Eating for Three

There are oh so many things that rankle in this far-flung northern country of ours, but then there are those things that warm the cockles of your heart.  This is a Finnish guide to the recommended daily portions of food groups one should eat while pregnant:

When I was younger, the food pyramid went something like dairy, meat, fruits and veg, and grains.  But not in Finland, nuh uh.  Here the potato reigns supreme and warrants it's own group.

Surprisingly, coffee, yet another staple of Finnish cuisine, didn't make it into the brochure.  My American friends who sympathized with what they assumed would be a 10-month sabbatical from my morning cuppa are shocked to learn that in Finland, even while pregnant you are allowed three cups per day!  At our twin birthing/parenting class, our health nurse never even batted an eye when she went through the stages of twin labor and concluded by saying, 'And then you have your celebratory cup of coffee before they wheel you into the maternity ward.'  Not even the ordeal of birth can get between a Finn and their cup of coffee.  

The Wheels of Bureaucracy Go Round and Round

My struggles with official documents in Finland started as soon as I arrived in the country.  I've always been a bit of a traditionalist and assumed I would take my husband's family name when we got married. But by accident I (stupidly) registered myself in my maiden name and it's been a nightmare rollercoaster ride up and down the mountains of paperwork to get it sorted out ever since.  When people in government offices are arguing with you about what your real name is, it tends to make you question the reality of your own existence.  Just call me Jason Bourne.  And why do I have this random Russian passport?

The fact that our little family addition also needed documentation for both countries has only made the thrills and spills that more nauseating.  But hopefully we're on the last loop-de-loop of paperwork, at least for a while anyway.

In brighter news, the summer weather here in the north has managed to hang around a little for our return home, so we're sporting sockless feet and short sleeves as long as we possibly can.  The grocery stores are chock full of fresh summer veg at a fraction of the cost in the wintertime so I've been frantically snapping them up in an effort to set a little aside for those long, cheerless winter months when the only green thing to be found are the faces of those eating root vegetables for the last 9 months.

And, just a reminder to be grateful for the little things, my 'mother-in-law's tongue' finally sprouted enough shoots to fill my trio of pots in the kitchen so I don't have to shell out 16 euros for two more.  I told you  green things don't come cheap here.

Only took me 2 years to complete this little DIY project.

Going...Going...Gone

Titusville newsstand

We got up early, ate our breakfast with shaky excited hands, smiled at the fellow diners with JFK t-shirts celebrating 50 years of space exploration, and headed out into the steadily growing stream of traffic.  By the time we got to Titusville, the town with a population one third of our weensy Finnish city, it was swarming with the shuttle faithful.  Nervous spectators, like ourselves, picked the first available parking spots and hiked the couple of miles further into town.  The brave pressed on, hoping to find that one better vantage point.

Where exactly was the launchpad?  Our neighbors pointed out the two towers, barely visible through the haze, 12 miles away across the shimmering water.  We staked our claim in front of a half-empty bank parking lot with our buggy, blanket, and camping chair.  And then we waited, for three and a half hours in impossibly high humidity.  One of our neighbors used to work at the base.  There was nothing in the town in those days, according to his wife, no Lowe's or Home Depot, no mall to speak of.  She wondered about the town's future, some of the store fronts were already empty.

Spectators continued to flow in, by car, on foot, on bicycle, by rickshaw.  Parents pulled bob-haired, pacifier-sucking toddlers in little red wagons.  Older gentlemen with binoculars shuffled slowly and determinedly toward the shore, eyes gazing upward, already anticipating the trajectory.  Mothers with infants sought out shade wherever they could find it.

Forty-five minutes to go.  With street parking at a premium, drivers started leaving their cars on the grass in the middle of the divided highway.  In the spirit of the moment, police officers armed to the teeth in flack jackets and automatic rifles turned a blind eye.

More and more frenzied drivers appeared, desperately looking for a place to stop.  Thirty minutes left, and tv-watching sisters called to say that everything still looked good for the launch. Nine minutes left, or was it fourteen?  People scurried toward the shore.  Others started to chant the countdown.  My heart was fluttering in my throat.  Someone nearby said there was a hold at 31 seconds.  Phones rang again to explain the delay.  How long was the hold?  No one knew.

Suddenly, voices raised the countdown again.  A cloud billowed from the right side.  Whistles and cheers started their crescendo.  A spark and then the tower was split.  A dark cone shape rose, powered by a plume of blinding flame and smoke visible against the hazy sky.  The crowd was in full, 'WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!' as the craft rocketed upward, revealing the mass and power that distance and perspective had dwarfed...

Ironically, the day the Challenger broke into pieces was the day my interest in all things space-related was piqued and like a lot of kids growing up in the '80s, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut.  It was a dream that would remain with me for several years, until it became clear that I'd probably be better at writing about space shuttles than riding in them.

So as I watched Atlantis make her final voyage that day, soaring heavenward with confidence and grace, I cried, for dreams deferred, for the chance, in a minute way, to be part of this massive undertaking wrought by human hands, for the endeavoring spirit in all of us that drew almost a million people to witness this event together, for the actual lives on board the shuttle being carried away from the comforts of home, and for the uncertain future of the space program.

I watched Atlantis go until she was suddenly swallowed up by the clouds, like a curtain falling on the last act of a play.

