand new designer ceramic bowls.
My bowl is like a tear. That's why I pretended to be sad.
While Koko didn't have to pretend at all. Her bowl has bees and flowers.
We had such a nice time, me and her. Thank you dear for asking me to join you.

P.S. In Finnish the name of the event is good, "Tyhjä kulho", meaning empty bowl. In English I can't help but to think of someone emptying his bowels for the sake of famine. How vulgar.

Today

Location: Kebabistan & home
Attendees: Anniina & Maija

Yesterday

Location: Stockmann
Attendees: Koko & Maija

I LOVE DINING.

That's Liisa's hand by the way.

China Gold

Chai & Sushi

Plums are delicious at the moment. All of a sudden you realize you've eaten a dozen of them. I've made myself tea by boiling cinnamon, cardamom and clove.
I had a wonderful day yesterday. I met with two friends in town. Aren't they the prettiest? We ate some, drank some, talked a lot and laughed a lot. What else do you need?


Sushi, you need sushi. So today I made sushi and I'm gonna go meet my friend soon (the girl on one of the pictures with a blue-striped shirt and the cutest flowery belt) and surprise her with some fresh homemade sushi.

Breakfast

My typical long morning before going to work at 1.
Reading a paper or a magazine, listening to music, surfing the net or watching an episode of one of my favorite tv-series while having a little something to eat and drink. Not too bad at all.
Today is Mayday so yesterday was a one big hoopla all day and night. I met my beautiful Koko after work in town. We managed to get an overall view of the thousands and thousands of helplessly drunk and cheery townspeople and eventually escaped the happy menace to a bar called Nolla. Had a couple of glasses of wine (me tinto, her blanco) before heading home by bus. A nice day it was.

TEARDROP

José González will be performing tomorrow here in our town. Still not sure if I'll go. He has been here a few times and shameful of me, I've missed them all.

I'm having trouble trying to figure out what I should do in the future. A cook or a baker is an option! A very, very serious option definitely worth considering. Ha ha.