Happy Birthday, America!

Happy Independence Day, everyone!  Just a post to celebrate the freedoms we enjoy in this great country of ours and the people who fought to give them to us.

 

And please ignore the irony that as I'm posting in order to celebrate this day of freedom, I'm actually using a photo of caged bald eagles.

Of Arms and the Manatees I Sing

'Navel gazing' seems to be a term that gets thrown around a lot in the blog world but, for lack of a better phrase, or because it just seems to suit, that's how this day started out.  One of those real downward death spirals of over-self-analysis.

And then I got a few of those confirmation messages that tells me someone out there is listening:

A song on the radio:

I’m not gonna lay around and whine and moan
’cause somebody done, done me wrong
Don’t think for a minute that I’m gonna sit around
And sing some old sad song
I believe it’s half full, not a half empty glass
Every day I wake up knowing it could be my last

 A sign on a church billboard:  Battle Within

A road sign:  Follow Your Dreams Blvd. (I'm not even kidding)

And then we went to a Manatee wildlife park and there's no way you can be moody watching those cute-as-a-button giant coffee beans with eyes floating around.

 

That one at the top looks like a mushroom from here.

They look and move like really sweet lumps of concrete.

And then we added a little sand from the Gulf coast to the sand from the Atlantic coast and the growing pile of Sun Chip crumbs, pizza crust bits, Cadbury chocolate corners, and crushed Cheez-its in the back of the car.  The water was warmer and more lake-like than I had imagined but gave us our beach-y fix for the weekend anyway.

Some little fish were nibbling my toes, but you can't really see them here, 
possibly because the whiteness of my leg is piercing your retinas.

Devil's Millhopper, It's Not a Kind of Beer

So today we went to visit a sinkhole.  No, really, stay with me.  Devil's Millhopper is a 120-foot-deep depression in the earth caused by ground water erosion of the underlying limestone, creating a miniature, year-round rainforest despite the drier conditions above ground.  Thread-like waterfalls that trickle down the steep sides of the sink create a lush environment which houses plant and animal species otherwise unknown in northern Florida.

Its name's connection to the underworld is two-fold.  European settlers thought the shape resembled a hopper in a mill, the funnel part that grain fed into.  Fossilized animal remains, including shark's teeth, found in the bottom of the hole, led them to believe that they had been funneled down to the devil's stomach, hence Devil's Millhopper.   A Native American legend also related that a beautiful princess caught the eye of the devil, who couldn't resist her physical charms and carried her off for himself.  When the warriors from her tribe realized what had happened, they chased after the devil, who caused a giant hole to swallow them up.  When the warriors tried to climb out after him, he turned them all to stones, and the tears of the warriors for their lost princess can still be seen running down the sides of the hole to this day.

Sitting at the bottom of this impressive natural formation is a bit like being in an upside-down terrarium chapel, with light softly filtering down through the dense forest canopy and the chiming of little streams in a full circle around your head.

Serenity now.

COPE-enhagen, Part the Third

 I felt like the queen of the castle that day.

Inside the dimly lit cellar we were greeted by a neutral-faced security guard brandishing a walk-talkie, seemingly ready to pounce on any slight infringement of the treasury room rules.  A big sign with a laughing profile and a red slash mark through it made it clear that no noise would be tolerated within this inner sanctum.  The guard took one look at the baby and I could feel sweat beads forming as she warned, 'You should be careful because any high pitched noise will set off the alarms....'  And then her eyes got all gooey and her mouth broke out into a huge grin and she stooped down to address the baby at eye level in a sing song baby voice, 'It often happens to groups of Italian women in this room.'  Sorry Italians, but I was too relieved to point out the overt stereotyping.

Obligatory mermaid pose.  Yeah, I'm not sure what I'm doing either.

We made it through the castle and then took the obligatory trip to see Den Lille Havrefrue (see, I even had time to pick up some Danish!) and catch a little bit of dinner at the famous Cafe Norden where we sat for hours munching on their huge servings of food with nary an eyebrow raised at our unabashed occupation of the table in an otherwise busy and full establishment. One man in the combined men's/women's bathroom handwashing station (I know, how Scandinavian), where I had gone for a diaper change, looked at the baby as he dried off his hands and told me, 'Oh, this is the best time of life, enjoy it!'

So if you're a parent with a young child looking for somewhere far and exotic to go to but dreading the thought of hauling your little screamer out into public, especially a FOREIGN public, go, run!, to Copenhagen, they WANT your children there. From the coffee shop owner who helped me lug the buggy down the steep steps that seem to be in front of every little below-street-level shop in the city, who told me that in Copenhagen the philosophy is that you just take your children with you everywhere, to the canal boat tour guide who told me to leave our buggy on the dock while we took the tour because no one would bother it (they didn't), to the thousands and thousands of bicycles I saw with baby carriers in the front or back or both and those crazy front compartment rickshaw things full of kids being bicycle-pooled by their parents, Copenhagen just screamed kid-friendly.


And if you're looking for another nice little cafe for lunch, check out Bliss which offers really fresh local dishes at reasonable prices and has really nice wait staff who 'ninja-ed' (his words) our hot elderflower drinks with cute napkin bibs.

Drinks well and truly ninja-ed.